A Super Duper Super Mario Bash!

 TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF THE FREE SHIPPING PROMO!  DON'T MISS OUT!!

Last Saturday my baby boy turned 6!!  I have no idea how that happened...it can't possibly have been 6 years since he was born!  To celebrate his big day we threw a Super Mario themed extravaganza for 14 of his nearest and dearest friends!  YIKES!
Unbeknownst to me, there is NOTHING available locally in the way of decorations...who knew that Mario was old-school?  So, I set about making my own...Stampin' Up style, of course!  I used some templates I found online but also had fun creating my own  designs.  Have a look:

My Birthday Boy!

Wall Mural:  The backdrop is a plastic table cloth.  I used Daffodil Delight for the question blocks and Gunball Green for the pipe.  The clouds are hand-cut from copy paper.  The bricks are patterned bulletin board paper I found at a local store.

Luigi and friends!

I made a bunch of these guys to decorate the party area in the basement.  The kids loved it!

Goomba, powerup mushrooms and fire flower

I wrapped boxes to look like bricks and question blocks and set up this little vignette on the landing on the stairs.  The pipes were on clearance at a local hardware store and my DH spray painted them green.  I made the Pirhana Plant using felt and a styrofoam ball.  The Chomp is just a black balloon with copy paper teeth and eyes and and black card stock chain.  We finally found a practical use for all of Max's Mario stuffies!

The table before the mob arrived!  I found the ball caps at our local dollar store and then added the "M" with felt I die cut using the Typeset Alphabet Bigz dies.  The kids got the hats to keep in place of party hats.

A better shot of the pirhana plant!

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the cake!  Daddy was too busy videotaping the whole thing to think to take still photos.  I made a question mark block cake and hid Loonies (our Canadian $1 gold-coloured coins) inside.  The kids were thrilled to find coins in their cake and when I told them it was REAL MONEY they were especially excited!  In case any of you are ever thinking of holding your own Mario-themed party, here are a couple of game ideas:

Bean Bag Toss - I made the board using foam core and images I found online and then enlarged using Blockposters.com.  The numbers represent the number of chocolate coins each hole was worth.  This one was a BIG hit!

Pin the Mustache on Mario - Again the board was made using foam core, online images and the help of Blockposters.com - sorry the board isn't more visible...I am standing by the board giving instructions...my DH is the (not-so-great) photographer!

We also played Hot Potato using a stuffed Bowser...nobody wanted to be caught holding him!  I used the Mario theme song for the music.  We did a Find the Mushroom game:

Mushroom Hunt game - Kids are blindfolded and then have 20 seconds to find as many mushrooms in the bowl of marbles as they can.  They get 1 chocolate coin for each mushroom they find.

Hard to believe but, we actually ran out of time for all of the games I had planned.  I had a fun craft for them to make too, but we didn't get to it either!  Here is a shot of the little project I had for them: 

Pirhanna Plant craft - closed

Pirhanna Plant craft - open

I'm kinda bummed that we ran out of time for this little project because I think they would have had fun with it.  Here is what I used:
Real Red  - 2-1/2" circle with a "v" cut out of it
Whisper White - Word Window for lips
Whisper White - Slot punch for teeth (retired)
Whisper White - Itty Bitty punch pack circle for spots
Garden Green - Blossom Builder punch for leaves.

As for the other decorations, here is a quick run down of their parts:

Mushroom:
Ovals collection framelits ( largest non-scalloped oval) for top of mushroom
1" circle for spots
Word Window repunched for eyes
3" x 1-1/4" rectangle for body, round corners
Colours I used were Real  Red, Gumball Green and Tempting Turquoise

Fire Flower:
Ovals collection framelits - smallest die in Whisper White, next largest in Daffodil Delight and next largest again in Tangerine Tango
Slot punch (retired) for eyes
Garden Green - 3/4" strip for stem
Garden Green - Blosom Builder punch for leaves

Goomba:
I used a template I found online HERE.  To save some hand-cutting I used die cuts for some parts:  The  colours I used were:
Chocolate Chip for head
Crumb Cake for body
Early Espresso for feet ( I used the 4th largest die from the Ovals Collection framelits for these(, eyebrowns and mouth
Whisper White for eyes and teeth - I used the 3rd smallest die from the Ovals Framelits to cute the eyes and the Pennant Builder punch for the teeth
Basic Black for pupils (I used the small oval punch for these)

Koopa Troopa:
I used part of the template found HERE but didn't like the look of the head and face so I redesigned it using dies.  Here is what I did:
Shell - Gumball Green or Tangerine Tango
Feet, detail on shell - Daffodil Delight
Head - (all using  Daffodil Delight card stock) largest non-scalloped oval die from Ovals Collection framelits, muzzle 3rd largest die.
Eyes 3rd smallest die in Daffodil Delight, 2nd smallest in Whisper White, small oval punch in black for pupil
Nostrils - circle from Itty Bitty Punch pack in Basic Black
The neck was from part of the template that I just cut down to work with the redesigned head.  I also added a tail that I drew by hand.

Whew...this is a long post...if you're still reading you MUST be a Mario fan!  I hope this helps in planning your next Mario-themed event!

If you like, leave a comment and be  entered in my draw for a free month's subscription to Craft Project Central.  I'll announce the winner on April 16th!