REAL PARTIES: Retro Surfer Birthday
This fabulous Retro Surfer Birthday Party sent in by Kate from Australia-based I Love Parties is full of so many creative details!
As a SoCal girl myself, the surfing/beach theme immediately caught my eye… but who wouldn’t appreciate ultra-clever ideas like surfboard-shaped sandwiches, “Shark” and “Sand” cupcakes, retro tin Kombi vans, homemade wooden surf signs and “Coconut Bowling”?! Such a perfect theme for summer parties too…
Read on for LOTS more pics and all the fun details, as told by Kate…
“We recently held our much anticipated I LOVE PARTIES RETRO SURF 2ND BIRTHDAY PARTY, and I am pleased to say it was a very big success! Beautiful weather and lots of fun. {Photos are from the wonderful Jill at Shutterbubs.com.}
FAVOR AND CAKE TABLE
For the guest favors, we set up a table where everyone could fill their own gift bag with surf and beach-themed accessories.
The accessories included cool black shades, custom coloring books (available from I Love Parties) with crayons, surf tattoos, “Surf Screen” (with custom labels) – and personalized surf wax from Cakes Around Town. We also set out hibiscus lollipops, pineapples jellies, bananas, and Bounty coconut chocolate bars.
Tall glass vases were filled with blue jelly beans, gummy milk bottles, and large faux banana leaves, and the homemade banana cake was decorated with an Edible Surfboard Decoration purchased from Cakes Around Town.
I also framed some pictures of the Birthday boy Photoshopped onto old surf magazine covers and displayed them alongside his surf trophies.
Handmade Retro Surf Favor Bags from I Love Parties:
THE FOOD TABLE
The cookies and cupcakes were created by the AMAZING Libby at Polka Dot Cookies. There were “Shark” and “Sand” designs, and I decorated the “Sand” cupcakes with handmade “No Surfcraft” signs and blue flags.
The fabulous sugar cookies were designed to look like colorful surfboards and waves!
Cool Kombi vans (available from I Love Parties) were the perfect decorative accent for the table!
I used surfboard-shaped cookie cutters to cut “surfboard sandwiches” and decorated them with homemade flags. We also served jelly oranges, fruit skewers, mini hamburgers, chicken and pineapple skewers, potato salad and mini hot dogs.
I was so in love with the honeycomb pineapple decorations – they were huge and looked fantastic!
The Sunset Bar
Drinks were given fun, themed names and included jugs of lime cordial (“Green Room Juice”), pineapple juice (“Mellow Yellow”), orange juice (“Sunny Delight”) and blue powerade (“Blue Hawaii”). The hula girl straws were a big hit!
Custom surf shack signs were made from fence paling and paint:
GAMES
Fish Out of Water
For this activity, we cut fish shapes from colored cardboard and attached each one to a large paper clip. A magnet (available at most hardware stores) was attached to a broom handle with a string to create the “fishing rod” for the cardboard fish.
Coconut Bowling
This was VERY cute! I bought two real coconuts and made “palm tree” bowling pins using colored card stock attached to empty juice bottles. I recommend playing this one on the grass because the coconuts can crack on a hard surface.”
Thanks again to Kate for the fabulous party inspiration!
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I absolutely LOVE this!!
I want this party for myself.
This is so clever! I love all the smart details. But tell me more about those jelly oranges – never heard of that before!? :)
Far Out!! What a great theme! The details are amazing. You obviously put a lot into this party! I would have loved to have been there!
awesome!
so many fun details! I especially love the jelly oranges!
Cutest party ever. Everything looks amazing.
this is darling! what a great idea!
Amazing! I love all the details. I definitely want to borrow some ideas for my future parties.
Oh my gosh!! So so cute :) The whole looks amazing, and I bet it was so much fun!
Wow loved everything..how do you make those jelly oranges? They looked yummy!
Coconut bowling is such a cute idea! Love the surfboard sandwiches…so clever!
I had the same question on the Jelly Oranges. Neat!
Great Party!!
This party looks so much fun!! You did an amazing job!!!
wow! that is amazing. cute without being over the top cutesy. i want her to be my mom. :)
S-
Wow! Just wow! So much love went into these details. Totally wicked party, dude!
http://www.peachpizzazz.blospot.com
How fun!
We need some sunshine here for sure.
This would do the trick!
I love this! Every detail was not overlooked! What a great theme.
