Thank you to Oriental Trading Company for providing many of the supplies for our party!  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

A Hawaiian Party

Ariel has been wanting a Hawaiian party since her birthday last year.  I had some trouble pulling it together last year, though, so it got put off.  When Oriental Trading Company asked if any of their bloggers were looking to do a luau-themed party this year, it was a perfect opportunity!  We got to throw the party we wanted, and they provided some of the supplies.  I’ll give you a bit of an overview here, but if you want all the details, keep your eyes open for the launch of my sister’s and my site, Parties for Real, in the next month or two.  (I’ll share all the details, like the cake recipe, how are craft projects are made, etc., over there.)

Decorations

Of course, you have to start any good party with the decorations, because those set the stage for everything else.  The single most notable decoration we used was a “grass” table skirt.  I actually meant to buy two and use the second to add fringe to the front of the “playhouse” that’s part of our wooden swingset, but I goofed and forgot, so…there’s an idea you can use if you’re a bit less boneheaded than I am.

We set our table out in our back yard off to the side of the swingset – decorated with the table skirt, of course – and flanked it with tiki torches.  (I planned to light them, but we had some kids who were being pretty careless around them, so I decided it was safer to leave them unlit!) I ended up buying a mini surfboard from Oriental Trading, too, when it went on clearance.  My flowers from The Bouqs came the day before the party, and Ariel was quite taken with the idea that they were grown on a volcano, so she asked that we put those out as part of the décor, as well.

Favors

For favors, we selected a few items that were key to the theme and “dressed them up” a little with a small amount of candy.  We purchased paper fans and flower hair clips.  I also bought some tiny plastic bags from Oriental Trading.  (I accidentally got wedding-themed ones.  They had double hearts all over them.  I couldn’t tell in the picture that they weren’t just plain.  Oops.  You couldn’t really tell, though, once we had the candy in them.)  Then I bought a big bag of Starbursts.  I put three Starbursts in each tiny baggie and clipped it to a fan (opened up) with a floral hair clip.

These ended up being very colorful and contributing to the décor, as well.  That’s what you see at the very top of this post, as well as pictured here.

Food

Of course we didn’t get food from Oriental Trading Company!  We did buy some brightly-colored napkins from them, but we used plates we had left over from another daughter’s party.  I served ham rolls and fruit kebabs, and we had pineapple upside-down cake and orange sherbet when it was time for cake and ice cream.

The fruit kebabs were served on floral picks that came in a box of 144 from Oriental Trading Company.  (We had a lot left over!)

This party was all girls, and they’re all pretty creative.  So we found the vacated skewers being cleaned off and used as hair sticks!

Activities

Although you probably can’t really tell it from the pictures, because my younger daughters were also here participating, this was a party for mostly older girls.  (Ariel is turning 12.)  Consequently, I didn’t think they have a huge appreciation for the typical children’s party games. 🙂

Instead, we opted for a couple of craft projects that would enable them to create their own Hawaiian garb. First, we made paper leis.  I’d seen this project suggested for preschoolers, with sections of straws used to separate the flowers, but that looked like a preschool craft project!  A simple substitution of actual beads made a big difference, though.

I bought beads (initially from Oriental Trading, but it turns out I hadn’t bought enough, so I picked up some more from Amazon), a scrapbooking paper pack from the local craft store, and a hibiscus punch.  We strung hibiscus punchouts on string with beads in between as spacers, and these look surprisingly nice.

The kids opted not to string their flowers all the way (or most of the way) around the necklace like you’d expect with a traditional lei, but you can.  (I did, when I was practicing to make sure the project would work.) The other project was sarongs.  We didn’t have a chance to finish these, so that’s something to keep in mind.  We used pieces cut from thrifted sheets into sarong-appropriate sizes.  (I washed the sheets with bleach first, just in case that creeps anyone out.)  Then we worked on mock batiks with gel glue  I had an amazingly difficult time locating blue gel glue.  I’m not sure if they’ve discontinued it or what, but practically all I could find was clear.  I figured that would make it hard for the girls to see where they’d drawn, so I kept looking for blue, and finally found a few bottles at Hobby Lobby.  (Nobody else around here seemed to have it.)

The idea is you draw on the fabric with the glue, then let the glue dry.  Then you dye the fabric.  When you then launder the fabric for the first time, the glue washes out, leaving white places behind.  (Traditional batik uses hot wax to mask sections against the dye, but I’m not doing hot wax with kids who aren’t my own!)  I knew it would take a while, so the plan was to do the glue first thing when the girls arrived, then add the dye right before they left – knowing I would have to set the dye and get the sarongs to them later.  But the glue was not dry by the end – even after three hours in the July heat.  So be prepared for that!

They had a good time with it, though, I think – and their artwork is pretty great!

Odds & Ends

I forgot to put the invitations in this post (but they’ll be on Parties for Real, too).  I used some basic, blank red cards from OTC to create those.

One extra tip is this sunblock/bug repellent.  I don’t know that we needed the sunblock, but I brought it out because of the bug repellent.  I got this through No Kidding Coupons and hadn’t had a chance to really put it to the test yet, but a bunch of us used it during the party and I don’t think anyone got bitten, so it seems to have been effective.  So if that’s a concern with an outdoor party, it’s worth a try.