If you are on the search for luau birthday party ideas, you have come to the right place. For my daughter’s ninth birthday, she requested a Hawaiian theme, and I was more than happy to accommodate. I’m one of those moms who really loves to express creativity and celebrate in this way. If this breathes life into your family too, you’ll enjoy some of the inspiration here that helped Hawaii come into our back yard. Some of my other favorite birthday party themes we have done include: ice cream, sunshine, spring and owl. Just click on my party tab to see all the parties I’ve done.
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While I have had fun creating things from scratch, sometimes I see the benefit of buying some ready-made party supplies. Have you seen the quote that says, “Why buy it for $7 when you can make it yourself for $92 of craft supplies?” This can be so true. I try to find the right balance. This party was more pre-made driven.
I purchased most of my items at Party City or on Amazon. I will try and link to items or like-items on Amazon if you want one-stop, online shopping convenience, but if you want the exact item, check out Party City when appropriate. My daughter was a huge part of making decisions about what she wanted the party to look like, and we did both in-store and online shopping together.
Luau Birthday Party Ideas – Food and Food Table
For the Hawaii and Luau themed backdrop, we chose the surfboard plastic backdrop
. What is absolutely crazy is as I’m writing this post now, it’s priced in the $80 range. I paid closer to $20, so I’m really confused. I see it is out of stock at Oriental Trading Company, so maybe that’s the answer. Hopefully, it will be back in stock and more reasonably priced soon.
To correspond with the theme, we picked out the cute Surf’s Up paper surfboards for all of the food labels. We made place holders out of these as well. I cannot find these on Amazon anymore, but I did find them here. To make the food labels and name holders I used 1″ white alphabet stickers
that I found at Michaels.
The table had a white tablecloth
and a grass table skirt
.
My daughter requested our favorite easy and tasty pulled pork sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls
. This is an easy meal to make for the masses. This recipe includes my favorite homemade slaw. The surfboard lollipops
you see were enjoyed by the kids and helped to add to the overall look and feel of the party.
We made some colorful and healthy fruit kebabs that we served by using the end of a watermelon. I used a 2″ flower cookie cutter
to cute up the watermelon and the rest of the fruit (pineapple, strawberry, and blueberries) were added to the bamboo skewers
by the kids that were helping prep. The remaining fruit was served in an empty pineapple skin. Behind the skewers you can see a bowl of kettle chips, which seemed to fit the Hawaii food theme well. I also served none other than orange-flavored Hawaiian Punch, as per my daughter’s request.
One component of the table consisted of Nutter Butter
flip flops. As a blogger, we always want to give credit where credit was due, always linking back to the original creator. That said, I clicked on a few of the Nutter Butter flip flops on Pinterest that inspired me, and they all led to a simple image rather than a real life blogger. Just know that I didn’t come up with this idea, but some creative person out there started it all.
My daughter requested cupcakes, so we made my favorite mild coconut cake. Do not overcook or it will turn out dry. It’s an amazing recipe, and it was the one that inspired my whole cake decorating hobby. I discovered foil cupcake holders
for the first time in my life, and I’ll never go back to paper…well, unless I find an amazing design I don’t find in foil. Do you see how clear the design stays rather than having the cupcake start to show through the paper ones and dull the design. I made my amazing buttercream frosting and colored it with sky blue food coloring gel
. The decorations were easy with toothpick umbrellas
and an orange fondant
hibiscus. You can see how my son, daughter and I made it together on my Facebook live post. Are you following me on Facebook yet? You will need gum paste flower cutters
, gum paste tools and yellow gum paste flower stamens
to create these flowers.
Luau Birthday Party Ideas – Table Decorations
For the table, I bought a bamboo beach blanket
and cut it in half, trimming off the cloth side covers as well. This became my table runner. I bought brightly colored Hawaiian flower paper plates
(the square ones can be found at Party City). I also bought aqua colored napkins
and aqua plastic cutlery
. Futher, I purchased bright pink plastic margarita glasses
. The napkins were held together with a clip hibiscus flower
that the girls could later put in their hair. As already mentioned I made name place cards with the paper surfboards. These were placed in shell place card holders
. I had used these shells for our mermaid party in the past.
I had thin, tall vases from the Dollar Store that I filled with calla lily leaves from our yard. Each chair had a plastic lei
for the girls to wear. Paper surfboards
were hung on the wall.
Our parties wouldn’t be complete without a piñata, this one was tiki themed
and filled with your classic piñata candy
. The kids were entertained turning it into a mask once it had been broken open. We also made these cute aloha craft bracelets
(These can be found at Oriental Trading Company or the provided Amazon link as well. Just look for the better deal.) as a craft component.
“Best party ever,” was my daughter’s response, and that was the whole goal. We wanted to make her feel special as she celebrated with her friends. Mission accomplished. I hope these luau birthday party ideas inspire your own Hawaiian themed party.
This is such a fabulous post. So informative and detailed .Very helpful! Cheers!