Aloha! Vintage Hawaiian Luau

Has it already been anoth­er year?! I can’t believe a year ago we were scram­bling to put card­board box­es togeth­er for my daugh­ter’s “No Toy Gets Left Behind” Toy Sto­ry-themed par­ty com­mem­o­rat­ing her fifth birth­day! This year was espe­cial­ly fun, as Anabelle was more excit­ed than she has been in years past and was con­vinced she was taller when she awoke on her actu­al birthday!

Grab your tiki torches and grass skirts for a Vintage Hawaiian Luau! Be inspired to throw a tropical party with fun ideas for decor, activities and favors!

When it came to decid­ing upon this year’s theme, we were inspired by the amaz­ing and unfor­get­table fam­i­ly trip we took to Hawaii last month that was gift­ed to us by my incred­i­bly gen­er­ous in-laws! My lit­tle hula girl had so much fun and fell in love with the islands and has already decid­ed to move there after she grad­u­ates from col­lege! For the luau, I focused on a vin­tage Hawai­ian feel rem­i­nis­cent of the clas­sic post­cards, which inspired my design for the invi­ta­tions, with dig­i­tal images from Clip Art Cor­ner, as well as the paper prod­ucts through­out the luau.

Guests were wel­comed to the luau with a bam­boo sign and a cart sim­i­lar to the ones found at the Inter­na­tion­al Mar­ket Place in Waiki­ki! We dressed up a lemon­ade stand I had pur­chased from Joann Fab­ric and Crafts a cou­ple years back with some hula skirts, offer­ing some lei neck­laces I made, as well as shell neck­laces and bead­ed bracelets for all the “Junior Boys” and “Hon­ey Girls”.

We re-pur­posed some wood­en signs from The Dol­lar Tree by spray-paint­ing them and dec­o­rat­ing them with some of the luau activ­i­ties and trop­i­cal flower stickers.

Because we antic­i­pat­ed a bit of a heat wave here in Vegas over the week­end, we set up a “Sun­screen Sta­tion” and made fans to keep guests cool and protected!

When search­ing for par­ty inspi­ra­tion on-line, I came upon these adorable grass hut umbrel­las on Parents.com that we just had to repli­cate and pair with some buck­ets of sand and straw mats for guests of all ages to relax and enjoy!

The decor on the tables includ­ed nat­ur­al table­cloths and run­ners, trop­i­cal fruits and framed vin­tage Hawai­ian post­cards. The plates and nap­kins includ­ed rich, vibrant col­ors and were topped with wood­en forks with “ALOHA” stamped on the han­dles. Guests drank Hawai­ian fruit punch, trop­i­cal juice and cold water out of both coconut and palm tree cups. The tables sat under­neath a big gaze­bo, embell­ished with col­or­ful tis­sue poms and brown paper lanterns, resem­bling coconuts.

The luau feast was pre­sent­ed on a table lined with a burlap table­cloth and a grass skirt and adorned with trop­i­cal and beach-inspired decor. Vin­tage lug­gage trunks pre­sent­ed a vari­ety of Hawai­ian chips, while red pig-shaped plates car­ried ham sand­wich­es to sym­bol­ize the tra­di­tion­al luau roast­ed pigs! The menu would­n’t be com­plete with­out some teriya­ki chick­en, trop­i­cal fruit sal­ad and ham and pineap­ple kebabs on palm tree picks. The food labels were made to look like lit­tle bam­boo signs, dis­played inside tiny met­al buck­ets filled with crushed gra­ham crack­ers and dec­o­rat­ed with wood­en surf­boards {book­marks!}.

