Hawaiian Luau July 4th Birthday Balloons

I know – that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?  However, that was the last balloon project I tackled.  The story behind the concept is truly very sweet.

This past July, my three sons and I went to visit my parents for a summer vacation.   All my siblings and my ten nieces and nephews live by my parents.  I’m the only soul who wandered further away.   It’s a tradition that my parents throw great family parties, especially when everyone is in town at the same time, so months before we arrived, my mother began planning a party to take place during our visit.

At the same time, my father had been teaching three of my nieces about Robert’s Rules of Order – you know, I Second the Motion, and all that stuff – so my parents used Robert’s Rules of Order to run a little party planning committee with the nieces.  As a team, they picked the date – July 4th – and voted on a theme for the party – a Hawaiian Luau July 4th Birthday party.  Wow!

The girls were each given $5 for decorations and Mom took them on a shopping trip to the party store.  On the day of the party, while she ran around getting food ready, making cookies, picking up kids and gathering tables, she gave me one task:  Use the decorations the girls had picked to get ready for the party.  With that, she handed me the bag of supplies:

• 20 12″ balloons of various colors
• 10 Worm balloons – long, thin balloons complete with faces
• 2 garlands of red, white, and blue
• 25 long-stemmed, colorful lollipops in the shapes of stars and animals
• 1 very large Tiki mask

I stared at the collection for a moment or two…puzzled…then went to work.

1. I blew two balloons up at a time using a small Balloon Pump, and tied them together, making a cluster of two balloons.  I did this with all 20 of the regular balloons which gave me 10 clusters of two balloons each.
2. I took two pairs of balloon clusters (a total of four balloons) and wrapped them around a strut holding up the awning over my parents’ deck, twisting the pairs of balloons around each other to secure them to the strut.  I did this to a total of five struts.  At four balloons per strut, I used all of the balloons.
3. I then paired up all of the worm balloons, as well, creating five clusters of two.  Each worm cluster was intertwined with a cluster of regular balloons on the strut, giving the first cluster the appearance of having tails like a ribbon bow.
4. I strung the garland just below the balloons.
5. Mom stuck the lollipops in a large vase with M&Ms as marbles to hold them in place and put the vase on the patio table as a centerpiece.
6. We saved the Tiki mask for my niece, Sydney, to hang when she arrived since she’d been very intrigued with her selection.

Mom had a friend who is a professional cake decorator create the masterpiece for our party.  The birthday part of the event was for my youngest son’s sixth birthday.  How this woman managed to create a cake that was perfect for our theme, I’ll never know.  Her creativity was astounding!  She managed to incorporate everything the girls had planned, including the Tiki mask and a real picture of my son’s face on the boy riding the rocket.  Sprinkled around the edges of the cake were my son’s favorite candies.  To top it off, it was one of the best cake’s I’d ever tasted.

Considering the eclectic selection of balloons, I think it turned out very well indeed.  Just goes to show that in a pinch, with just a few supplies, you can create a party atmosphere.  Even if it’s Hawaiian Luau July 4th Birthday party day.