Let your imagination run wild while decorating for a Luau. The essence of all decoration ideas must be bold and bright colors, and anything that will recreate an island in your house! The most basic decoration must be done with flowers and foliage and then other island props should be added to complete your decoration.

Before purchasing anything, it’s a good idea to look through all your old stuff to hunt out any straw hats, shells, bamboo sticks, colorful umbrellas, sunglasses, tropical print door curtains, streamers, beach accessories, fish nets or even an old set of oars. Use small electric lights in the Hawaiian style to cover your shrubs. You will need a lawn sign that you can easily paint yourself on wooden planks to announce your Luau.

Make cutouts of palm trees, hula girls, parrots, flamingos, other colored birds and large tropical flowers; then put them all over the house. Paper lanterns are a great, inexpensive way to light up your place. Some essential decoration items are the bamboo ‘tiki’ torches and lei (you can use cheap plastic flowers if you want). These garlands can be draped around doors, pillars, windows, trees and on your chairs and tables. Make male leis by stringing together any medium size flowers like carnations, marigolds, orchids or roses. Save some plastic flowers to float in a small kid’s inflatable wading pool or even in large kitchen bowls. Make cardboard Hawaiian masks, and if you cannot draw, download and print mask designs from the Internet.

Collect shells from friends and spread them all over the party area, along with confetti on the serving tables. These should be laden with tropical fruit like pineapples, bananas, grapes and mangos. Place large colorful candles surrounded with flowers as your centerpiece, and make the table skirts out of straw. All your tables must look like Hula dancers! Cutlery can be placed in bamboo baskets, and fishnets strewn with colorful flowers may be placed behind the tables to give them the ultimate island feel.

Make bouquets of colorful balloons and hang them around.

With all these Luau decoration ideas, your feast is bound to be successful, with friends and family wanting to return again and again!