Margaritaville Party

 

     I have been busy planning the annual Margaritaville Party for my husband's office.  Since we usually have about 150 clients, it takes more thought than most parties.  I am building a counter top tiki bar, we are having a luau theme this year.  I change the theme every year. I will continue to update this post as I make things. 

     I am using a Hawaiian shirts graphic on stickers for name tags.  I had to change the opacity in Photoshop so that names can be printed on them.   I wanted a foam core figure of a hula dancer, but couldn't find one I liked that I could enlarge and duplicate in foam.  The girl above was made from several different graphics merged together.  

    

It took me awhile this afternoon to repaint the shirt with 18% opacity.  I left the outline dark.  The flowers in the original shirt were deep blue.  You need to print these out in 4" x 4" name tags stickers if you like the idea.     

 This is the inspiration for the tiki bar.  I saw it at Pottery Barn.  It is a wooden ladder suspended from the ceiling with bamboo fencing on it.  Since I can't suspend anything from the ceiling at work, I bought two 14" square four tiered shelf bamboo units.  When it is put together I will take a picture.  

MENU:  Under the Tiki Bar will be HOT appetizers.  I am making two crockpots of Teriyaki Pulled Chicken to be served over rice. (See recipe on Pinterest).  I am ordering the rice from a local Chinese carryout.  I am going to get pulled pork barbeque and wings from Red Hot and Blue.  Costco has a fabulous spiced beef.  I am going to get some and heat it up in the office electric skillet.  We are looking into pizza warmers.  I found one on Amazon.com at a reasonable price.  We are going to order ham and pineapple pizzas from Dominos. (Remember, it's 120 plus people).   I will also be making meatballs in another crockpot.  From Costco I'll buy the meatballs, frozen shrimp, dips, crackers, crab.  I'll go to local grocery store for wontons, cream cheese, etc.  I will pre-bake the wontons in cupcake pans.  Then I can make a crockpot version of crab wontons.  

Etsy had the CUTEST food boats (see pin under Parties).  I ordered 150 of these.  They are just the right size for an appetizer of rice, etc.  I am making pineapple cupcakes for dessert.  Check them out here at Etsy (See previous blog on palm trees). 

PALM TREES:
 I went to the Container Store to get 3" mailing tubes.  I extended them to full height, taped them, and covered them in fringed burlap strips.  I bought to green golf umbrellas and cut them to look like palm leaves.  I will take a picture this year of the set-up.  The handle of the umbrella fits right down in the top of the tube.
I bought stuffed parrots to sit in the trees.  I will drill holes in the cardboard and insert dowels through them to sit the parrots on.  Or...if I could find cute cages, I could hang them on the trees.  

TIKI GODS: I was going to make two big tiki gods out of tubes, but I think I'll buy two extra mailing tubes and cut them down to tabletop size.  I will paint them and use bright colored fun foam features.  I will give them hands and they can hold food labels.