Luau Birthday Party Theme

Use brightly colored Hawaiian fabric as tablecloths and to throw over chairs.

Place dried grass around the sides of the tables. Convert a table or bar to a tiki bar by making it into a grass hut.
Serve fun fruit smoothies in pineapple or coconut glasses.

For an inside party fill lots of blue balloons with helium and let them float on the ceiling. Tie white curling ribbon
below the balloons and on a few attach fish and sea creatures. (Makes it look like you are under the water).

Sprinkle sand and shells on the tables.

Make tiki masks and place them on the walls. Make a large one for the front door.

Pretty flowers, pineapples, and parrots are good decorations.

Make palm trees from large sheets of colored paper, or buy the blow up palm trees.

Use coconuts and pineapples as weights for helium balloon bunches.

Decorate the mailbox like a palm tree or a big pineapple to let guests know where the party is.

Fun Ideas
Give everyone a Hawaiian name when they arrive at the party (or send it in the invitation to get them excited about the party) - write their name on a name tag and only use those throughout the party.
http://www.hawaiianring.com/translate.php

Give everyone lei’s when they enter the party (or give them as prizes throughout the evening).

Give the girls grass skirts to wear. You can buy them or make your own by cutting the bottom off of drawstring trash bags and then cutting long strips in the “skirt”.

Games
Buried Treasure Hunt
Fill a kiddie pool with sand and then bury small treasures such as pretty rocks, sea shells, fake jewels and large
plastic coins. Give the party guests sand shovels and sifters to find the buried treasure in their “beach”. Let them
take the treasure home as a party favor.

Beach Ball Icebreaker
Blow up a beach ball and write questions all over the ball - fill up as much space as you can with as many questions as you can think of.
Have guests sit in a circle and throw the ball to each other. When someone catches the ball they have to answer the question that their right thumb is touching.
Sample questions: What is your middle name? Scuba dive or surf board? If you were a marine animal what would you be? What sand sculpture would you like to make? Have you ever been to the beach? Ever been stung by a jellyfish? If you had a million dollars what would you buy first? What would you change your name to? Chocolate or vanilla? Favorite color?

Limbo
Use a decorated broomstick handle or pole for guests to limbo under. Have a contest and give away lei’s or small
prizes to the winner.

Mystery Fishing Game
Kids fish for prizes in this fun game!　 For the "water" use a large appliance box, hang a sheet across a doorway, or cover a table so that the "fish" (and the person in the water) are hidden from view. Tie a string to a stick and attach a clothespin on the end of the string.　 Birthday party guests take turns "casting" the line into the "water". The person in the "water" puts small gifts, favors or candy on the clothespin and then tugs the string to signal that there is a "fish" on the line.　 Then kids pull up the line and retrieve their prize.　 This is a simple but fantastic birthday party game that kids adore!　 Have lots of prizes because kids will　want to do this birthday party game again and again.　

Activities
Parrot Piñata

Or a pineapple or palm tree … anything tropic would work.

Hot glue colorful flowers on barrettes.

For older children give them each a beach ball and let them blow it up and put their name on it. Give them
permanent markers to sign each others beach ball.

Make Lei’s - paint coffee filters with water colors and let dry. Cut circles about 1 ½ inches wide from the coffee
filters. String the coffee filter flowers on thread with noodles or beads as spacers.

Make colorful necklaces with sea shells.

Decorate a picture frame with small sea shells and jewels.

Sand art projects - either bottles or pictures.

Food
Carve a watermelon into a pretty bowl and fill with fresh fruit.

Hollow out coconuts by drilling two holes in each one. Fill them with tropical juices using a funnel. Use one hole
for the straw one for an small umbrella. Make these ahead and store in the refrigerator.

Macaroni and cheese using the Shells pasta - serve in large conch shells.

Goldfish crackers in sand pails - use sand shovels as serving spoons.

Fill small clear plastic cups with blue Jello - add Swedish fish candies.

Fill small clear plastic cups with vanilla pudding. Sprinkle crushed graham crackers on top for “sand”. Place teddy grahams on top and finish with a small cocktail umbrella.

Fruit kabobs - skewer pieces of cut up strawberries, pineapples and bananas on pretzels.

Octopus Hot Dogs - cut hotdogs long ways into 8 strips … being sure to leave 1” of one end of the hot dog uncut.
Place in the microwave to heat - the 8 “legs” will curl up while cooking and will look like an octopus.

Party Favors
Lei’s, grass skirts or coconut plastic drinking cups

Small individually wrapped packages of goldfish crackers

Swedish fish candies

Blow up beach balls

Sunglasses

Flip flops

Sand art

Tropical flavored Skittles, Starbursts or Runts