Super Mario Party -4yr- Cardboard Characters

We just had a Super Mario 4th birthday party and it was tons of fun. 

For invitations I made them on the computer.  I took the mario party logo and wrote you're invited to my on top of the logo.  I downloaded the mario & luigi font from the internet to write the party info at the bottom as well as the phrase WOO HOO! which is what mario always says.  I found pictures of all the different characters and sprites from the game.  Then I took a picture of the birthday boy in a mario hat to paste in with all the characters.  He was giving a thumbs up like mario does.   Most of the characters pictures were from the mario party game so they were in party hats or holding party favors already. 

DECORATIONS:  The only decorations I could find were on ebay and were too expensive for just a few items so I just bought printer ink & paints to make my own.  I bought streamers, plates, napkins, paper bags, balloons, tablecloths etc. in bright red, blue, yellow, & green.  The main decorations were huge cardboard cutouts of the main characters.  I hand drew 4 and 5 foot standee characters on cardboard from huge boxes.  Then I painted them and cut them out with a box cutter.  The biggest characters were 5 foot bowser, petey piranha(the boss from mario sunshine), princess peach & luigi.  A little smaller were Yoshi & mario(mario is shorter than luigi & princess peach).  Toad was a bit smaller and the goomba, baby bowser, and the sunsprite from mario sunshine were the smallest.  People were asking where I bought these at.  The kids loved that the characters were so big.  They were a lot of work but it was definitely worth it. 

They really pulled everything together and most kids and adults knew the characters and also made great picture props.  I had 5 yellow mylar star balloons left over from another party so I refilled them with a helium tank and put eyes on them so they looked just like mario stars.  I made bunches of balloons with one of each color and one star balloon.  I had over 60 balloons.  I filled about half with helium and the rest I tied in bunches to hang around the room.  Holding the balloons down were piranha plants that I made.  I used old formula cans covered in green construction paper, then a one inch strip of green foam at the top with another strip of green construction paper over that to make a mario pipe.  It would probably be much easier to use small flower pots and paint them green but I was using whatever I had around the house. For the piranah plants I used styrofoam balls.  I cut out a wedge for the mouth and used salt dough to form the lips & teeth.  Then I painted them red with white spots.  I used green craft popsicle sticks for the stems and made leaves out of construction paper.  These were at the middle of each table.  They turned out really great and people begged me for them after the party. 

I made a pennant flag string out of red, blue, green, & yellow construction paper.  I designed them on the computer with a mario picture on each and printed them off on the construction paper.  I got two flags per sheet.  Then I sewed them on a ribbon.  I hung this banner in from the entryway that separates the two sections of the party room and tied a bunch of balloons at each point where the banner was pinned.  I made a big banner that said HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY in the mario font.  I colored them in the same colors as the decorations.  I blew up the invitations of the birthday boy with all of the characters and deleted the party info and instead put _________ is 4! WOO HOO!  And hung them around the room. I printed them on 8x10 sheets of photo paper.  I made 10 inch mushrooms, bob bombs and other stuff on tagboard to hang around the room as well.  My sister found a lot of mario songs and mario theme remixes online and burned a copy to play at the party.  The songs were so cute the kids loved them.  You could burn copies for the guests to take home if you wanted to. 

ACTIVITIES:  I bought gold coins at the dollar tree and my little sister hid them around the building for the kids to find.  I taped them on the walls too look like the game and hid them outside too.  I hung 5 coins in a row hanging from the ceiling with string just like in the old mario games.  They got to pick a bag to put their coins in.  I printed off pictures of the characters(about 7 different ones) and glued them to the paper bags.  I had a few pink leftover bags from Valentines day so I put princess peach & toadette on those ones for the girls.  Luigi bags were green, mario red, bowser & daisy on yellow, and yoshi's on blues. 

The kids ran around finding coins then brought them to Peaches prize stand.  The 5 foot princess peach was setup by the stand that had the prizes they could buy  I had mario & luigi hats, princess peach & daisy crowns, coin boxes, mario coloring books, & squirtguns(because mario sunshine is a water game)  I also printed off a few mario sunshine stars for special prizes and hid those outside with the gold coins.  The hats were Christmas hats from Oriental trading.  There were 6 red hats and 6 green hats for $9.99 on clearance.  I made white ovals, red M's and green L's  out of felt.  The birthday boy helped glue them on with fabric glue.  I wasn't sure if the kids would like them but they flipped out over them and wore them the entire party.  I found the crowns also on clearance at walmart for $1 each. 

