Happy Birthday, Usagi!

It's that time of year again! That's right, it's June 30th, otherwise known as the birthday of not only Usagi, but Chibi-Usa! I wanted to do something to celebrate (perpetual loser that I am), so I came up with three ideas that you can copy at home to spread the Sailor Moon party love; Luna Lollipops, Crisis Heart Biscuits and a Luna-P Pinata.

The ideas here are pretty simple, really - they're just slightly different spins on already-existing ideas. So, I'll be linking you out to a lot of recipes this time instead of just copying and pasting them myself.

First, though, let's talk about that pinata! Home-made pinatas are really easy to make, and they're actually surprisingly fun (providing you don't mind getting your hands dirty).

You'll need:

Some balloons (check out how big your balloons will get while staying a sphere - get bigger balloons if you want a bigger pinata rather than over-inflating your balloon and having it be a weird shape)
Lots of newspaper
Some craft glue (you can also make a paste out of flour and water if you are comfortable)
Some paper and sticky tape
Some paint that's about the colour of Luna-P (a lavender-grey colour)
Something to hold it up at the end
Pink confetti or pink paper you can cut up to be confetti
A yellow bead or pom-pom to be the ball on its antennae
And some candy to put inside.



Of course you can always just pick whatever candy you like best, but if you want to go along with the theme, here are some ideas; Milky Ways (Sailor Moon, the universe, you get it), some White Rabbit candy (how perfect!), some "pink sugar hearts", and then just some filler lollies that look nice and cute. MAKE SURE that they're individually wrapped, though! You don't want your delicious yet vulnerable lolly falling in a pile of mud.

First step is to inflate the balloon as large as you want it while it's still (fairly) spherical. Then, make some cones out of paper, but fold the corners so that it's a semi-cone with one flat face - these will be the cat ears. (I'd try to explain how to make these semi-cones, but the easiest way is to just fiddle around with the paper until you get it right). Tape them to the balloon (if I were making this pinata again, I'd make the ears larger and put them closer together than in these photos).



Then, dilute the glue in some water until you have something like wallpaper paste. Rip the newspaper you have into strips/chunks, dip them into the paste until they're well coated, and apply them to your shape. Allow each layer to dry before you start putting the next one on (without any assistance, it can take a full day for the layers to dry, but we managed to make this one in a night using a heater to speed up the process). I used about four layers of newspaper on this one.
Make sure you leave a hole at the top to put the candy and cord in!



Ta-dah! Now, make sure that you've strengthened the area where you're going to thread the cord - you can do this with duct tape, or with a few extra coats of newspaper.
Making sure your paper machie has completely dried, gently pop the balloon - I preferred to cut near the knot and let the air out rather than burst it with a pin (you don't want to damage your precious Luna-P). With a pair of scissors or a knife, carefully make a hole through your reinforced area to thread your cord/string/rope/etc.



Then tie a knot so that it won't come out again.
Now you've got to start thinking about how much candy you'll put in it. Carefully consider how many layers of paper you have, how strong your rope is, and think of how much candy you think it could hold. The pinata isn't going to be the only source of sweets at a party, so don't feel you have to over-fill it! A few pieces of nicer candy would be better than lots.



I was a wuss, so that's all I thought I could put in mine.
Now, when Luna-P transforms, she explodes in a giant puff of pink smoke - so it would be cool to have the same effect when your pinata explodes, right? If you have some pink paper already, you can cut that up into little pieces to use as confetti, but you might find it easier/more affordable to buy confetti from the store - going out to buy pink paper just to cut it up might not be the most cost-effective choice. Put that in there too.
Cover up the hole on top of your pinata with tape, paper, etc. - whatever works for you. Then is the time to paint over it.



You might need a couple of coats to make sure none of the newsprint shows through. (Without a face, it just looks like a kitty Death Star...)
Now is time to put on the face! If you like, you could hand-draw it, but I've got some handy designs already made for you that you can print off and use instead. They're A4 size for convenient printing.
Here's the colour version, and the black and white for you to colour yourself.



Stick on the facial featuers with more paste, or a glue-stick.

Next, you want to make the cord look like a part of Luna-P - namely, the aerial! With a bead, this is easy as pie - just tie a knot in the cord where you want the bead to go, then thread it on. I foolishly bought yellow pom-poms instead (I don't know what I was thinking),but if you have a hot glue gun like we do, that's another option.



And then you're done! Your Luna-Pinata is all ready to go. Tie it up in a tree (for best results, tie it so that the yellow bead/pom-pom is as close to the tree as possible so it looks like she's floating), and then whack it to bits with something (I recommend a yellow umbrella).



Next are the Luna Lollipops. Now, good gracious, I don't actually recommend that you try these unless you've already made lollipops before. I made three batches, the first burning, the second crystallizing, and the third only making a few useable lollipops... that I managed to still mess up. But still! Like I said, if you're confident in your sucker-making abilities, this could be an interesting idea for you.

