Moana birthday party

My daughter, Brielle, is obsessed with Moana so it was only obvious that's what her birthday party theme would be! I wanted to bring in as many tropical touches as possible to invoke the island feeling. The best way to do that was COLOR! Hot pinks, oranges, bright greens and of course, brilliant turquoise were scattered through our venue as well as flowers and palm leaves.

Every place setting had a palm leaf that I cut out using Cricut's Life's a Beach cartridge and on the back of each chair was a flower lei. The girls all got flowers to put in their hair. I wanted a big impact for the centerpieces but having nearly 50 people there I couldn't afford real flowers on all the tables. I found these tissue paper flower garlands that were the perfect colors and tropical to boot. I laid a garland down the center of each table over brightly colored runners.

We had a Te Fiti backdrop, made from engineer paper that we used to recreate her facial features as well as custom hand dyed paper flowers for her crown. All layered on top of plastic ivy mats to create a lot of texture and mimic real plants.

• What People Ate

  We hired a local Polynesian family to cater authentic Polynesian food. They made Pau's Kaulu Pork, Hei Hei's Suka Chicken, steamed sticky rice, Hawaiian macaroni salad and homemade rolls.

• What People Drank

  Tropical Punch. This drink was AMAZING!! I had to refill it twice and all three times it was gone within 10 minutes. 2 liters 7Up * 46 oz pineapple juice * thawed 6 oz orange juice concentrate

• Desserts

  For desserts we had raspberry, coconut-lime, and orange cupcakes, lemon cookies, and Kakamora kettlecorn popcorn. And the star of the dessert table was an amazing wave inspired lemon cake with incredible gum paste plumeria flowers.

• Party Favors

  Ferrero Rochers that I turned into mini pineapples

• Activities / Games

  The Polynesian family had all little kids (to better relate to my little guests) perform 6 traditional dances from the different islands, as well as teaching all my little guests a dance! It was a cool way to learn a bit about their culture! We also had a little kid bowling set that I turned the pins into palm trees (kraft paper and tissue paper) and got a coconut (made into a kakamora) to use as a mini game the kids could play while waiting for dinner.

• cakes_byshelly

  Cake designer

  She's so crazy talented. She made the cake and the cupcakes!