The Islands of the Fraternal Order of Moai

Hello I was just in contact with rustbeltcat and he turned me on to FOM. Sure wish I had known about you all back in the spring. My firends and I took a little tiki road trip and visited the Kahiki outlet store. The guy running the place that day told me that someone who sells on eBay had just cleared them out of most of the goods that they had on hand, but I did manage to pick up a few things. I ejoyed talking with the folks on duty that day, and even had some nice conversations with some other people who went outof their way to find the outlet store as they traveled through from Florida.
We really enjoyed your state. We got lost on the way to Kahiki outlet store and stoped at a small bait shop on the edge of town.
The man their not only looked up directions on his computer for us, but even phoned Kahiki to make sure they were open. Printed out directions and stood outside and pointed out the way. Now that's pretty darn friendly!
It's nice to see how organized you are.
Just wanted to drop by and say I am enjoying your site!

hey is this tony? this is heath from indy.

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As a Moai, you should dream, and then together we can try to find ways to make that dream real.
-Ahu

Nope, sorry, my name is Melody. I met rustbeltcat through TC. I was asking about a big heavy mask that I found at a neighboring antique shop. I was asking if my mask was really tiki or just a neat face mask. Happily, it was decided to be tiki enough to use in my home bar that I am working on.
I have been working on said bar for over a year, and have dpne most of the work myself. Today I am staining the palm matting that I put up on the walls to try and give them some age.
Hey! I wonder if any of you guys have any idea where some panel that I won off of eBay might have come from. They look as if they may have come from a tiki bar or at least someone's home that liked tiki.
The man I won them from is not forth coming with any info. He just may not know as he says he got them from an estate sale.
I'm going to give it a try to post some of the panels pictures here. They were a moldy mess when I first got them, but after cleaning and preserving they look pretty cool.

Hmmmm, can't seem to make picture open right?
Sorry 'bout that

Sometimes Shutterfly pics will not work. I don't know why.

But.. anyway, nice panels, and welcome to the FOM!

I notice you are close to Chicago, and we have some Fellow Moai out that way. Do you know any members of our Order already?

Maybe you could post some pics of your projects for us to see.. I'd be very interested in that.



Ahu

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"Yo, she-bitch.. Let's go."

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Follow me on Twaddle: @kukuahu

Hi yes, I know tikibars, lake surfer, and tipsy mcStagger. We have all been to several tiki speciall events. We used to get together at Trader Vic's, once a month before The Palmer house decided not to allow that anymore. Now saddly Trader Vics will be gone sometime after the first of the year.
I will be happy to share photos of the progession on my projects for my yet to be name tiki bar and lounge area. It may take several years until I feel that I really am getting somewhere with this project. I have been working on this only during the late fall and winter months when I can't be outside. Otherwise my husband and I like to travel in the spring, and in the summer we have a plot of ground on the Illinois River where we haul out a generator, our own drinking water and a porta potty along with our 1977 GMC motor home. We have a boat and a pair of jet skis and spend all our weekends there.We don't have a lot o fmoney , but we have a good time just the same. During the weeks we both work for our local school dist. My husband Roger is supervisor, and I am a engineer of a grade school. That's where I learned to not only use tools, but to be creative in getting something done.
Our house is a quad-level. Lots of levels but each level is rather narrow. Our level that is half in and half out of the ground has been designated as the tiki bar and lounge. I husband is a pool player so the pool table and bar area eat up a lot of the space. I put palm mattingon all the walls, and good lord, that was hard! I never thought about the matting not being a perfect rectangle. Just today I rubbed a golden brown stain on the walls to age them. I have two tikis carved by Lake surfer and a another by a guy from Florida. I also have several New Guinea items that I got from a man in IN. this spring. I am also carving out trime work to top off the palm matted walls.
I should have the room somewhat back together by tomorrow, so I'll start trying to post pictures, tomoorw night.
That should give you a little background on myself.
Melody

hey exotic/melody, welcome over to the FOM side!

Aloha Melody, Glad to see you decided to pop over and check out our litle island... BTW this is Rustbeltcat, from TC..
welcome!