I'm not going to link you to the recipe I originally used, half because it wasn't very good and half because I can't find it again - so I'd suggest you use this one instead, which looks pretty much the same, only better.
You don't really need lollipop moulds (in fact this recipe wouldn't work if you had moulds) or a candy thermometer, though - just chill some flat baking pans in the fridge and drop the mixture on there (hoping like hell they make circles). To test that the temperature of your lollipops are accurate, drop some of the mixture into a small bowl of cold water. If the mixture remains gooey, it's not ready. If it immediately turns hard (try putting the spoon in the water and seeing if the candy will make a tapping sound), it's done! Work fast!

On top of the ingredients/procedure you've chosen for making lollipops, you'll need:

Some black food dye (if you can find it), and blue
Writing icing pens in white, yellow and pink
Jube candy that comes in dark colours like purple, black, etc.
Cellophane and yellow ribbon

BEFOREHAND: Grease your baking pans liberally and chill. Take your jubes and cut them so that they make triangle shapes - these will be the ears.



Now, somehow, miraculously, prepare the lollipop recipe accurately. Add in your food colouring until you get a colour that reminds you of Luna (if you do find black food colouring, the blue is necessary for when you hold it up to the light). After you have poured then on your work surface, quickly add the lollipop sticks, and place your ears face-down into the lollipops so that when you turn them over, they'll look like cat ears.
Don't make my mistake and think you'll have to put them very far into the lolly for them to stick - all this does is push the lollipop mixture up and out and completely ruins your shape. If you just press them into a little bit of the mixture, the same thing should happen, which should result in the effect you were originally going for (does that make any sense?).



Note how many I couldn't use because of that... (and also that one I messed up by putting on back-to-front, sigh).
Then, when they have completely cooled, take them off the tray and, using your icing writing pens, draw eyes and whiskers in white, a little mouth and some ear pinks with pink, and then the all-important crescent moons in yellow.



Why yes, these slightly creepy-looking things were the only nice ones I managed to make. Now let us never speak of them again.

Now, you'll probably want to protect these lollipops somehow, since they're pretty sticky, and you wouldn't be able to get them anywhere without them attracting ALL OF THE DUST in your street. So cut some cellophane into rectangles, gently wrap them around the lollipop heads so as not to disturb the icing, and then tie them off with a ribbon. What sort of ribbon, you ask...?



A yellow ribbon, of course! (Really, the idea of how perfect it would be for little Luna lollipops to have yellow ribbons tied around their "necks" is the only thing that made me persevere. Bask in their adorable appropriateness.)

There you have it! Your Luna Lollipops are finished, and I sincerely hope you ended up with more to show for it than I did.





And finally, you have the Crisis Heart Biscuits (which sounds... dangerous). These are basically the old Stained Glass Cookie trick with a Sailor Moon twist. I'm not really going to elaborate on the cooking process, since it should be pretty clear what you need to do. Just make sure that you have red (or magenta)-coloured hard candy, and that you put yellow food colouring into your dough mix.



You're probably going to need a set of heart-shaped cookie cutters in scaled sizes (these are easier to find than you might imagine). For the wings and the crowns, I cut the shapes out with a butter knife. For the moons, find something circular that fits snugly inside your smaller heart-shaped cutter, and then a smaller circular something that you can use to cut a smaller circle out and make a moon-shape. These don't have to be cookie cutters; hunt around until you find a jar/lid/bottle/etc. that fits your other cutters. For my moons, I used a lid from my vanilla essence bottle for the smaller circle, and I believe the top of a toothpick container for the larger one.

There is a specific order you should cut the shapes in, though; cut the large heart shape out first, and then, while it's still complete, cut out the wings and crown (then remove the excess dough). Push the wings and crown back onto the heart shape (smoothing the edges over with milk makes them stick better), and THEN cut out the smaller heart shapes (and then the moons).



When you've made the biscuit shapes, put your candy in a paper or plastic bag and whack it to bits. Really enjoy that. Then put the crushed-up pieces inside your cookie. This will also help to hold your biscuit together, so don't worry if your heart-shaped outline and your moon don't touch perfectly all the way around.



Then bake for six minutes, or until the biscuits look cooked and the candy is all melted.
I found that the first time taking them out of the oven, the candy had melted away to almost nothing, and was very thin in some places and had completely evaporated in others. So I just put more candy in and then popped them back in the oven. They worked perfectly!
DO NOT attempt to move these biscuits until you're sure they're completely cooled and hardened!! If you move them too quickly, the candy will still be gooey and your biscuit will break... and then you'll have to eat that miserable failure. Which is terrible, obviously.

I wouldn't recommend serving these biscuits to young children, only because the hard candy can be difficult for them to chew and bite, but anyone older would love them! (The recipe is delicious.)




And that's it! I hope you enjoyed the photos, and the recipes, and I hope you have a very merry June 30th! Merry Usagimas, everyone!

And while we're here, would you like to win some cool Sailor Moon prizes? Like a free fanart commission, some keychains, and an amulet from the real-life Hikawa Shrine in Akasaka? Then enter then June 30th Sailor Moon Giveaway! Anyone can win! Click here for more details!