Pre-Party Prep
When my daughter asked for a Mario Party theme for her birthday I was so excited to get started. I knew I wanted most of the decorations to be homemade to keep the cost down but I also didn’t want to put too much on my shoulders. This was my daughter’s 10th birthday so we planned the party for 1-3 pm and 2 hours was plenty of time for all the activities. Since I didn’t have contact information for a few of her friends we opted to buy invitations off of Amazon so she could hand them out at school. These were only $13.
As far as activities went, we had thing in mind – creating a Mario Level in the backyard. This is where we got creative. My daughter and I walked around the backyard and garage and thought about what we could turn each old toy and piece of yard furniture into that was reminiscent of a Mario level. Essentially, we just created an obstacle course. Another thing I purchased were these yard signs that we placed throughout the level to signify different sections which were $19.
I purposely planned the party outside of mealtime so I could grab some fingers foods rather than ordering pizzas or sandwiches. There are a ton of ideas on Pinterest for fun ways to make food Mario-themed but I weighed what I thought the kids would be impressed with vs. the adults and decided to put my energy elsewhere. Instead I got some store bought snacks and made some cute snack bags for the kids to write their name on and grab any combination of snacks they want to carry around on the go.
I created a playlist on Amazon Music that had different Mario level themes. I opted for the traditional Mario “sounds” rather than the soundtrack from the blockbuster movie – although some of those are good too. To make your own, I recommend search 8 bit . We had that play list going on a bluetooth speaker in the back yard and it really set the vibe and got the kids excited to complete the Mario level.
The Decorations
Most of the decorations are made with balloons, card stock, and sharpies. I also used a white paint pen, and ribbon. Most of which I already had on hand. This banner was perfect for the fence in the backyard and was only $13.
In our entry way, I had these stone pounds hanging from dowels. I made these from black card stock, white paint pen, and just a little red sharpie for the eyes. I drew the edges first, and then cut out the triangles on the sides to make the shape. The dowels were just repurposed from the garden. I had every intention of painting them black but time got away from me.
For some tabletop decorations, I made some Bombs out of black balloons, white paint pen, and yellow card stock. I hot glued the feet to the tip of the balloon but in retrospect I should have done it the other way around. I glued a small piece of white ribbon to the top for the fuse. Just two big white eyes was all it took to make the faces.
I made a few Yoshi Egg balloons to decorate that part of the level with some white balloons and green sharpie. Simple! I tied them to a couple trees.
From there, the obstacle course became the decorations.
The Mario Level Obstacle Course
We had 10 kids going through this obstacle course. I walked them all through each part of it before I had them begin. They followed me around with eager anticipation. Here were the rules I set out: Each character marked a different part of the course. So, as they reached the next character they had to wait for their teammates (this is a multiplayer game after all) to catch up before moving on to the next part. They were encouraged to cheer each other on and although it was my daughter’s 10th birthday but we had kids of all ages so this was fun to watch. Here’s the tricky part, just like in a real Mario level, if you feel off the “Bridge of Fury” (AKA, my old chaise lounge) or fell off the stones into the “lava” or a mushroom or ghost balloon blew into them on this windy day, they had to start over!
Once they all understood the rules, they lined up at Toad, we cranked up the Mario music, and I yelled “GO!”
They started by climbing up the “Slide of Treachery” (an old baby slide), onto the Bridge of Fury (my old chaise lounge chair), through the “Lava” by stepping on some leftover garden stones (which also acted as the weight to hold the yellow, orange, and red plastic table cloths down), then they got to the mushrooms. I blew up 20 gold balloons, and use some eyeball stickers that I laying around and some black sharpie to make the faces. I tied a long string onto each mushroom and anchored them to Luigi next to a paved area of our yard. It was so windy that day that Luigi couldn’t hold them down himself so I brought over a piece of garden fence to help out. I had all the mushroom balloons in a trash bag and released them right before they start the level. It was harder to pop them all than I thought it would be. Some had deflated a bit so they had to use their Mario strategizing skills to figure out how to get those popped.
From there they crossed the trampoline, to the Kart, which was an old baby scooter toy. The birthday girl squeezed onto to the too-small toy and all her friends had to work together to push her up a slight hill lined with these race track flags. If anyone went off the track, or if she fell off from 9 other kids shoving her, they had to start over. So hilarious!
From there, they had to get all 8 bean bags into the corn hole set up. We had an adult hurling the missed shots back to kids to retry, encouraging everyone to get a few shots in. The panic when they kept missing was so fun! We didn’t give them a timer but they seemed to feel the pressure.
Finally, they got the last one in and headed to the Yoshi Egg Hunt. We have a ping pong table so it made more sense for me to get some white ping balls instead of white plastic eggs made more sense for us (we’ll still use them to play ping pong!) I just colored some green spots on with a sharpie. I set a little basket next to the Yoshi yard sign and they knew they had 12 eggs to find in one of our garden beds.
Then, our little playhouse was called a ghost house and I tied some ghost balloons to the Bowser Yard Sign. I simply blew up some white balloons and colored the faces on with black and red sharpie. I gave only one of the ghosts arms with some rolled up computer paper. All the kids had to do was get past them, walk the narrow path between the fence and the house, without the wind blowing one of the ghost balloons into them. Waiting on the other side was the Princess Peach yard sign! Once they each touched her head, they had earned cupcakes!
Food
I bought some of these letter balloons for about $1 each at the party supply store, and wrote out POWER UP over the food table. They don’t use helium so you can do them yourself and tape or string them to your wall. I had intended to tape these neatly lined up on wall but I couldn’t get them to stick to the brick so I strung them up instead and they probably would have looked better if it hadn’t been such an insanely windy day.
I didn’t want to fuss too much over the food so I made some snack bags by cutting the tops off of white paper lunch sacks, printed off some Mario characters, cut them out, and used an extra strength glue stick to attach to the bags. You could also just use Mario stickers of course. I wrote instructions on one of the bags, popped it open to hold the rest, added a marker, and then set out all sorts of chips, pretzels, etc for the kids to serve (and re-serve) themselves. I also had a fruit and veggie tray sitting out. I had a big ice bucket holding mini bottled waters and mini Honest juice boxes (both purchased from Costco.)
Instead of ordering a Mario-themed cake, I opted to buy some cupcakes from the grocery store that had plain white icing, and toped them each with these cupcake toppers from amazon which were just $10.
There are a ton of Mario party favors to chose from on Amazon but the one thing my daughter insisted on were these make-a-face sticker sheets. These would also be a good activity to have laid out at the party.
It was such a fun day! I hope these ideas help inspire you as you plan your own Mario party!