Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Bee piñata

The bumble bee was a big part of the decoration for July's party, and was relatively easy to construct.
I made a base out of crumpled up packing paper (I'd just gotten a box of shoes so that was convenient) and then wrapped it in strips of yellow tissue paper to form a base. Then I cut up a bunch of white, yellow and black fringe.

I started with a small circle of white fringe at the bottom, or butt of the bee, and worked in circles gluing on fringe as I went, switching to yellow after a few rows.




When the entire body was covered in fringe, I made legs and antenna out of black pipe cleaners, doubled up and twisted together. I tried to make little feet at the bottom of them but figured I could bend them into more leg like positions once the bee was all put together. I punched holes in the bee with an awl and threaded the legs in with a dab of hot clue so they would stick. Same for the antenna.

And then I cut some vaguely wing shaped pieces out of drafting tracing paper and and sewed the layers together, then glued them up under the stripe of black fringe. I tried out some kind of 'eyes' but thought they just looked too cartoon-esc so I scrapped that idea. I used a big upholstery needle to go through the body sideways with fishing line so that I could hang him from an angle. I did some fluffing of the fringe and straightening of the legs once it was on the wall, I think this took about two hours to construct. 
It is not a real pinata, in the sense that it isn't hollow and full of candy, but as a three dimensional decorative object I think it adds a nice oomf to the honeycomb wall. And now of course it's languishing on top of my bookshelf until I come up with another venue for it. 

No comments:

Post a Comment