I never in a million years thought I would do a video game birthday party for one of my kids, but yet, here it is! For my son’s 5th birthday we did a Super Mario Birthday Party! And I can’t believe I am saying this, but it might have been one of my favorites! I think I loved the Super Mario Birthday Party theme because there were so many great activities and fun decorations to do for it.
If you are wanting to see the Super Mario Party food, favors, decor and printables, you are in the right place. Looking for all the activities we did to keep those little kids entertained and happy?? Check out part 2 of this post here. Or just want to see the Save Princess Peach Scavenger Hunt we did complete with story line and printable clues? You can find the blog post about it here.
Oh and my regular reminder that my posts often contain affiliate links meaning I get a small percentage of anything you buy at no increased cost to you. You can read more about it here.
(Disclaimer: because I do these parties mostly on my own, I never get all the pictures I would like of everything we do and the others are taken in a hurry so they aren’t the best quality. I hope it still gives you inspiration!) The first thing to say about the Super Mario Birthday Party is that I got lots of inspiration from other bloggers! Check out my Pinterest board for a ton of great ideas, but these two bloggers gave me the most inspiration: Borealis Blog and Chica and Jo If I got an idea specifically from one of those sites, I will link to it so you can see the original and get the directions.
Super Mario Birthday Party
Party Theme: Super Mario
Number of Guests: 9 boys and 1 girl aged 4-6
Location: Our Backyard
Invitation and Printables:
This is the first year I didn’t send an actual paper invitation (I know, I am old school that way! I just love the classic mailed ones and I can’t design my own on evite!) I designed this one and had the location, time and date in the white space, which I erased for this. Then I emailed it out. I incorporated my pattern themes in them and used the same look for the food printables and all the party labels. The character images are copyrighted by Nintendo and the Super Mario Brothers games and such, so I can’t share them this time.
Decor:
As usual, I try to stay away from decorating and purchasing too many characters and I work with different patterns that match. The Super Mario Party was no different, as I did use some characters in the printables and the invitation, but I focused mostly on red and white polka dots, blue and white clouds and mustaches! I feel like most of that can be used again for other parties and themes. Here are some pictures of those patterns and how I used them (goody bags, cupcake wrappers, balloons etc).
Definitely the biggest highlight of the party was this Super Mario Wall that my husband and I created together. You will see it at a lot of different Super Mario Parties on Pinterest too. If you want to know how to make the gold coins that we hung from the eaves, scroll to the bottom of the post on here for instructions. Also, here gave us the templates for the characters. The Happy Birthday Banner was personalized and purchased from Jeni Moody on Etsy. It looks like she has now moved her shop here, however. You can always just search on Etsy for something similar. The Mario photo props were also purchased on Etsy from a shop that has now moved also! Those were from Cre8tes by Racheal and you can at least see her profile here. Also, the cardboard bricks we already had, but I found something similar here for you.
Menu:
One of my biggest tricks for staying on budget for birthday parties is to plan the party between meal times. That way I only have to prepare snacks. And to be honest, the kids are so busy with the games and activities, that they aren’t that interested in the food. If you have adults in attendance, you have to give it a little more thought, obviously. However, by age 5, I really push parents to drop off their kids if they feel comfortable. With my background in teaching and my husband and mom by my side, I feel much more at ease in the thick of a fun party than I do if I have to make small talk with adults!
So for the food and drinks, I made my own labels for water bottles (I wish I could share- I may have “borrowed” some photos from Nintendo that they don’t want me sharing!) and Princess Peach Punch (no picture- just mixed lemon lime soda and peach juice with frozen peaches).
Super Mario is all about jumping for those gold coins, so I had to buy some chocolate ones to snack on at the party! Any extras go in the goody bags. You can get a this big bag on Amazon.
I think every Super Mario party has to have Fireball cheeseballs! You can get these Cheese Barrel Balls on Amazon.
I normally really limit the sweets and candy for my kids, but not for parties! =) I invested in a bunch of candy jars once and re-use them for all the parties for the kids. This one held Princess Peach Gummy Rings. You can order this big batch on Amazon as well.
Here is my attempt at fruit and vegetables (and ease!) for the party! I found Princess Peach Squeezers! =) You can find them at most grocery stores.
If you have seen some of our cakes in the past (my husband is the cake guy in our family!), you might be surprised at its simplicity. However, inside it was rainbow tie-dye! Missed a picture of that one too. =( It was one of fancy mixes by Duff Goldman and it was actually really yummy even though it was a box mix! I think as the kids get older, we are focusing more on the fun party activities and less on the food because we know what the kids will remember!
Activities: Interested in knowing what we did next and how we kept those kids busy? Check out part 2 of this post, Super Mario Birthday: Games and Activities.
Favors:
I made these favor bags to look like the yellow blocks with the question marks in the game that you have to hit in the game to get gold coins. I found the Super Mario font through a Google search and the question mark came from the downloads on Borealis Blog of course! I don’t know what I would have done without their inspiration!
In the favor bag I included chocolate gold coins, Mario stickers and a Mario notebook (see recommendations at the bottom of this post for other party favor ideas). I also made chocolate mustaches on a stick and wrapped them up in cellophane. You can get this mustache mold and the Wilton chocolate melts I always use.
Phew! That was a lot to cover and there is still more! I think I have said it about a million times, but the success of your party doesn’t depend on any of the stuff shown here. This is just the bonus, the extra, the frosting for those of us crafty moms who love doing it. The success or failure of a children’s party (in my opinion, of course) depends on what they do while they are there. Check out all the Super Mario Party Games and Activities we did in part 2 of this post.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed seeing all the fun details that you can create with a Super Mario Birthday Party! And don’t forget to check out my inspiration for this party: Borealis Blog and Chica and Jo and all the other wonderful ideas on my Super Mario Pinterest board!
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