Take Your Party To The "Mystical Land Of Magic And Sand" With An Arabian Party Theme!

Celebrate your teenage birthday with an Arabian party theme! Different lands are always fun to explore, so "hold on to your turban, kid" and come to the Middle East for an evening of fun!

This theme makes a great dinner party. Feel free to adapt your own itinerary, or use ours:

4:00-Guests arrive ("taboo" begins)
4:45-Best turban is announced, wreath decorating begins
6:30-Dinner (winner of "taboo" is announced after dinner)
9:00- Guests depart

Arabian Party Theme Food

Party Budget: $525

When your guests arrive have bowls of pistachios on the table as an appetizer. As your main course, serve teriyaki style beef strips with steamed jasmine rice on the side and steamed vegetables.

Mint tea or green tea with a little bit of mint are authentic drinks for this kind of party. In Arabia, it is served by the host, so be sure you are the one who pours it for the guests.

Next comes the dessert! Serve "sugary dates and figs! Sugar dates and pistachios!" Dates taste really good with heavy cream, so be sure to set out dishes of cream for them. 

Instead of serving plates of the dessert, place a plate of the figs and dates at either end of the table along with the bowls of cream and allow the guests to serve themselves. Yummy!

Arabian Party Theme Feeling

Menu

Pistachios
"Princess" Jasmine rice
Beef sirloin steak strips cooked teriyaki style
Steamed vegetables
Dates and figs with heavy cream
Green tea with fresh mint

Decorate your party area with burgundy, deep purples,golds, peacock greens, and peacock blues. Put up curtains with these colors in mind. Outdoor or indoor, curtains will help set the stage for any Arabian party theme. 

Set your table low to the ground and put the appropriate colored cushions on the ground for the guests to sit on while they dine. Cinder blocks and plywood work well for this table. 

Set the table with gold plates and silverware. Gluing little gems to the silverware adds a nice touch to the place setting.

Print out the menu and wrap it in a purple napkin. Use a shade lighter purple table cloth. Put out either clear or gold teacups for the tea.  Don't forget to strew the table with candles and other pretty centerpieces!

Hanging over the table, have various sized and colored paper lanterns. Make a birthday banner using purple paper edged with shimmering gold. You can even do several layers with the other party colors. Use letters with the Aladdin title font for the words. 

Making Arabian Party Theme Center Pieces

When making candle center piece, you will need:

• Medium-sized glass vases
• Floating votive candles
• Either plastic or real orchid flowers
• Gold or purple floral ribbon

Hot glue the ribbon around the top of the vase. Fill the vase half full with water. Drop one blossom into the water. Place the candle in the vase so that it floats on the water with the flower under it. Light the candle and you have a beautiful little candle center piece.

Make enough so that the table doesn't look bare. Using vases of varying sizes is very pretty. If you get a very tall, yet slim vase, you can put several flowers in the water.

Of course, it would take a lot of candles to make enough center pieces for the entire table, so you will need other kinds of center pieces. 

For another kind of center piece, take a vase and fill it half way with sand. Put three peacock feathers and three fake ostrich feathers in the sand. Cover the area where the feathers meet the sand with ribbon.

Arabian Party Theme Fun

Shopping List

• Curtains or fabric to make curtains
• Gold place settings (easy to find at the dollar store)
• Purple napkins
• Floor cushions
• Purple tablecloth
• Medium-sized glass vases
• Floating votive candles
• Either plastic or real orchid flowers
• Gold or purple floral ribbon
• Candles
• Sand
• Peacock feathers
• Faux ostrich feathers of various colors
• Teacups
• Blue bottles
• Gold trim
• Thin gold cord
• Purple beads
• Purple and gold gems
• Purple and gold ribbon (the gold needs to be substantially thinner than the purple)
• Big purple gems
• White feathers
• Empty 18 inch or larger grapevine wreaths (budgeted for six guests)
• Blue, gold, and green ornaments
• Peacock colored ribbon
• Wire
• 2 prizes
• Beef sirloin steak
• Jasmine rice
• Mint tea
• Green tea
• Mint
• Dates
• Figs
• Pistachios

As this will be a party of teenagers, there doesn't just need to be games. Activities like wreath decorating with peacock feathers also finds a place at this party. But first, what about those games?

A game that is for more adult people because it really is quite competitive is the game "taboo". For this game, everyone receives a little genie bottle when they arrive. 

Throughout the party, anyone who is caught saying "Genie", "Aladdin", or "Jasmine" gets his bottle taken away and the person who caught him gets the bottle. Whoever has the most bottles at the end of the party wins a prize.

Another fun game is the best turban contest. In this contest, the guests will need to be informed that they are expected to wear a good turban which will be judged. At the end of the party, announce the winner!

A good activity for this teenage party is wreath decorating with peacock feathers. For this you will need peacock feathers, blue, gold, and green ornaments, wire, and matching ribbon. Let the guests decorate their own wreath to take home with them. This eliminates the need for goodie bags.

Tip: Wreaths look really good if you make on corner of it your focal point. Put something like a bow there and use the other things to work out from that point.

Making The Genie Bottles

To make the genie bottles, you will need:

• As many blue bottles as you will have guests
• Gold trim
• Thin gold cord
• Purple beads
• Purple and gold gems
• Purple and gold ribbon (the gold needs to be substantially thinner than the purple)
• Big purple gems
• White feathers

Taking your blue bottle, glue the gold trim around the part where it starts to get smaller. Glue another row of the trim a little bit above and flipped the other way. Glue some small purple gems in between the two rows of edging. 

Tie the gold cord with two purple beads at either end in a bow around the neck of the bottle. Next glue the ribbon around the very top of the bottle. Glue a feather and the large purple gem over the shaft of the feather. 

Glue some of the gold ribbon around the bottle top, but not over the feather. Glue the small gold gems on this ribbon. Make enough of these genie bottles for each guest to start with one.