When plan­ning this par­ty, the one thing Anabelle specif­i­cal­ly request­ed was a vol­cano cake with sparkler can­dles! When I saw a vol­cano cake on Dis­ney’s Spoon­ful, along with a recipe to make can­died lava, I thought it would be per­fect! I uti­lized the Wilton Clas­sic Won­der Mold to bake a red vel­vet cake and added choco­late frost­ing and the erupt­ing lava. But I just could­n’t have a par­ty with­out cup­cakes, which I orga­nized on three lev­els: vol­cano, sand and sea. Just below the vol­cano sat the choco­late cup­cakes with fon­dant plume­ria flow­ers, torch­es, palm leaves and coconuts. The next lay­er includ­ed vanil­la cup­cakes topped with crushed gra­ham crack­er sand and embell­ish­ments, such as vin­tage surf­boards, pineap­ples, wood “SURF” signs, ukule­les and flip flops {slip­pers} with drink umbrel­las. The final lev­el rep­re­sent­ed the ocean with light blue water frost­ing, sea tur­tles, trop­i­cal fish and coral, shells and sea life.

Also on the dessert table were gum­my can­dy fruit kebabs dis­played inside coconuts, Hawai­ian pineap­ple can­dies and caramel pop­corn in the most adorable tiki pop­corn box­es designed by the amaz­ing Pig­gy Bank Par­ties! The cute box­es brought added dimen­sion to the table and were easy for small guests to car­ry! If you are not famil­iar with them, you have to check out all the amaz­ing work they do, espe­cial­ly the cre­ative and orig­i­nal favor box­es! The sides of the table were anchored by some tiki torch­es hold­ing a ban­ner with Anabelle’s name and embell­ished with a grass skirt.

If you are famil­iar with the par­ties I throw for my daugh­ter, you know how much I love to have added enter­tain­ment for the chil­dren. This year, we were for­tu­nate to have Mayra from Las Vegas Hula come and teach the kids about hula danc­ing and tra­di­tion­al instru­ments! Because a lot of the chil­dren hap­pen to be boys, we includ­ed a Maori War­rior les­son, which also includ­ed trib­al chin tat­toos and head­bands and was the per­fect addi­tion to keep their interest!

Oth­er beach activ­i­ties to keep the kids busy and hav­ing fun includ­ed bub­ble guns {you can nev­er go wrong with bub­bles!}, hula hoops, pad­dle balls and blow-up dol­phins. And no luau is com­plete with­out a lim­bo contest!

It was so, so nice to see guests, young and old, relax­ing, eat­ing and play­ing under the umbrel­las and the gaze­bo and enjoy­ing a day at the “beach”! And since I come from a fash­ion back­ground, it was espe­cial­ly fun that every­one came dressed up in their luau garb!

We even wel­comed a spe­cial vis­i­tor to the luau who came to wish Anabelle a hap­py 6th birthday!

We just had to have some Hawai­ian Host choco­lates with macadamia nuts! And to com­bat the high tem­per­a­tures, freez­er pops were essen­tial ~ our ver­sion of Hawai­ian ice!

Anabelle’s vol­cano erupt­ed with her request­ed sparklers as we sang “Hap­py Birthday”!

My sweet and incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed friend, Jen­ny of Craft That Par­ty makes the most adorable peg dolls and she sur­prised us with this pre­cious lit­tle hula girl that just made Anabelle’s day! It was tru­ly such a gen­er­ous and thought­ful gift and an on-going memen­to of this cel­e­bra­tion that will be added to her cur­rent col­lec­tion of peg dolls from Jen­ny! Be sure to vis­it her Etsy store to see the cute­ness she cre­ates with this lit­tle wood­en dolls!

To say “Maha­lo” to her friends for com­ing and com­mem­o­rat­ing her birth­day, Anabelle’s favors includ­ed trop­i­cal fish loofahs, after sun gel, hand san­i­tiz­er, stick­ers and air fresh­en­ers as a reminder of their time on the island! And a spe­cial “Maha­lo” to our OHANA {fam­i­ly and dear friends} for all their incred­i­ble sup­port and help in plan­ning, exe­cut­ing and clean­ing up after such a won­der­ful cel­e­bra­tion! ALOHA!!! ♥

Merci Beaucoup!

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