liberty bells, liberty limpets

I am no good at paper mache.

E and I have been slowly constructing a liberty bell pinata for our party tonight. E takes off for Philadephia a week from Sunday - this is her bon voyage fiesta. . . The pinata is not so bell-esque. I have taken to calling it the Liberty Limpet. E has taken the lead in construction: building the frame, doing most of the layers, using shellac & modge podge to give the beast some sort of hardness. I've helped with a few of the paper mache layers. It has about 6 layers of gluesodden newspaper on it now. . . there's maybe time for one more to dry before this evening. It's still not super sturdy. We will not be bashing it with a baseball bat, but with a broom handle. The smaller stick seems appropriate for our not-so-strong creation.

And the prizes are amazing. I have been searching the $0.50 sections of toy stores & have found some amazing things: pencil sharpeners that look like noses - you stick the pencil up a nostril, skeleton army men with attached parachutes, tiny plastic half-woman half-scorpions, boucy balls that look like eye balls, spongy capsules that become farm animals when put in water, those plastic fortune telling fish that the toy store in my hometown used to tape to the birthday presents they wrapped for free. I am going to be diving into the grass as soon as the pinata breaks to get my hands on all of these goodies. . .

I just hope it isn't raining tonight. . .