Super Mario Bros Birthday Party

When planning a birthday party, one of the first things to consider is the invitation. While online invitations have become a fast-growing trend, we still enjoy getting a physical invitation in the mail.

You have two options when purchasing invitations. The first one is to purchase a personalized PDF copy that you will need to have printed locally. The second one is a fill-in-the-blank invitation. There are typically more options for customizations with a personalized PDF invitation, but you will need a good home printer or a local printer nearby to receive the physical copies. For fill-in-the-blank invitations, these Super Mario Bros Birthday Party invitations are a sure way to get your guests pumped up about the upcoming celebration!

Other Super Mario birthday party backdrops we considered include this one and this one.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to decorate for your event, you might want to consider an all-in-one themed decoration kit. These party kits contain everything you need for a smashing party without having to source everything separately.

Our Super Mario Bros Birthday party consisted of a combination of store bought items and handmade party décor. On the food and gift tables, we purchased a Mario-themed plastic tablecloth that included the whole Super Mario Bros gang. Since the eating tables were much smaller, we opted for solid square plastic tablecloths in red and green.

Another popular balloon option is to incorporate a balloon arch. These all-in-one balloon arch kits are easy to make and typically the most cost-effective. You can make it days in advance, and it will still hold air and maintain its shape. If you decide to purchase a balloon arch kit, make sure you grab a balloon pump too. It makes the job substantially easier.

Having themed plates and napkins is a great way to add décor to your food table, especially if you don’t want to make the food themed. During our party, Mario plates were used for the food and green and red one-up mushroom plates were used for the cupcakes. Yoshi napkins were the perfect touch to tie everything together. We had bottled drinks available to the guests, but there are plenty of Super Mario themed party cups if you want to add more to the overall feel of the party.

Themed party plates, napkins, and cups can get pricey if you have a lot of guests attending your party. If you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for or are trying to find a spot to save a little money, you might want to consider going with one themed item – such as the food or dessert plates and using a solid color for the other items. Solid colored plates in red, yellow, or green will still match the theme, but can usually be purchased at half the cost.

Two of my favorite Super Mario Bros party decorations were homemade ones – the question mark boxes and the paper piranha plants.

How to Make Super Mario Bros Question Mark Boxes

On each end of the food table were 3 yellow question mark boxes. These were easy to make, but very time consuming. To make your own, you will need:

● White cupcake boxes (preferably no window, but if the window is on top only, you could always have that part be the bottom)
● Yellow paint and a paintbrush
● Print-outs of the question marks and dots in boxy letter (I created these in PowerPoint using a boxy font)

First, you will need to paint all sides of the box. It took 2 coats to completely cover the boxes. This was the time-consuming part. You technically don’t need to paint the bottom side, but you may want to if you plan on keeping these for future use. Then, print out and cut the question mark and dots. Finally, paste them on each side of the box and you’re done. These are super cute décor pieces, but would also make adorable party favor boxes, if you have the time to make one for each guest.

How to Make Super Mario Piranha Plants

On the guest tables, I made 3 paper piranha plants – one for each table. These were made using:

● Red cardstock
● White cardstock
● Large popsicle sticks
● Small plastic planter pots (any color is fine, but green saves you a step)
● Green crinkle cut paper basket filling
● Floral foam
● Green paint and paintbrush
● Glue

To make the piranha plants, first, paint the popsicle sticks and planters with the green paint. The popsicle sticks should be painted on both sides and will need at least two coats of paint.

For the head of the piranha plant, you will use two sheets of red cardstock per plant. Fold both sheets of paper like you would a paper fan. While folded up, bend the paper in half and glue it together to create a half fan. Do the same thing with the other sheet of paper. Then, glue the two half fans together on one of the sides. Make sure to keep one side open because this will be the mouth.

Once the red part of the piranha head is complete, cut out and paste the circles and mouth. I used a Gatorade top as the pattern for the circles and free-handed the mouth. After the piranha heads are complete and dry, glue each one to one of the green popsicle stick stems. You could choose to have the heads facing in the same direction, but I thought it was fun to have some facing up and some facing to the sides.

Next, place the floral foam in the empty planter. You may need to cut down the foam to fit your planter. Then, insert the popsicle stick piranha into the foam. If it is unstable, add something to the bottom for weight. I used balloon weights to make it sturdier. Cover the bottom of the planter with green paper filler to finish up the plant.

There is an endless number of ideas for a Super Mario Bros birthday party cake. While you certainly can hire your favorite baker to make an amazing edible centerpiece, we opted to go with simple Super Mario Bros Power-Up Mushroom cupcakes in a variety of colors. Whether baking a cake or cupcakes, my favorite way to do it is by using a boxed cake mix (Butter Recipe Golden is the gold standard for boxed cakes) and homemade buttercream frosting. These two together create the perfect combination of deliciousness and ease of work.

The Super Mario Bros power-up mushroom cupcakes couldn’t have been easier to create. After you bake your cupcakes and let them cool, pipe your homemade frosting (in a variety of fun colors) to make the mushroom tops. For the spots on the mushrooms, I used white chocolate chips and pressed them into the frosting (pointy side in so the round flat side was showing). I finished off the cupcakes by drawing two lines for eyes on the cupcake wrapper.

If you have children attending the party with food-dye allergies, I’d recommend using natural food coloring for your frosting. The colors are not as vibrant, but are still pretty, and no one feels left.

Our Super Mario cupcakes were displayed on a metal 3-tiered stand and topped with a homemade bowser flag. This specific cupcake stand was purchased from Pottery Barn many years ago. You can find an alternative galvanized cupcake stand here. 

If you would rather have a cake instead of cupcakes and want to save some money, my favorite trick is to purchase a plain cake from a bakery or your local grocer and add a fun topper. You can do the same thing with store-bought cupcakes as well.

There are many fun food options to fit the Super Mario Bros birthday party theme. Depending on the time of the party, you could simply offer snacks and cake. However, if your party falls during the lunch or dinner hour, you’ll probably want to offer something a little more substantial.

For our Super Mario Bros birthday party, we opted for pizza as the main course with snacks and cupcakes. It’s hard to go wrong with pizza. Plus, it is one less thing that has to be made which is a win-win for me. To go with the pizza, we had Pringles (original – because it has a red can and mustache), Super Mario Bros themed Chips Ahoy cookie and Teddy Graham packs, chocolate covered pretzel rods in pink and green (to represent Princess Peach and Yoshi), grape and strawberry piranha plant skewers, and a “firepower” plant vegetable tray.

If your party is for an older child, a Super Mario Bros theme is perfect for a gaming party. There are a few options you could do with this. For a home party, the kids could simply get together for an afternoon of Nintendo play time. Another option could be playing Mario Kart and having challenges with a handmade scoreboard, where you move the players up and down based on their scores.

Depending on where you live, you could also consider renting a gaming truck or hosting the party at an arcade or other gaming center. We have a local VR place that made an excellent location for our party. Although there weren’t any VR Mario experiences, there was a racing experience and kids who were waiting for their turn on the VR sets could play Mario Kart or other games on the wall of TVs set up in the front.

There is a plethora of goodies and party favors that are perfect for a Super Mario Bros themed birthday party. We found a bunch of Yoshi figurines on clearance at our local Target. Unfortunately, these are not available anymore, but here are some of our favorite party favors that we considered from Amazon.

Nintendo Super Mario Pez Dispensers (12-Pack)
Super Mario Bros Character Drinking Straws (24-Pack)
Nintendo Super Mario Bros Invisible Ink Pen and Notepad Set (12-Pack)

● Princess Tea Party Ideas

● Little Mermaid Birthday Party Ideas