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Piranha Plant Tutorial

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I’ve been getting several requests recently for more information on the piranha plants that I made last year for my husbands Mario themed birthday party. Here they are again in case you don’t remember what I am talking about.



I didn’t take detailed pictures while I was making them because it was all pretty much a big experiment. So instead, I will tell you what I did and try to post a few new pictures.

I bought a cheap playground ball from Walmart for a $1 and cut out a wedge shape for the mouth. Then I got some cheap melamine red bowls from the Dollar Store and drilled a hole through them and screwed them into the dowel “stems.” I think the dowel was somewhere between 1.5 and 2″ in diameter.

This bowl in the front of this picture looks a lot like the one I used. The picture is from Target, so you can look there if you don’t see any at Dollar Tree.

The bowl held the candies and gave the ball shape, since it gets all floppy once it is deflated. It was tricky getting the ball to stay attached to the rim of the bowl. I think I used a combo of double sided tape and hot glue. Some super glue or E6000 might do the trick too.

I decorated the ball with white felt for the spots and mouth. I bought the green buckets from Dollar Tree and filled them with pinto beans to weigh it down and keep the dowel in place.

For the leaves, I just cut them out of felt and sewed some lines to make them look a little more leafy. I glued gardening wire to the underside of the leaves so I could give them shape. I think I just hot glued the leaves on to the dowel as well. I had a the leaves get droopy a few times, so you might need to experiment with that a little.

Click on this picture and you can see the lines I stitched onto the leaves a little bit.

Someone had the idea to make the red “head” out of paper-mache. I actually thing that is a really great idea. I have never done paper-mache myself but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Just make sure you give yourself plenty of drying time.

This whole thing started out with a crazy idea and I just kept working at it until it worked. I would love to see anyone that decides to make their own. Feel free to ask me questions if something is confusing or you need more info. I would love to help!

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Comments

  1. I love this idea!! I will definitely be trying to make these! I am throwing a Mario party for my son and nephew and need to do it big!! Thanks for sharing! I might try to make a pinata style head, see if it works!! AMAZING! Thanks again!

    Reply

  8. I used one of those cheap, but big, Walmart rubber balls as the base of the pinata for my daughter’s Angry Bird party. It could easily have been sectioned off for that missing wedge (mouth) and then painted. I’d say a good 3 layers would hold up well. (I only had time for 2 and it needed a 3rd) Thanks for sharing I love the idea!
    -Amy W.

    Reply

  9. first i pinned this on pinterest. second im planning on potentially using this for my wedding. we’re trying to incorporate Mario Bros stuff into our planning but not have an overall theme of it. thank you so much for posting this

    Reply

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