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Luau Party - Message in a Bottle Invites

February 2006

Mikayla in Puyallup, Washington, USA

Special Mention

PARTY::: Beach-Hawaiian Luau My friend Katie and I are going to throw a party at her house. She asked me for some help. So of course I am a party planner in training I am helping her out. So we are having this party for no apparent reason except for a friend is moving away so we invited his friends that we know and our friends. 

INVITATIONS::: Message in a bottle Take plain waterbottles that are used everyday and remove the label. To remove the label you fill the water bottle with water then soak it in hot to warm water for a few minutes. Then remove the water bottle and peel away the label. Fill the water bottle (( after it is dry )) about 1/4 of the way full with sand. Then add a little bit of glitter and shake it up. Type out the invitations or hand make yours {include all party information} Make sure to include what type of clothing you should wear. We listed:: Hawaiian Attire. Then roll up the invitations tie with some rafia and put it in the bottle. You can send the invitations through the mail with a large label and the address or you can hand deliver.

DECORATIONS::: Think bold and bright colors For decorations we did a BUNCH of balloons. We split them into even half and half groups. Fill half of the balloons with HELIUM [you can do this at a party store] and tie the end with a piece of color cordinating ribbon that is curled. Then with the other half fill them with your BREATH. Tie them. Scatter the helium balloons and the regular balloons all over the party area. The helium balloons are to be indoors for the scattering. They will fly away if you don't tie them down. Then we had 2 tables. We put the table on 2 cinder blocks. 1 at each end. That way you would be sitting down on the ground.

We had muslin [fabric] draped over the tables and the cinder blocks. We bought cheap inexpensive throw pillows and used those for a seat. We had a pineapple hollowed out with different types of fruit filled in it. {kiwi, strawberries, banana chunks, mangos, etc} But instead of filling it up all the way, we put a bit of styrofoam and ice in then put in the fruit. That way we saved up some fruit for actually eating. We used the pineapple for a centerpiece. We used some white plates that were square that we got from a department store. (( TARGET is good )) We put napkins out on the each plate with a name card that was just a piece of card stock folded in half with the guest name on it and it served as a seating card. We had all this indoors so that nothing would get dirty with the outdoors activities.

Also in Katie's house there is a den. She doesn't have anything in it so we decided we could use it as a changing area. It was pretty big so we thought we could take a long piece of muslin ( fabric ) and split the room in half by putting the fabric from the ceiling to the floor. She has french glass doors so we used some muslin again and put the fabric over them so you could change in peace. We called that the Locker Room. We hung a sign over the entry way of the den. We will order the inflatable palm trees and put them indoors and outdoors for a good luau look. We had a nice fishnet and we hung that from the ceiling and filled it with rubber fishies and mini beachballs. Katie has a basement so we decided to buy a bead doorhanger. The doorhanger you can get at Coach House. They hang from doors but we wanted to put it over the basement doorway. The hanger was made out of beads and there was a sunset pattern on it. It worked with our theme well. Outdoors, we had a few signs. They read::: "Lifeguard NOT on duty", "Games and Activities", and "Music Station".

GAMES AND ACTIVITIES::: Go wild!  We had a bunch of games planned. Here are some of the games we'll do::: \*pin the coconut on the plam tree-- just like pin the tail on the donkey only you use a palm tree. [I made mine out of butcher paper then laminated it. Same with the coconut that way you could put on tape and be able to remove the coconut to play again] \*we rented a slide that was HUGE. It was a inflatable slide with a pool that was attached. It had a double slide and throught the middle you would walk all the way up to the top and slide down the slide the slip straight into the pool. It will be awesome. \*spit it out-- there are 2 teams each person goes one at a time and fills their mouth with water. Then the opposing team tries to make them SPIT IT OUT. Switch your players around. \*hula contest-- have a hula contest. Whoever can hula the best gets a small prize.

FOOD::: keep it with your theme For ~appetizers~ pineapple chunks starwberries pieces mango pieces banana chunks  all put on separate white square dishes.  Then for another appetizer~ goldfish crackers More appetizers~~ veggies chips and dip For ~drinks~ we had a fruit punch and a couple other pops we got cheap inexpensive wine glasses from TARGET then we had the guests get their own drink and paper umbrella and a straw. WE HAD THOSE SET UP ON ANOTHER TABLE WITH A SIMPLE PIECE OF MUSLIN [FABRIC] AND PUT A TENT COVER OVER THE TOP OF IT WITH A SIGN THAT WAS LAMINATED AND CALLED IT THE "SNACK SHACK"  We also had pizza. We will have them delivered and then put them on a different plate. Then we will put them in the SNACK SHACK.

MUSIC STATION::: I have an iPod so we took the speakers from the computer then used a small table to have the iPod and speakers sit on. The speakers go pretty loud so that works just as well as a stereo. We had it on the deck and then when we wanted to eat we will pull out the plug and plug them into a plug in the basement.    I have a feeling that this will be usefull to anybody. You can have it a birthday party too. Happy Partying!

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