Margaritaville Jungle Cruise 2016

I have not posted anything lately, because I have been so busy with multiple party preparations.  The biggest was this year's annual office Margarita Jungle Cruise office one.  I chose this photo as the first one because I have been taking floral arrangement classes at our local community college.  One of the sessions was about underwater flowers. This was my jungle themed version of a centerpiece.  I got the frogs from AC Moore and the iris and grasses from a local florist.

To set the theme I created these two large panels of an African River scene.

I created the boat from scratch. I built the people in Photoshop from different pieces of clipart.

Above are the two panels I created for the elephants watering hole for client check-in.

Over-sized animals set the scene.

The parrot tree was a big hit.

The animals seem to be liking the music at the beach.

Gorilla resting spot by the beer.

I put the tables on bed risers to make a bar.

I threw in large stuffed animals to keep with the jungle theme.  Most of the time, the snake above was wrapped around someone's neck. The beach rug went back down in front
of the band, and the giraffes kept watch. People got a kick out of the parrot tree. We bought eight large palm plants on sale to make the garden more plush.  Since it was a
beautiful day, we did not put up the sides of the tent in order to make the area more open.  I put the community raised table in the tent this year in order to have more circulation on the patio.  This worked great!!

The palm trees added another layer of lush to the tent.  I bought lots of leaves in bunches at Hobby Lobby on sale over the summer.  I used my pvc pipe stands as the tree bases.  Now that Rustoleum spray paint works on plastic, I just sprayed the trunks brown.  I still used the green umbrella leaves from previous years.  I think the dark green tablecloths blended everything in.  I had extra irises, which I placed in one of my antique pitchers.  It is hard to tell, but I made a cucumber snake on the veggie platter.

The theme of the Tiki bar this year was MONKEYS.  Most of the desserts were banana flavored.  I used Pinterest recipes to make cheesecakes, banana cake sushi, monkey cake pops, and key lime crack (lime jello and confectionery sugar coating cereal, candy, melted green chocolate.  At first, people were hesitant to try it.  Then once word got out,

it went first.  I did lower my standards for homemade goodies by having Costco's cream puffs because they are always such a hit.  On the second shelf, there were small candy- loaded brownie bites and elephant sugar cookies.

 

Since I love Disney, and their Jungle Cruise, I wanted Trader Sam at the party.  After much internet searching, resulting in mostly posters, I created one close enough to enlarge and make in fun foam on wall insulation.  He is over five feet tall.  I just love him. The poster above is a picture of his store I created.  There were over 200 people at the party, but since we could use the garden again this year, people could spread out and move around.  We had a table and chairs with an umbrella and a fire circle to the right of the garden.  I had a bear and stuffed skunk (that fooled a few people) by the fire pit,

because we traditionally make s'mores at this party.  All in all, I feel the party was a success.  Hmmm....I wonder where our palm trees will take us for next year's party.