Hi guys! I really am enjoying looking around the site. Hope to learn some about my neighbors to the East. We love to have an excuse to travel, and learning more here my give us some new places to check out.
happy Thanksgiving to you all!
Mel

Cool panels! They seem to be based on Papua New Guinea designs. They also vaguely resemble the resin panels on my Poly-Pop style dining room set. Those would look great on the font of a home Tiki Bar! On closer examination, that middle one is exactly like the ones on my buffet!... French Tickler! Ahu, you big silly bear

I'll post pix of my panels soon so you can compare. I'll also try to find out some background on the pieces I have.

That would be great Savage! I The middle one also kinda of reminds me of witco carvings, but not the right kind of wood.The New Guinea looking ones ended up in the bathroom as trim.

Mel

Are your panels real wood? Mine are resin. I wonder if you have the master carvings used for the original mold or something.

aloha. love the panels

wow Savage, that is the same pattern. Mine are actually carved redwood. The panels are tongue and groove each panel is 36 inches and aremade from redwood. The back of each panel is stamped "TRADEMARK PANEL CARVE"
I don't know where they came from as the man who sold them to me doesn't have much to say aboutr them, other than he bought them at an estate sale. When I recieved them they were very dirty and molding. They were in such a bad shape that light sanding didn't help. That's why they are now darker colored, as I was forced to use a darker stain to cover up all the defects.
this guy had quite a lot of these at one time, but is now about out. There is one more style panel that I am waiting on. I'll show you that when I get it.
I lwould love to find the trade mark info on these, but so far I haven't had the time to search it out. I'd also love to know where these all hung orginally, and how they looked. Some panels look better horizonal while others, like your pattern look best vertical.
I just love you dinning set! Very cool! Doyou know the maker of your set? Maybe it is panel carve or a differant branch of the same company? Very interesting!

I'm sure Chiesl can help with those panels. He was a big help to me with mine . He even helped me with my spelling.

I'd have to guess those panels are worth $10,000.00 a piece.

Chiesl Svinger?

oooohhh, that would make me a thousand-aire!
I am just about finished with building and stocking my home bar. if you would like to take a look check out this link from TC.
http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/ ... forum=7&12
I thought I should edit and add if any of you FOM are in the Chicago land area next weekend, we'd love to have you stop by our holiday party.
Melody

I have really enjoyed hanging out with all of you. I was wondering if you might let me join up? I was also wondering if there is a chapter in the Chicagoland area. I am certainly not opposed to driving to Ohio for events, ( I've driven out to the Kahiki Frozen food store just so I could buy a few mugs at a decent price)
I have been collecting tiki itmes for a very long time. At first just a mug here or there that looked interesting. I never really thought about where it came from. I spend a lot of time searching through thrift stores, antique malls, resale, etc. I collect 50's lamps mainly, but some clocks and furniture too.
I have always been the one to organize parties for my group of friends. One summer I thought a Luau would be fun. I started reading up on how to have a luau, which in turn lead me to read Trader Vic's books on food and drinks, which then lead me to other books, I just kept reading. the luau was fun and we even cooked a whole pig in the ground. we had fun outdoor games, rum punch, lots of flowers.
From there I just kept picking up more and more Hawaiian or tiki items. One day I came across THE BOOK OF TIKI and could finally really get an idea of the whole poly pop craze of old. I started visiting all the tiki bars and resturants that I could. Luckily there are a few within a couple of drivng hours from me. I started lurking on the Tiki Central web board, finally joined about 3 months later. I read that board daily, and have learned so much from the people there.
Now all things South Seas interests me. I'd love to learn what I can from you folks and I'll share any info that I have that you may find useful.
I am maybe older than a lot of you.(mid 40's gasp!) Had a lot of fun in life, met a lot of interesting people, tend to be shy in person. I work for my local school district as a engineer of O'Donnell grade school. The only women in that position in my dist. ( 13 grades schools, 3, middle schools and one highschool) I like to be creative, have fun, drink and swear like a sailor. My husband and I have been married since right out of highschool, no kids, two dogs ( Boston Terriers). We like to travel in our GMC 1977 motorhome all original right down to the ornge shag carpet. We camp, water ski, jet ski, and cruise the Illinois river which is about 45 mins south of us.
Ahhh, I can't think of anything else except I sorry about my spelling--
Thanks, Mel

