Mary Gallagher-Stout: Hi! I am Mary Gallagher-Stout and today we are going to be creating a traditional Mexican Piata. Through this demonstration, I will be showing you how to make your own paste, how to prepare you mold and filled paper-mache on the mold, how to assemble your molds together and create a star. Then we are going to decorate, fill it and then it's party time.

The supplies that we'll need to make the piata are we are going to need a 2:1 ratio of flour to water to make the paste. Our molds will be a balloon and a water bottle top. We are going to need masking tape, newspaper, saran wrap, crepe paper, tissue paper, a hole puncture, and something to hang your piata with like filament or ribbon or yarn and we're also be using some mod podge, tacky glue to adhere the decorations on to the piata because it's tackier and it sets up quicker, so we can get everything off and running and have our piata ready to go.

Also I would like to mention that this is a very messy project so you should make sure that you lay down some newspapers so you can clean up in a jiff. Before we get started, I want to tell you a little about myself. I am a studio artist and decorative painter at the Lorton Art Workhouse Center in Lorton, Virginia. I have been painting and creating my whole life and filling piatas is sculpting in a sense and I really look forward to introducing you all to this really exciting medium and I came right to show you. So let's get started.