9350

Hawaiian Luau Sleepover -11yr- Hula Limbo

August 2004

Angie in Rosedale, BC, Canada

Special Mention

For my daughter's 11th birthday, we did a Hawaiian Luau Sleepover theme.  

The  invitations were made on the computer, to look like post cards, using thick photo paper. The front had a hawaiian beach picture, and said 'Please join us!' in the corner, along with the name of the island (we looked up Hawaiian names on-line and put together as best we could what the name of our town would be as the island) The back of the card was made to look exactly like a post card, with a hand written invite to the island to spend the night at the Royal \*name of child\*(your childs name in Hawaiian)Hotel. It goes on to say to contact the hotel manager (mom) for reservations and accomodation information. Hotel check in time, and check out time. We even made a stamp on the computer to put in the corner of each postcard of a little hawaiian flower. The girls were told when they called to make their 'reservations' to bring any hawaiian type clothes they might have, and bathing suits along with their sleeping bags etc. etc.  

When each guest arrived, they came up the walk that was lined with tiki torches. They were greated Hawaiian style, and given a lei to wear, (even our dog was wearing one) and a coconut bra (many giggles to these) They were made from those old wood bowls that used to be so popular in the 70's. They came from the 2nd hand store. They were then 'shown to their room'. They were given a name badge with their name in Hawaiian. (which ties into the party game of not using the real names) (a week before the party, all the lei's etc. were put into a large bag, and the entire thing was sparyed with a coconut smelling car air freshner, and sealed shut)  The main of the party was downstairs (piece of mind for mom & dad) The stairwell to downstairs had a poster with a Tiki god on it stating this way to the Tiki Lounge. There were poster board cut outs of leaves taped to the walls the whole way down. 

We went ALL OUT with the decorations downstairs. I made palm trees using the tubes from the inside of carpet rolls(free if you ask) and I took strips of burlap and hot glue gunned it around the tube. Then I used poster board to make the leaves. Brown balloons for coconuts. I got cheap grass beach mats from the dollar store to put up all along the walls to make a grass hut feel. I made a bunch of Tiki god posters to put up. We cut out green palm leaves from poster board and taped them to the walls to add more tropical feel. We made 2 CD's of beach party/ hawaiian music to play.

We made a limbo set from scratch, using 2 old fence posts we found out back, and some bamboo garden stakes. We made sturdy bases for the limbo 'fence posts' and decorated with more burlap and some hawaiian flowers. The bamboo was cut into little 3 inch pieces and my husband drilled small holes all up the posts so I could glue gun the pegs in. The kids REALLY liked it.

We had a 'buffet table' set up downstairs with real coconuts and pineapples decorating it, and using the grass mats again, as table clothes with garland around the edges made from lei's that had been cut and then glue gunned to the mats. The air was filled with the smell of coconuts and bananas. (votives and wax warmers were going ALL day before the kids got there, the entire house actaully wreaked of it!)  Dinner was Hawaiian Pizza (easy) and I got plastic coconuts from the dollar store that we used to make virgin pina colladas for the girls complete with little fun straws and umbrellas.  

At one point we gathered all the girls up and told them we had another game to play. Each girl was given an envelope. There were 2 different sayings inside the envelops, given out randomly, which nicely rhymed something about the blue tiki, or orange tiki choosing them to be on their team, and to go to that tiki for further instruction. This way no one got to pick who was on what team. On the far end of the room, there were to BIG posters of Tiki Gods - one orange and one blue. There was an envelope on each poster starting both teams off on their own separate Tiki Treasure Hunts. Just before they all ran off to do their hunts, we layed out the rules - simple stuff, like only open YOUR clues, stay in the yard, play fair. The two teams clues were kept separate by using 2 different coloured papers. It was complicated to put together, and took me and girlfriend much of a day to figure out, but it went over SO well, and the girls talked about it all night. Most of the game was played outside, but the prizes at the end were inside, downstairs in their Tiki Lounge.

While they had been outside we turned the lites down and turned on the portable blacklights I use at Halloween each year. The entire room was swathed in black light, and I had put little glowing frogs and butterflies all over everything in the room. The Tiki Treasure was those glow necklaces that you snap and then they glow for 5hrs or so, and most of the little prizes won during the games that evening had something to do with glowing. The girls came in from their hunt to a whole new looking room, and set up their sleeping bags, played with the glowing trinkets, had snacks and watched movies.   They had SO much fun, I had to break it up at 2a.m. because they were STILL giggling down there.  

In the morning we had pancakes, and then their rides came to get them. They each took home their lei and a real coconut, and a small 'goodie bag' made from a small brown bag filled with candy and folded over and stapled shut with a silk hawaiian flower taken from a lei for decoration.   For thank you cards, we used a picture of each girl with the birthday girl, taken at the time of present opening, with a great backdrop of the downstairs decorations.   Gonna be tough to top this one next year!  :)

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