Mel, you have given us plenty about you to go on, and we appreciate that. As you might expect it can take us a while to process an initiate once they are sponsored, and sometimes they may not have a sponsor at all (no sponsor, no initiation). In fact, four weeks is not unusual in many cases.

I think the holidays and the recent run of sign ups has kept us all busy, but rest assured your desire to join has not been forgotten.



Ahu

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"Yo, she-bitch.. Let's go."

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Follow me on Twaddle: @kukuahu

I don't know if this will work, but here are some pictures of my Christmas tree this year and a couple of stiff friends of mine. LOL.

My tree is done this year in silk orchids, little tikis, sea shells both lighted and plastic, and real, little pineapples, and the tree sits in a base of sand with shells, and lighted shells.


It gets a litttle cold here in the midwest so the Marlboro man needs a scarf and hat.

Hope my mannys don't creep you guys out too much. I have Barbara, Marlboro man, a pirate, and three kids. LOL. Lots of fun at parties.

Aloha!
Hola!
Salut!
Teakanus!

Okay, that should cover all the languages I know, except that last one is merely phonetically spelled, as it's Greek and I have no Greek letters on my keyboard.

It's great to see another female come mingle with us. Especially one that might be making road trips to come see us! We promise to take you out to Liu Pon Xi's to get some great tiki type drinks and some great spicy kim chee fried rice. The blustery winter is settling down here and I think many of us get a bit anxious with our tiki bars in progress. My guess is we'll all be working on them to keep the winter blues away.

Thanks for sharing all you have with us, gives us a chance to get to know you a bit. Our tiki room isn't even close to being presentable yet, but that shall all change soon. In the meantime, if you'd like to get a feel for the over the top stuff we like in our home, you should check out our Electric Voodoo Kitchen: http://fraternalorderofmoai.org/huimalu ... .php?t=524

Let me know if you need help with anything that might be related to sewing and fabric, unless you're already a seamstress! First up are new cushions for Chisel Swinger's tiki furniture.

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Voo Doo Baby, I LIKE IT! love your use of color. Your have a real flair. I have a real large spanish inspired cross that hangs on my side of my three-side fireplace. If I remember, I'll post a pix later.
I wish I could sew, my Grandma sure did her best to teach me. Just no good at. I have managed to to do some of my own upolstry work, and and if I can fabric glue, or pin something together, I'm OK.
Thanks for sharing your kitchen pictures with me.

A real flair or a serious affliction.... ha ha ha!
I love the colours, our entire house is like this with the green tiki room, chartruese entry, blue and purple "glam Vegas" living room. But the kitchen is a place that I just love walking into every morning. Wakes you up.



I'd love to see! I adore crosses, I'm hunting certain kinds to continue covering the walls. We're running out of room for large crosses, which is good since I've not found any I really like lately. But I picked up 7 more small crosses yesterday - Christmas season rocks for me because I can usually find ornaments galore that are even marked down and just the style I need.



That's what we're all about here at the FOM - a collective of amazing talents where we share our skills or knowledge with each other. A bit of a drunken dysfunctional family who really loves each other. Heh! There's always trade going on among us here, so you never know what you might need or what you might be able to offer. As Martha would say, "It's a good thing!"

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We had our first party of the season in our new tikibar. We must of all had a good time by the empty rum bottles. Learned a few things too.tiibars stopped by and gave me some tips on mixology, and my exotica record collection.
The one thing I really hoped would happen was that is that someone would come up with the perfect name for my bar. Tikibar said not to rush the name it will come, but I tire of calling it the 'tikibar".
If any of you out there have a spare name, I 'd love to hear it.
I really need to go take a nap now.
Cheers