Story time!
Once upon a time (5 years ago) we found a discarded rocking horse on the side of the road. It was scrubby, but solid wood and solid construction, so we picked it up for our future children.
Fast forward to today and squirrelly babe is old enough to ride it, but I couldn’t just leave it as a plain old rocking horse now could I? No. Enter his upcoming taco themed birthday party.

Yep, I went full on fiesta on this bad boy and turned him into a pinata rocking horse for his first birthday bash! Because why the heck not!? All it took was a butt load of felt and a few terrible Netflix shows (do not watch The Queen of Versailles….or maybe do. It’s entertaining in the worst possible ways) to transform this guy.

The plain wooden look is great and all. I mean it’s a classic! But if I have the opportunity to slap a bunch of colour onto something imma gonna do it. I think he looks much peppier as a pinata don’t you?

But the beauty of it is that it isn’t permanent, or at least it doesn’t have to be. I used heavy duty double sided tape to adhere the felt. When I say heavy duty, I mean the stuff that glaziers use to adhere metal trim onto mirrors. YEAH. I don’t mess around with double sided tape folks! It’s seriously the only stuff I use for crafting. DO yourself a favour and get some. Seriously guys. And no that isn’t an affiliated link.
But as heavy duty as it is, if I want to I can remove the felt and then peel off the tape leaving very little residue. But thankfully it’s strong enough to hold up to a lot, so my rocking horse is going to stay as a pinata for a long while.
I mean look at that kid, he’s totally loving it! Okay I realize he looks pretty serious in that photo, but his face BEAMED when he first saw it, and every time he’s in the same room he bee lines for the thing. All that extra felt is nice too for bum cushion. Who doesn’t want some of that?

So how can you transform your old rocking horse into a rocking pinata? Easy peasy. Just make sure you have some time on your hands.

Materials

• Felt, approximately 3-4 sheets (depends on size of horse) in following colours: pink, blue, purple, orange, yellow, and 4-5 sheets of black
• Double sided tape
• Scissors
• Card stock paper, 1 sheet each in black, white, and brown

Steps

1 Cut the felt sheets into quarters length wise, then cut half inch fringe all the way across, leaving approximately 2-3cm uncut along the top.
2 Place a strip of double sided tape across the top.
3 To assemble, you’ll be adhering rows of fringe, always starting from the bottom and working your way up. Start with black at the bottom, placing strips from one end all the way to the other, making sure to slightly overlap when adding a new piece. Trim as necessary before moving up to the next row. Place the next row approximately 1 inch above the previous row. Keep repeating, changing colours as needed. I used a photo of the classic pinata as a colour guide.
Note: There are parts that will have curves or be a little tricky. Just keep the lines as straight as possible. If you goof up it’s totally okay as you can just peel off the tape and try again.
4 To make the tail, take several fringed strips and tape them together, then adhere it to the pinata’s backside.

5 To make the eyes, cut circles in the following colours from largest to smallest: black, white, brown, black. Also cut a piece (kind of like a large wedge of pie) out of white paper. Use double sided tape to attach the pieces to each other, then onto the pinata. To get an idea of size and shapes, you can use the photo above as a reference guide

And that’s that! Like I said, this project is easy, but will take you anywhere between 2-4 hours. So park yourself in front of your favourite binge watching television and tuck in for some TV time crafting!

If you’re looking for some other fiesta style DIY’s, don’t forget the cactus props! Also, today is the VERY LAST day to enter the Squirrelly Minds 5th Blogaversary giveaway! Definitely be sure to head over and enter to win 5 amazing prizes! Go go go!

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