Recently my oldest daughter turned 8 years old (my head is still spinning from how big that number is) and she wanted a Nintendo Party Theme for her birthday. Now, this was not a Mario specific birthday, but a Nintendo Party Theme, which included anything Nintendo. That was a tough one for me, since it was so broad a topic.
I had to get creative with this party, and really dig deep to find things that would make this party cohesive, but still cover everything she wanted it to cover. At the end of the day she LOVED the party, and we had a blast! I also made some printable food cards that I will give you as well in the post in case you want to use those for your party as well.
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Nintendo Party Theme
So, when you scroll Pinterest for JUST a Nintendo Party Theme, you get a LOT of Mario crap. The only problem, in our situation, was that two years ago we did a Mario themed party so I didn’t want to do a repeat of stuff we’d already done. So I had to get creative. We wanted to include Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Toad and more so there were a lot of bases to cover!
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There are a LOT of pics in this post, so scroll to see all of them for details on how I did each thing and to find out where I got the stuff I ordered, and to get the free printable food cards I made that you can just print out and use for your party too.
WANT MORE PARTY THEMES? CLICK HERE!
NINTENDO PARTY THEME FOOD
Food is probably my favorite part of doing a themed party like this. It’s a blast to turn ordinary treats like cupcakes or fruit salad into something fun and imaginative to fit a party’s theme! There were so many things I could have done (and some I didn’t do because I just ran out of time), but I really like the ideas I did do. Get the free printable food cards I designed for this party HERE.
CAKE
We are blessed to have an aunt who is an amazing cake decorator! She always makes fantastic cakes for our themed parties and they always turn out looking fantastic. I just love how this cake turned out, don’t you?
MARIO STAR CANDY
This one is cute, but is so super easy. I got a glass star-shaped candy dish from the dollar store, filled it with lemon heads, and then flipped two purple skittles upside down for the eyes. This only works until your two-year-old sticks her adorable grubby hands into the dish. But I got a single picture. That’s what counts. If you cant find one at your dollar store, you can also get them on Amazon HERE.
MUSHROOM CUPCAKES
So, in case you haven’t noticed, my birthday party themes LOOK really cool, but I cut a lot of corners because I don’t want to spend a week doing everything from scratch. These were just store bought cupcakes from Walmart. Then I used basically white sixlets (find them in the baking section at Walmart, $1 for a whole package) and plopped them on top of the icing. I used a permanent marker to put two little lines on the front of the cupcake liners and ta-dah! Mushroom cupcakes! You could also do these with green frosting as well. Pro tip: the black marker shows up best on white cake cupcakes.
KOOPPA FRUIT SALAD
So from this angle you can’t tell AS well, but from the side this looked like a turtle shell! The best thing is, the watermelon gets put back in the bowl (with other fruits), and you don’t need any fruit salad dressing or anything. Just cut your watermelon with a curving swoop along the top. Use a peeler to peel about 2 inches of the green watermelon peel from the rim of the watermelon itself. Use a large spoon to scoop out the watermelon fruit. Drain the extra juice out of the bottom of the watermelon “bowl” and fill it with the chopped up watermelon fruit and other chopped fruits as well. Get the Nintendo printable food cards I made HERE.
PRINCESS PEACH RINGS
Again, super simple. Peach rings from the dollar store in a bowl, with one of the cute little food cards. Princess Peach Rings. Perfect for a Nintendo Party Theme.
DONKEY KONG’S BANANAS
Again, super simple. Bananas, a couple of Donkey Kong figures on the table, and the cute little sign. I did mini bananas and regular bananas. Kids loved them.
I found these adorable gummy pizzas on Amazon HERE. They come in a big package of 48, so basically we’re eating them for the rest of our lives. But they’re fun to label as Super Mario Brothers Pizzas and give an ode to their Italian heritage.
RAINBOW ROADS
You can’t have a Nintendo Party Theme without referencing Mario Kart! Rainbow Road is that iconic level where no one can stay on the track while they race. I used Air Head Extremes (found in the Walmart candy aisle or HERE on Amazon) and the cute printable sign you can get HERE to represent the Rainbow Road.
YOSHI EGGS
My husband helped with these eggs. They didn’t turn out exactly like I envisioned because I forgot my neon green permanent marker at home and had to use a green paint marker I found at the venue. I would definitely use the green permanent marker. These we filled with Skittles we had left from the ones I used for the eyes in the Mario Star candy dish. Get the white plastic eggs on the list HERE.
WANT MORE PARTY THEMES? CLICK HERE!
Nintendo Party Theme Decorations
When it came to decor, there were SO many options. I made an Amazon list HERE of all my favorite items. Some of those items I used, some I didn’t. Either way, it’s an easy way to see them all in one place.
GIANT INFLATABLE MUSHROOM
This huge mushroom is actually a floating raft that I found on Amazon HERE. But, it was way too huge and cool not to get and display at the party, plus we can use it again after the party is over. I also used a huge Happy Birthday banner I found on my list HERE that was perfect to fill the extra wall space.
TABLES
I had four sets of tables at the party. I did each set in a different theme to further the amount of Nintendo characters and components I could include for the party. The top left picture is of the Mario Kart themed table. I used black plastic table cloths on all the tables. This one I used a silver permanent marker on, down the center, to create a curvy race track. I put some confetti on the table and some cars and a bullet bill on the track. Top right is the vintage Mario table. I found an authentic vintage paper tablecloth on ebay and used it for the party and put some vintage characters on top along withour Amiibo stand. The third table was Super Mario Galaxy themed. I used the wall tapestry I found HERE as a table topper, some star confetti, and some Mario characters. The fourth table was the Pokemon themed table which included some confetti and a ton of little plastic Pokemon characters we had from McDonald’s toys.
BALLOONS
So when it comes to balloons I’m basically going to tell you what NOT to use for your Nintendo Party Theme. I ordered this big pack of large mylar Pokemon balloons from Amazon that I thought were going to be amazing. They looked amazing, but they weren’t. Most of them were so sealed you couldn’t actually blow them up, one of the balloons filled fine, but the balloon itself was so heavy that even fully filled with helium it wouldn’t float. Another balloon burst when it was about half full. DO NOT buy these. This Pokemon balloon was the only one that floated and was usable, and the printing is even weird on it’s face, as you can see. HOWEVER, the awesome vintage Kirby balloon I got from Ebay worked great!
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ACTIVITIES
So besides opening presents, and all the awesome food, we just did a single activity. The reason for that being it was an activity that took a long time to do so we only had time for one. This also worked as not only the activity, but also as the party favors for people to take home with them. Find the kits on the list HERE.
PERLER BEAD DESIGNING
Do you remember doing these perler bead designs as a kid? I found these amazing sets that are based on Super Mario 3 on Amazon. They come with the trays, design sheets for tons of characters, all the beads you need, stands to display the creations after they’re done, and the wax paper to iron them.
It gives you all the instructions on how to make them since most of us haven’t done it in a while and are a little rusty on remembering how to do it. All you need to make these besides the kits are an iron or two.
These are the stands that come with them so you can display your creations when you’re finished with them! I would definitely suggest doing these with older kids since you need a lot of dexterity and patience to do even the small designs. Don’t they turn out looking so cool? Get the kits HERE.
I hope you enjoyed our Nintendo Party Theme! If you want the free printable meal cards I made, you can get those HERE. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below! You can also click to share this on Pinterest to save this for later , or on Facebook to share with someone you know would love this!
