It's Mario Time!

It has been WAY TOO LONG since I last updated! I have been intending to blog about Isaac's Mario 4th Birthday Party. Since he will be 6 soon, this post is well overdue. Isaac asked for a Mario-themed birthday party, and I quickly learned that Mario party items were no where to be found. Now, 2 years later, I am seeing the stuff everywhere! I decided to let my creativity flow and create the party from scratch! The party was in my dark, drab basement, so I hung a few plastic table covers to create a backdrop. I traced the characters onto butcher paper, hoping to make them about the size of the kids, and then painted each character. This was an ongoing project in the evenings for about a week. The pipes were created using cardboard covered in green paper. The "Happy Birthday" sign was made using a free font I downloaded.
We started out the party with a table where the kids could decorate their own goodie bags. They then carried the goodie bags from game to game and collected their prizes. We had a cake walk which is picture above. I taped pictures of Mario characters on the floor, and played Mario music that I downloaded from iTunes. We drew a picture out and whoever was standing on that picture got to pick out a Little Debbie cake.

We had a Cheep Cheep Fishing pond (notice my oldest son sitting behind the board attaching prizes to the clothespin "fish hook"). The kids got to fish twice and received a bag of chips, and a decorated bandana.

Goomba bowling was another game we played. I taped pictures of Goombas to the bowling pins and after bowling the kids got to choose a silly straw.

The kids played Pirahna Plant Bean Bag Toss. They earned glow sticks at this stop.

The King Boo Balloon Pop was a favorite. My lovely grandma manned this game. The chose a King Boo to pop (with a dart), and each balloon held a slip of paper. That slip had a "1" or "2", and the kids got to pick out the corresponding number of mini candybars. For the King Boo balloons, I just blew up white balloons and drew on them with a sharpie marker.

The kids enjoyed Pin the Mustache on Mario.

I'm not a great cake decorator, but I tried:) The cupcakes are just iced to look like the 1-up mushrooms. For the cake, I traced a picture of Mario onto a piece of wax paper, then used a toothpick to poke holes around the outline. I put the base layer of icing on the cake and put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up the icing. Then I laid the wax paper on the cake and poked the toothpick through the holes along the outline. I used the dots as a guide for piping the black outline, then filled Mario with color. Like I said, I'm not a great cake decorator, but Isaac was thrilled with the way it turned out.

This party was so much work, but an absolute blast to create. In the end, I was glad I had to make everything rather than buying. My kids still play with those Mario character cut outs, and they still talk about that party...so to me, it was a complete success!