Cinco de Mayo is a day for celebration for many and a fun excuse for another party with friends for others! Whatever your reason, you can bring some decoration and party favors to the party with these Cinco de Mayo mini-piñatas that you can cut, decorate and fill.
Materials and Supplies for the Cinco de Mayo Mini Piñatas
(This post contains affiliate links to one or more of the items I used in this project – which means, if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission. There is no added cost to you!)
- Design from my Resource Library
- One sheet of 12″ x 12″ card stock for each mini-piñata (medium weight) – The color of the card stock should sort-of match one of the colors of your tissue paper.
- Tissue paper – I bought a variety pack so I can use it for more projects in the future. Mostly you want bright colors. You will need 5 pieces that are 10″ x 2″ each. You might already have enough in your crafting supplies stash.
- Glue Pen – I like this glue pen because it puts out a small bead of glue for these types of projects. I use this to glue the tissue paper to the card stock.
- Tacky Glue – I prefer to use Aleen’s Tacky Glue for assembling my card stock projects
- 1/8″ Ribbon – You can use any color of ribbon. I chose to use a white ribbon. Again, you might already have this in your craft supplies. You will need a piece that is 16″ long for each mini-piñata.
- A craft machine, such as the Cricut, for cutting the box
- Scissors
- Optional: X-Acto knife or similar cutting tool for cutting the box pattern by hand or for cutting the tissue paper.
About the Design for the Cinco de Mayo Mini Piñata Party Favors
These boxes are very basic. The only time-consuming part is making the tissue-paper “fringe” but it is so fun you hardly notice. You can even do that part while sitting and listening to music, podcasts, TV, or just hanging with the fam!
Cutting by Hand
As with all my paper boxes, I try to design them so you can cut them by hand, without the need for a craft machine. The PDF in my Resource Library has the design for these boxes if you want to cut them by hand. The PDF is designed to print onto 8-1/2″ x 11″ card stock so they are a little smaller (8% smaller) than the cut files for craft machines.
Cutting with a Craft Machine
You can cut the mini piñata boxes on any craft machine. I provided both .SVG and .DXF files in my resource library. Mine are cut on my Cricut so I only have Cricut instructions. Upload the .SVG file to Cricut Design Space (or the appropriate file to the design application for your craft machine). If you do not have a scoring tool for your machine then you will need to hide the layer that contains the score lines and manually score those lines after you cut the boxes. In Cricut Design Space, to hide the layer, click the eye on that layer. If you have a scoring tool, remember to switch the scoring layer from cut to score. Select both layers, click Attach, then Make It.
Making the Tissue Paper Fringe Decoration
Piñatas are usually covered in brightly colored tissue paper “fringe.” From the variety pack of tissue paper that I bought, I picked the colors that I thought were similar to other Cinco de Mayo decorations I have seen.
From each color of tissue paper, cut a single piece that is 10″ x 2″.
Fold each piece of tissue paper in half lengthwise.
Stack all five of the folded tissue paper pieces so that the folded sides are all on the same side. Make cuts from the folded edge toward the open edge, stopping approximately 3/8″ from the unfolded edge. This will produce a loopy fringe.
Set these aside for now.
Prepare the Cinco de Mayo Mini Piñata Box
After you have cut the box from card stock, you should have something that looks just like this.
Fold along all the score lines toward the inside of your Cinco de Mayo box.
Turn the box over so that the folds are facing your work surface, so you can work on the outside of the box.
Adding the Loopy Tissue Paper Fringe
I laid out my colors in the order I want them on my box. In the materials section, I mentioned that the color of card stock should match one of the colors of the tissue paper. Whatever color that is, that will be the last color of tissue paper you will apply. So, in the picture above, I will add my colors, from the bottom toward the top in this order: red, yellow, blue, orange, green.
Start with the bottom color (red for my box) and open up the folded tissue paper so that the “peak” of the fold is facing up (toward you) so that it is like a mountain instead of a valley as you look at it.
Glue the top edge of this tissue paper strip one inch from the bottom of the box. If it helps, you can draw a light pencil line to help guide you (no one will ever see it).
Fold up the bottom edge of this layer of tissue paper to meet the top edge of the tissue paper and glue in place. Because of the direction of the fold, you will have loopy-fringe instead of crisp folded fringe.
The next four rows of tissue paper fringe should be placed equally distant. If you cut your boxes from 12″ x 12″ paper, the top edges of your tissue paper will be 5/16″ from each other.
Your fringe may look too flat while your box is on your work surface but, you will see that the loops stand out more when the box is wrapped around the base.
Repeat for the third row of tissue paper.
Before adding the fourth row of tissue paper, run the ribbon through the holes. Stick the ends of the ribbon from the inside to the outside of the box.
When you apply the fourth and fifth rows of tissue paper, move the ends of the ribbon so that they are above the top of the box and, do not apply glue to the half inch on either side of the holes in which you threaded the ribbon. You need to make sure the ribbon is free to move through the holes.
Assemble the Cinco de Mayo Party Favor Box
Now that all the loopy tissue paper fringe is on your Cinco de Mayo box, you can quickly assemble the box.
Apply some glue to the three tabs on one side of the wall section.
Wrap the wall section around and align the tabs to the base of the box. Hold in place for a few seconds while the glue take hold.
Add glue to the first three tabs (the ones closest to the base attachment) on the other side of the box and attach the tabs to the base.
After a minute or so, add glue to the final tab and the long vertical tab that will hold the walls of the box closed. Attach these tabs to the box and hold for a few seconds while the glue begins to set.
The assembly of the box is now complete.
Fill the Party Favor Box with Treats
This is the easy part! Fill your Cinco de Mayo Party Favor Box with whatever treats or gifts you choose.
The Ribbon Handle for the Cinco de Mayo Box
Bring the ends of the ribbon together and tie a knot. Gently pull so that the ribbon holds the lid closed.
Your Cinco de Mayo mini piñata party favor boxes can hang as decorations or easily carried home.
You can get the patterns to this and all my DIY and craft projects in my Resource Library by signing up for my weekly newsletter.
Select From All My DIY Boxes
I enjoy making little handmade boxes for gifts and treats. You can try some from this list of all the DIY boxes I have made:
- Square Paper Boxes
- Paper Treasure Chests
- Cupcake Boxes
- Heart Boxes (one of my most popular!)
- Shamrock Boxes
- Woven Paper Baskets
- Easter Bunny Boxes
- Kentucky Derby Party Favor Boxes
- Cinco de Mayo Mini Piñatas
I hope you have fun making more of these adorable gift boxes!
Remember to pin this to your favorite DIY and/or crafting board on Pinterest!
