You can throw a summer luau on a budget. If you are searching for a theme for a summer party, throw a luau! If you broaden your theme to include “sea” and “beach” motifs, you will find it is easy to come up with many ideas. And, best of all, it works well outside or inside. But, hopefully, weather will be good and you can have the party outdoors. The great thing is that a Luau gives you an EXCUSE to have it outdoors!
Start the Luau vibe going with the invitations. There are plenty out there , but why not make your own? You can print them out on the computer and incorporate photos or personalize them! Be sure they are BRIGHTLY COLORED and festive. Remember to put a message about wearing your grass skirt….
“Put on your grass skirt and get ready to HULA!” You don’t just invite people to a luau, remember, you “throw a luau,” So put on your lei and get ready!
The cutest thing I did for my daughter’s 12th birthday Luau was I rented this big paper Mache Cow to put on the front porch. It had a straw hat on and Leis around its neck! We had a welcome sign on it. It was festive. You could use anything you could find…just put leis around its neck and sunglasses or a hat or something beachy. Everyone is met at the door with Leis. Hawaiian music should be playing, outside and in. Everyone in the family should be arrayed in bright colors and leis. Get out your husband’s tacky shirts. All women can be given a flower for their hair. Just buy some cheap silk flowers at Wal-Mart and attach to a bobby pin or hair comb with glue or thread.
Decorations to throw a summer luau are EASY. The dollar stores will be your best source. Any brightly colored tacky items will work. I ran upon a party store in a town nearby and got a lot of my stuff there and rented some other things., They let me borrow some things for free for getting my supplies there. There are these plastic frameworks that you hook to the table to create an arch. They are not expensive, but you could use a hula hoop cut in half, some kind of bendable wire, or just hang an arch. The arch motifs have a hole running through them for the framework. You could just wrap it with crepe paper and put some flowers on it. You can let your table be your center focal point. Hang honeycomb fish, etc around, too. I hung some fishnet and hooked fish to it. I bought some little cheap plastic party ware to set around with fish shaped theme. Any festive paper lanterns, even if they are Chinese, look neat outside. Twisted crepe paper and Big colorful flowers made out of tissue paper are cheap additions. . Just lay several layers of tissue paper in a stack and fan fold it in pleats. Attach a piece of wire to the center, gathering tightly. Unfurl the layers to form a flower. (See Illustrations 1 & 2) You can use big conche shells sitting around, or if you have a HULA Girl lamp or clock, LUCKY you!
Food is easy. This is one area where you need to keep a gameplan when you try to throw a summer luau on a BUDGET. You can quickly go way under on snacks. Fix light festive items. Meat and cheese trays with light Dijon mustard, ranch dressing and anything to dip in ranch: Carrot sticks, green pepper slices, chicken nuggets, etc… Everyone loves sausage balls, and they are easy to keep moderately warm. You want to stay away from very hot, heavy or spicy food if you throw a summer luau. In the winter, if you have a tropical theme party indoors, you can consider a traditionally prepared ham and other items. But for summer, keep it light. I will include an appetizer link in my resources. Bowls of tropical trail mix or peanuts and raisins are great. Pepperidge Farms Goldfish are nice in a bowl. Have bunches of bananas sitting around for snacking. A whole fresh pineapple looks nice. ( I had a paper honeycomb one.) Pineapple chunks on fancy toothpicks are refreshing. A Pineapple cheese ball and festive crackers are always a hit. (Link to cheese ball recipe is at the end.) You could do a light Tutti Frutti Salad. (link to recipe at end of article.) It is cheap and makes a lot.
The main event at a luau is the Punch bowl. This is usually one of your most expensive items. When I taught piano, I had to do punch for a large crowd at recitals. I always used pink lemonade Koolaid. I would use muffin tins and freeze a fresh strawberry in some pink lemonade in each cup. Then I would float those in the punch. If you want a heavier punch, you could use Hawaiian Punch in the Can, mixing with Ginger ale. Or you could buy the ready-made fruit punch. Just drop some vanilla ice cream in for froth.
The important thing about the food is the presentation. You can buy all kinds of plastic serving dishes and party-ware for around a dollar a piece since it has become fashionable and popular to throw a luau. The punch bowl can be glass, but use plastic cups for drinks with umbrellas in then of course. They make beautiful colored ones. To save more, you can buy the clear plastic cups. Use the little colored plastic toothpicks with fish on them for cheese. You can buy plates with a Luau theme, which adds to the fun. Or you could just use clear plastic or plain paper. Throw a few flour petals around on the table around the plates and things. (nothing poisonous, of course!)
Activities are fun. And, when you throw a summer luau on a budget, the activities are almost free! Have some little prizes, even if it is just a candy bar or something from the dollar tree or your attic! On a fun summer evening, even adults like fun games. The Limbo, a festive piñata, even though that is a Mexican thing, a hula-hoop contest, or even learning a hula dance. At my daughter’s 12-year old party, we had printouts of fish and provided markers, colored pencils, stencils and stamps. We hung them on display on a fishnet and had a visiting judge judge the winner. You can do a cake walk but call it a hula walk and make them hula around. Bake a cake or two to give away to the winners. In case you forgot, in a cake walk you have numbers on the ground . The music plays, and whoever is standing on the winning number when the music stops wins. With any group, Face painting is always fun. The girls can have flowers, and the boys can get some tribal headhunter stripes! Even adults love this. You can also have a table and a little bowl of water with temporary tattoos. This is loads of fun. What about karaoke? If you don’t have a machine, maybe someone you know does.
Don’t forget little gift bags. I fixed gift bags of little soaps and fish-shaped loofahs for the 12 year old girls, but Swedish Fish in a little bag, or little serving sizes of Pepperidge Farms Goldfish are cute, too.
I hope I have helped you get ideas to throw a summer luau on a budget.
