~Aloha Party~

I'm a little late posting this... since it's now November!! Oops...
My sister and I were asked to decorate for my church's youth group party back
in August.  It was an Aloha theme, meant to kick off the new school year by

 welcoming the new 6th graders to youth group (Aloha means hello AND
goodbye... hello to youth group, goodbye to Awana). And here is what we did... 

Our church already had this hut-looking box from a previous Vacation Bible School.

So we covered the roof with a grass skirt and hung lanterns from it. My sister painted this

sign... "ALOHA! Grab a lei and some glasses and hula on into the party" and we displayed

Hawaiian sunglasses and lei's for the kids to wear during the party.

The hallway entrance had hanging tissue paper balls (a good tutorial here) and

streamer chandeliers. These were made by hot gluing strands of streamers to the

inside of a sewing hoop.

 

The doorway entrance to the youth group room had palm trees flanked on either
side (the tree part was also leftover from VBS... we just had to make the leaves)
and then we strung lei's in the doorway.

The food tables were lined with grass skirts. We ordered a beach ball cooler
from Oriental Trading for drinks to be stored in.  Another lady from church,
Debi, made the food for the party - I heard it was delicious but I didn't get to
 actually be there to eat the party food! The chairs were lined up around
the perimeter of the room, and every couple of chairs had a flower on it.





 

The front of the stage was lined with waves cut out of cardboard and painted blue. We glued

ALOHA, also cut out of cardboard, to the front of the waves, and added paper flowers.

A backdrop purchased from Oriental Trading was taped behind the stage.  We also had
a couple cardboard surfboard's and a SURF'S UP sign throughout the room.

 

This limbo stand was already at our church, so all we did was add a cute sign to it,
as well as purchase a bamboo stick, also from Oriental Trading.

Last thing from Oriental Trading.... a plastic photo backdrop of 2 monkeys surfing!

We taped the backdrop to cardboard so it would be sturdier, and hung it from these
black scrims. We hung hula hoops on either side of the backdrop, and added a couple
tiki torches (unlit of course) to some buckets and placed them beside the backdrop. 



My sister was able to make sacks for a game, called the Aloha Hop. I think by the end

of the evening, the bags were ripped to pieces!! They turned out so cute!

 

The Youth Pastor also rented a mat and sumo suits for the kids to have

wrestling matches! I think it was a hit....

 

My sister and I were glad to get to help put together some decorations for

this party.... it looks like the kids had a great time, and hopefully the

6th graders felt more at ease starting youth group =)