About Me

Someone who fell in love with the natural world early on and has been smitten ever since. A blade of grass, a mighty mountain, a tiny raindrop, a roaring waterfall, all fill me with awe and wonder. Nature feels home, filled with warmth and love. It pains my heart to see this home being ravaged. This blog is an effort to find tweaks in modern living to preserve the sanctity of this home. I sincerely hope that you join me in this green karmic journey.

Monday 22 July 2013

Hawaiian Themed Green Birthday Party Part 2 - The Decor

Think Hawaii and images of exotic beaches, swaying palms, hula girls, orchids, garlands, parakeets - all crop up in your mind. Planning a luau is fun and before doing that, it's good to get acquainted with a smattering of Hawaiian vocabulary. So I went ahead and learnt these words:

Aloha = Welcome
Luau = Party
Lei =  Garland
Hula = Hawaiian dance form
Hula girl = A girl who performs Hawaiian dance called hula
Mahalo = Thankyou

Decor:
There are so many  decor ideas for a Hawaiian theme, the choice is mind boggling. I decided upon surf boards, a hula girl cutout, coconut tree and a few hibiscus flowers. The idea was to take a picture of each family against a backdrop of coconut trees and hibiscus flowers wherein Dad would hold a surfboard, Mom would have her face in the cutout and the kid would hold a ball. This picture would later be sent  to guests along with a thank you note. In the end, the picture idea didn't work out and I had to be content with these being only decor pieces.

A neighbour had discarded a few thermocol sheets. They came in handy.
I cut out two surf board shapes and painted them with colors leftover from a wall painting job. A few hibiscus flower print outs were colored and stuck to the boards.



A couple of waves were fashioned out of hand made paper. We stationed tender coconuts under the surfboards.





Similarly, a hula girl was fashioned by joining two thermocol sheets. A grass skirt was made with craft paper and her leis made of paper streamers.

Finally, for the coconut tree, the leaves were cut out from a sheet of hand made paper and the trunk made from thermocol.  Thermocol was surprisingly easy to join with the help of fevicol and a few allpins.
I had bought these cute little coconuts from a trip to Mathura long back. These now adorned the coconut tree and the look was complete.



 D also painted a few hibiscus flowers on a sheet.



To complete the colorful look, paper streamers were hung from all sides of the ceiling. We also blew a few balloons and I insisted on tying the ends with a thread rather than forming a knot. The logic was that the thread could be untied and the balloons reused for a later occasion. I faced a lot of opposition from fellow members but I must say that they complied and we could retrieve a few balloons using this method. I wonder if there are environment friendly versions of balloons?

PinĂ£ta:


A cardboard box was decorated on all sides with Hawaiian motifs. The goodies included floral hairpins, erasers, pencils, chocolates and paper confetti.

Leis:
After racking my brains over leis, I finally decided upon fresh flower and paper leis. I bought pink (oleander) for girls and yellow (marigolds) for boys. To the credit of guests, most of them were sporty enough to wear them for the whole party.

I was happy with the fact that most of the decoration stuff was made of reused thermocol, handmade paper and paper streamers. 

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