Make Your Own Decorations and Have a Little Fun.

If you’ve got a luau coming up and want to have some fun before it starts, you can make your own decorations for very little cost and have a lot of fun doing it. Instead of having a regular party, have a luau. You can do it for any occasion no matter what, whether it’s a birthday, wedding anniversary, or just “because.” Keep costs down by getting creative all by yourself with some scissors, magazines, Styrofoam, plastic fish, and a glue stick.

Time to go to the tropics — at least temporarily

Use your decorations to create a mood of living in the tropics. Use images like palm trees, coconut leaves, tropical flowers like orchids and hibiscus, Hawaiian ambience-inducers like erupting volcanoes and humpback whales, just about anything that will bring the spirit of Hawaii into your party — make that luau.

You can make collages with your magazine pictures using images all of turquoise blue oceans, sailboats, sundrenched beaches, ocean sunsets, beach shacks, or anything that’s going to invoke a wife for you, for your party invitations. If you’re really feeling mischievous, send the invitations out in Hawaiian, and then let your friends figure out just what it is you’re trying to say.

Your tables can be adorned with make-believe grass skirts. Free grass skirts, cut green garbage bags into inch to inch and a half white strips, and then use a table or ceiling fan to give yourself an “ocean breeze” blowing through the hula skirts as the guests kick back and relax on the beach.

Give your luau a theme

Establish a theme when it comes to making luau decorations – would you like a marine motif or a beach party? Or would you like to invite the Goddess Pele to fire up the event? If using a an ocean theme, find plastic tropical fish from the local party or toy store and hang them from the ceiling on clear fishing line.

Hanging the fish at different heights will give you and your guests the illusion that you are on the ocean floor and when you look up come see the fishes swimming overhead, just going along about their business in the ocean. Hang seaweed that’s plastic from the ceiling, tack fishing nets up on the walls, or do anything else that will give you an “oceanic” ambience.

Create the appearance of an ocean floor by painting giant clamshells onto cheap secondhand white sheets and draping them over your sofas and lounge chairs. Hang a giant inflatable humpback whale at the doorway to welcome guests and get them into the spirit of the luau.

Back to the beach, temporarily

Focus on a beach “feel” for your luau decorations. Lowrise tables draped with beach towels, beach balls thrown haphazardly around the room, and beach mats placed on the floor instead of using chairs will give things that definite “beach casual” quality. Have a contest whereby you have guests come in flip-flops they’ve decorated themselves. The person with the most creative design goes home with a Hawaiian prize like a pineapple or a coconut.

Hawaii’s not just about fun and sun, although it certainly about that. It also has deeply ancient and mystical traditions. “Old” Hawaii traditional spirit can be re-created by hanging wooden masks on the walls, or making decorations for your law that have a “ritualistic” field. Make totem poles out of Styrofoam cubes, which you can paint. Look too old Hawaiian temples, called heiaus, for an idea of what you can do. Find pictures of them for inspiration.

You can put your totem poles in the corners of the room, turn the lights down low, and light things indirectly with candles and tiki torches. Place glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and pretend you’re out under a starry sky, relaxing and having a casual get-together on the beach.

Create your own smoking volcano out of chocolate (everyone will want a bite of it!) and simulate steam from red-hot lava with clever use of dry ice. A few good ideas go a really long way in making luau decorations – in the spirit of Aloha, don’t take anything seriously and “hang loose.

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