Super Mario Bros Party -4yr- Get Goomba

My son was turning 4 and loves Super Mario Bros.

INVITATIONS: I printed the invites on cardstock using a picture of the new Super Mario game cover and added lines for the party info. Everyone was asked to come dressed as a character from the party. 

DÉCOR: I made everything from scratch!!  I bought 2 large rolls of blue and green paper which I used to decorate the largest wall of the living room as the background of the New Super Mario Bros. game cover.  I used construction paper and sticky foam to create the flying Bullet, 3 goombas, red and green turtles, mountains and bushes. I found images for all characters online and simply printed or transferred them over to sticky foam and cut them out. I used wax paper to create the whispy clouds as they're sort of clear and not white. I can't draw that well so I Printed a giant Mario, piece by piece, cutting out the extra and piecing them together like a puzzle on the wall. I was previously given several 6.5x6.5x6.5 inch cardboard boxes from a former party, which I reused to create brick and question mark boxes.  I printed brick patterns on reddish-brown construction paper and glued them on the boxes. Used yellow and white construction paper for the question boxes. 

The boxes hung throughout the living room. Some question boxes were single but I also attached a question box in between 2 brick boxes and hung them from the ceiling using fish line.  I hung one question box on the front porch so guests could bop it as they arrived. I used construction paper to make a Papercraft Mushroom for one box,which I also found the Papercraft template and instructions online. I reused a gold star from another party (Party City) to which I added black eyes using sticky foam on another question box, and also used sticky foam and popsicle stick to make a fire flower.  I also bought 3 cylindrical storage canisters at goodwill for $5 total which I covered with green sticky foam and topped with black sticky foam to create green pipes.  Using plastic tropical fruit drink cups, I cut down the cups to create the shape of Piranha plants, I spraypainted red and used sticky foam for the white spots and teeth. Those were placed on top of the green pipes as center pieces. 

GAMES/ACTIVITIES:  One game was to play the matching game from the new Super Mario game itself, so I printed several tools (Mushroom, star, ice flower, fire flower, blue mini mushroom, etc along with a couple of Bowsers and the other bad) and stuck them on the back of a yellow construction paper which had a question mark on the other side. The question mark pieces were on a wall and the kids were divided into teams and had to guess where the matches were without getting two Bowsers, like on the game).  I also bought a large yet light weight orange bouncy ball that has hair like strings and used for a game of Get the Goomba.  The kids took turns being Mario the rest of the kids had to pretend to be Goombas and had 1 minute to fire at and hit as many Goombas as they could.  The Goombas of course had to get away from Mario but they had to run/walk like a Goombas (feet together and sort of waddling around).

My brother also made me several go-karts from old boxes which he spray painted and attached Styrofoam plates as wheels. He really went all out on my son's go kart using 10 gallon Paint lids for back wheels, frisbees for front wheels (wheels were spray painted black).  He spray painted an old CD Yellow and then spraypainted and M in the center.  The CD's went on the sides of the Kart.  He reused an old computer part crate spray painted black and attached over the hood" of the car for the engine and attached old orange plastic tubes for spark plug wires.  He fashioned some flames from cardboard and of course spray painted them and attached it to the back of the kart.  He used some foam pipe cover for the front and back bumpers VERY COOL Go Kart! The kids wore the go karts to race in a game of Mario Kart in the backyard where we had created a path.  I bought several small gold trophies at Party City inexpensive so everyone was a winner.  Before and After the Games we had Mario Bros. set up on the TV so the kids could play on the Wii.

COSTUMES: Luckily my nephew had a Mario and Luigi costume which we borrowed Mario for my son.  I bought a plain yellow top and already had a purple overall dress for Wario for my daughter.  I bought a plain yellow cap at walmart and cut a "W" from sticky felt for the cap.  I also bought plain white gloves and used face paint to paint her nose pink and evil eyebrows and mustache.  For my other daughter I bought a pretty pink flower girl type dress at Goodwill and a pair of dark pink shoes used some accessories and she was Princess Peach.  My nephew was wearing a white turtleneck and red overalls white cap with a red spray-painted "M" and my brother made "fireballs" by spray painting 3 small Styrofoam balls which my nephew had in his pocket. 

My other brother dressed my baby niece as Toadette the girl pink version of Toad.  For the hat he found instructions online on how make a chefs hat from napkins/paper towels card stock and tape.  He used a pink onesie and white shorts.  My sister dressed my baby nephew in a similar outfit (white shorts blue vest cut out from an old top)and white homemade chefs hat for Toad. 

MENU: Since Mario is Italian I made spaghetti with Meatballs and we also ordered several Pepperoni Pizzas from Little Cesars Pizza.  For snacks I had the round Cheeto puffs (fireballs) I also made Devilled Yoshi Eggs by adding food coloring the the yolk mix I also took a cotton swab and spotted the white of the eggs need to be sure eggs are fully dry so color doesn't run. We also had stuffed mushroom caps and sliced red apples with vanilla yogurt dip since apples are Yoshi's favorite snack. 

Cake: I did make a cake 2-tier with top tier a smaller size than the bottom.  Following an Idea I saw online I made marshmallow fondant at home and decorated the top piece as the green pipe and the bottom tier was level 1 of the original Mario Bros fondant used throughout.  My sister also made cupcakes also using fondant to decorate them to look like red green and blue mushrooms.  The cake was topped with a Toy Mario in his kart and I found Star Candles with a 4 on it at my grocery store. 

Favors:  I made 24 candy bags using paper bags that came in an assortment of colors.  I had decorated each bag with different characters from the game trying to use the same color character to match the bag for example Mario went on a red bag Luigi on green stars on yellow purple coins (from Mario Galaxy) on purple bags etc. I used permanent Markers contruction paper and sticky foam to create the characters. This took me the most time and effort to create because I cut out each detail of the eyes hair etc piece by painstaking piece.  They turned out beautiful.  Remember I can't draw so I transferred the characters on the bags from images I found online tracing the outline of each character to the bag and then filling in the lines. 

Each bag was filled with several items I found at Party City. Mind you Party City didn't carry any Mario Bros sets but in their 4 items for $1 section I found glow in the dark (yellow not neon) stars orange fireball looking things mini tiaras for the girls and pink pencil sharpener high heels.  I also bought gold chocolate coins.  At Hobby Lobby I found plain white plastic eggs which I decorated with green blue yellow and red spots for Yoshi Eggs which I then filled with jelly beans I threw in some other random candies."