The coloring books were made on the computer.  I found real scans of old mario coloring books and touched them up in a photo program so they would print out as clear as a coloring sheet.  The from page was a picture of mario in a party hat and a party popper.  On the top I put Happy 4th Birthday _________! And at the bottom I had Thanks for coming!  I had five pages, three coloring pictures, one luigi maze, and a piranha plant dot to dot activity.  The coin boxes were also printed off the computer.  I looked for a printable box template online and made them look like mario coin boxes(yellow with a white question mark) in a photo program.  I then cut them out and assembled them and stuck five large chocolate gold coins inside.  The kids thought they were so cool. 

I even made extra for anyone who wanted them.  The other game I had planned but had to cancel was Mario kart races.  I planned to let the kids race four at a time and I had plastic gold tropies for them.  I stuck on mario stars, mushrooms & fire power plant pictures on them just like on the game.  I printed them and used modge podge to make them stick on the black part of the tropies. Our other game was pin the M on mario.  I drew a big mario picture on a sheet of tagboard and made ovals with the letter M on them.  We ate and and had more games afterwards. 

We just did BBQ picnic foods at the birthday boys request but you could do Luigi's pizza, Yoshi eggs, Mario sunshine sludge(vanilla & chocolate pudding swirled together,  Yoshi fruit kabobs, Piranha plant fire balls(BBQ meat balls) etc.  Our next activity was a pabitin.  It's a Filipino game that I saw online.  You make a grid out of sticks(I used dowel rods from walmart and tired them together with yarn)  and hang prizes off of it with thread.  The kids gather and jump up to grab the prizes off while someone highers and lowers the grid with the rope(like a pinata).  I knew that the little kids would get trampled so I had them line up youngest to oldest and they went one at a time.  The prizes were from the dollar store or walmarts .88 cent section. 

I bought 18 prizes(17 kids came) like robots, light up swords, makeup sets, big squirt guns, car playsets etc.  It's hard to find mario prizes so I just called it YOSHI'S PRIZE DROP.  I printed off a sign that said yoshi's prize drop and a picture of a yoshi reaching high.  At the bottom of the sign it said REACH FOR A PRIZE!  The kids and adluts thought it was so cool and asked directions on how to make it.  Our last game was the Chomp Chomp pinata.  The birthday boy chose this and helped make it.  I used a 24 inch beach ball for the shape.  I painted it black and painted on the eyes and teeth.  For the chain I just used paper chains made with black construction paper.  I used 3 layers of thick paper mache but the kids busted it pretty fast so next time I will do 4 or 5 layers.  I had them hunt for the pinata.  I told them the chomp chomp ate all the candy and got lose. 

I had clues set up for them outside.  The had to open big coin boxes with mushrooms or stars inside with clues on the back telling them where to look for the next box.  One of the clues was even a yoshi egg(paper mache).  The pinata was filled with tons of candy and also small toys(bracelets, army guys, small play dohs, tiny bubbles, small chinese yo-yo's, fruit snacks(made labels that said yoshi's fruit snacks.  They were pretty surprised when more then just candy fell out of the pinata.  If you try using a beach ball be sure to tape the nozzle shut first!  The babies who were there got bubbles.  I bought a pack of bubbles and made my own labels.  Since they were for the babies I put pictures of baby mario & luigi, baby princess, and baby bowser.  I put thanks for coming to _________'s 4th birthday! In the mario font. 

CAKE:  The bakery would not let me put mario pictures on it because of copyrights.  I just had them decorate in red, yellow, blue & green with stars & balloons on it.  Then I printed off pictures of mario characters on good photopaper and cut them out perfectly.  Then I taped them to popsicle sticks and stuck them around the cake with some of the gold coins stacked up like they are in the mario party games.  I also printed off a sunsprite star to put on the cake.  I ordered a half sheet chocolate cake and had quite a few people there so I also made white cupcakes.  I frosted them red with white spots for the mushrooms from the game.  You could also make them green.  The party was a lot of work and planning but everyone had a great time.  Even though the birthday boy is only 4, he helped out A LOT with the preparations and had a blast doing it.  The kids are still wearing their hats(the party was over 2 weeks ago) and parents are telling me that they wear them everywhere.  For family members who helped out, I made slide show cd's with the party pictures and mario music. 

For thank you notes I'm sending pictures of the kids in their hats or crowns next to the character cutouts.  There are so many ideas for a Super Mario party.  I had planned to show a DVD of the super mario super show during the party but everyone stayed busy.  You could even have a Mario carnival, which is what we thought about doing. With games like a ball toss into warp pipes, feed bowser bean bag toss, big boo's balloon pop with pink and white balloons(you could easily draw boo's face and arms on them) Peach's pop corn & cotton candy stand etc.  There are so many characters and levels from all the games that the possibilities are endless.  Hope this helps someone with their Mario party!