Regarding the jelly oranges:
Cut an orange in half, take out the pulp, leaving the peel. Fill with Jello and refrigerate. When set, cut them in half (to get quarter oranges).
http://www.makingitsweet.com
there amazing idea to work with
LOVE it!
looks like an incredible party! brings back fond memories of a Hawaiian luau-themed going away party my parents threw for me when I went off to college. Intricately planned parties with details like this you remember forever!
hahaha, coconut bowling! What a fun idea!
so cute..but where can i get the labels for the sunscreen?
Hi all, and thanks so much for your comments! Obviously a big thanks to HWTM too for featuring our party. It was SUCH a fun day so all the planning was very worthwhile. One thing I forgot to mention, make sure you put some old surf music on your stereo – great for atmosphere. As for the jelly oranges, Melissa has kindly supplied the super simple recipe above – just make sure your jelly is reasonably firm. And as for the sunscreen labels, I custom made them and used glue tape to attach them to the bottles. Flick me an email at info@iloveparties.com.au if you are interested. Kate
wonderful idea-coconut bowling is a fantastic idea-I can’t wait to try it! we just had a playdoh party for my son’s 2nd bday-the kids favorites were the giant cans of play doh ( I had a pic taken with each child and the huge cans I cooked up that I plan to use as thank yous!-please check it out hwtm!
this is so amazing and cute! you really are hostess with the mostest. I wish I could be an events planner
I’ve enjoyed reading this blog in my google rss reader, but it stopped updating after May 6th – any ideas why? I even tried deleting and re-adding, same thing. I would like to continue reading it…
Hello,
We bumped into your blog and we really liked it – great recipes YUM YUM.
We would like to add it to the Petitchef.com.
We would be delighted if you could add your blog to Petitchef so that our users can, as us,
enjoy your recipes.
Petitchef is a french based Cooking recipes Portal. Several hundred Blogs are already members
and benefit from their exposure on Petitchef.com.
To add your site to the Petitchef family you can use or just go to Petitchef.com and click on “Add your site”
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omg I LOVE IT! EACH DETAIL is PERFECTION!
I wants THIS for MY birthday!
Adorable!
Just amazing…I love it!
I love the ideas on the party! The giveaways are so pretty and the decorations are well-done.
What a great theme, I really love that color blue.
Hi Corey –
I’m not sure why it stopped updating on Google Reader but I’ll have our programmer look into it today. thanks for the heads up! :)
what a hot party!
so many wonderful details!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the shark cupcakes!
Hi Jenn, thanks for the response! I didn’t see anywhere else to ask! I love to read these entries, but yah it just stopped. I even checked on the google reader side and all is ok, it seems to be the feeds. Thanks for the help :)
Another dimension that could be added to theme parties are 3D virtual reality simulators. A surfing simulator would have been great for the Retro surf party!
I love this party idea btw! The best one I have seen so far! :) Was wondering though what tip did you use for the icing for the shark cupcakes? They are so awesome! :) Thanks!
We would be delighted if you could add your blog to Petitchef so that our users can, as us,
enjoy your recipes.
WOW! So adorable!
I would love to know how to make the jelly oranges… will you share???
I’m having the same problem as Corey! Thanks for bringing it up. I haven’t been able to figure out how to fix ther error and I miss HWTM :(
WOW WOW & 100 more WOWS….this party was AMAZING! My son just requested his 7th b-day party to be a surfer party, so when I came upon this I was BLOWN AWAY! Way COOL, I love it. One question…..the custom surf wax???? Where is that from???? I clicked the link mentioned and never could find anything…HELP, PLEASE. GREAT PARTY!!!!!!!
This looks like such a fun party! Thanks for the ideas :)
Your party is perfect! I cant wait until I have a little boy so I can do this theme.
I am throwing a luau party soon and was wondering where you got the little decorations?
Hula Girl Straws, Honeycomb Pineapple, and Cocktail Umbrellas?
Thanks!
I’m having an adult backyard dinner/cocktail party in a few weeks…and I’m doing a cocktail table. I’m thinking of updating the jello shot to the jelly orange. Using jello & a mixer to make into a mini drink flavor. Also might dredge in a little colored sugar to give just a bit more umpff. great ideas.
Thank you for your inspiration! This was one of most original parties I’ve seen in a while. So I used it for my inspiration on a party I threw on a camping trip to a lake! It was a hit! THANK YOU and GREAT WORK! You can see mine here: https://diyingtobedomestic.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/surf-party/
the party supplies that we buy are cheap and they use earth friendly products too .,-
I love this theme for a summer party. I love the “Aloha Surf Screen.” Where did you get those custom labels made and where did you buy the sunscreen bottles from? Thanks, Kim
amei surf,parabéns por todos os detalhes.
I love the games ideas!!