Who’s ready for a Mario Kart Party!!! If your little one is a fan of this popular character, a Mario Kart party is a great theme for a birthday or celebration – there are so many things you can do (and many of them won’t cost a fortune!).
Our celebration centered around Mario Kart (the racing game) but a number of these would work for any of the Mario games! Read on to check it out!
DECORATIONS
To keep costs low, our decorations were pretty simple – we used A TON of items from Play Nintendo: play.nintendo.com – there are printables, activities, crafts, recipe ideas. These worked great to keep our costs low for our party 🙂 If your kiddo is in need of some activities a few days before the party, they can also help with decorations by creating a few easy crafts.
If you have any Super Mario toys or figurines and don’t mind having them out, those would make great additions to the party as well! (And if you’re going with the Mario kart theme, any of those toy cards would be great additions to the party area).
From Play Nintendo, we printed out and set up a number of Super Mario Decorations, Super Mario Party Pennants, and Paper Blocks. They take a bit of time to cut out or fold together but they’re fairly easy to make and set up. 😉
For our entryway into the party, we had a few printouts of the Mario Kart Circuit Badge where kids could fill out their ‘Racer IDs’. We also had some Badge Holders so they could put their ‘Racer ID’ into and look like a legitimate racer 🙂 The kids loved this idea and got creative with “racer names”
We also created some basic labels for the party that you can use for your own personal use. (Link coming soon!)
THE PHOTO AREA
Photo backdrops are a great way of setting a theme and double as a nice and easy activity! Pick a backdrop that functions as decorative, add a few props to the scene and you’ve got a great place to hang out!
While we went with a basic Cloud Backdrop and supplemented with some Mario Masks that the kids could keep, there are also some really nice Super Mario Backdrops that would be perfect for any Mario themed party: Super Mario Backdrop and Super Mario Banner! Also, if you can’t get your hand on some masks or photo props, there are some Mario and Luigi printables on the play.nintendo.com site: Mario & Luigi Masks.
Note, you don’t have to go all out with a photo backdrop stand either. Grab a few pieces of tape and an empty wall & you’re all set!
THE TABLE
With just a few Gaming and Super Mario themed items, you can create an awesome table perfect for your little ones! We purchased a few Super Mario themed items: Super Mario Plates, Super Mario Cups, Super Mario Napkins and also used some of the printables from play.nintendo.com.
At each place setting, we added a Powered Up Activity Sheet and a Mushroom Kingdom Activity Sheet to keep the little ones entertained throughout the meal. We also printed out some Super Mario Toppers and used them as straw toppers instead of pencil toppers. They worked really well for the party 🙂 And little did the kids know but the paper cubes were filled with a little treat AND used for a game later on in the day 🙂 Along with the table setting, we also set up a hot wheels car (usually you can find these at any store for $1 or just above $1.
For our centerpiece, we set up a mini race course using the printables from the Mario Kart Home Circuit Race Course and cars from the Mario Kart Cake Toppers.
PARTY FOOD
No party is complete without some party food! You can always serve some typical (or fancier) party food, but you can also keep in theme with a few clever labels 🙂
For this party, we also set up the party food table with a nod to the Mario Kart Circuits – We used a plain green table cover (for the grass) and laid out some black construction paper (for the road). Then we used black plates to serve the food along with our homemade labels. We used the paper boxes to hold up the labels, which added an extra decorative touch. Sprinkled around the ‘track’ were a few cars and images reused from some of the Play Nintendo printouts 😉
- Princess Peach’s Peaches – Anything & everything peaches would work here! peach fruit, peach yogurt, peach salad, peach pie, peach gummy rings
- Turtle Shells – Green apples, kiwis, green grapes, green jello would work great here. You could also get creative and set up a fruit turtle shell.
- Piranha Plant: Watermelon or strawberries
- Mystery Blocks: Yellow cheese blocks
- Super Stars: Anything star shaped: star cheese shapes, start shaped sandwiches, etc.
- Gold Coins: Ritz crackers (or any gold/brown circle shaped snacks), chocolate gold coins)
- Banana Peels: Bananas or anything with bananas (banana bread, banana muffins)
- Fire Balls: Cheese Balls, Mini Cheese Rounds
- Toadstools: Mushroom Inspired Deviled Eggs
- Mega Mushrooms or Mushroom Power Ups: anything with mushrooms (stuffed mushrooms, mushroom ravioli)
- Luigi’s Linguini: Any linguini recipe
- Mario’s Meatballs: meatballs or veggie balls to complement all the pasta 🙂
- Star Sandwiches:
- Koopa Shells: Buttered shell pasta or stuffed large pasta shells
- Flower Power: flower cookies
- Cupcakes with Printable Mario Cupcake Toppers
ACTIVITY TABLE(S)
We typically set up an activity table for kids to keep entertained while everyone arrives AND after all the games are done. These activities are simple and easy and typically don’t require too much supervision.
And while we didn’t have these crafts set up at our activity table, you could also add these in for some more before or after party games fun. (We used them for additional decorations throughout the party)
ACTIVITIES & GAMES
What’s a party without some fun and memorable games??? Kids will definitely have fun just running around and coming up with their own games, BUT adding in a few themed games will definitely be a hit with your guests! Here were a few of ours.
We told the kids that they were in a Super Mario Kart track and so they had to perform a few missions. Just like the tracks, there were a few things they had to avoid (piranha plants and oil spills) and a few things they could collect (gold coins and stars). We used red pom poms for piranhas and black construction paper for the oil spills. We had a few of those on the floor in the area of the game. We also had some gold coins and glow in the dark stars that we’d randomly (but lightly) toss around the game area so the kids could scramble to grab as many as they could 🙂
Our missions were based off of actual missions in the Mario Kart games. There are actually quite a few missions (Mission Mode by mariokart.fandom.com) but we only picked a handful that were easy enough to set up as a physical game:
- Mission: Drive Through 5 Gates. For this game, we had some toy cars and some makeshift arches with numbers on them. Then, depending on the toy car skill set of the child, we set up the arches ranging from easy to get to hard.
- Mission: Destroy 3 Item Boxes. For this game, we used the Nintendo Paper Blocks and hid them around the party area. We made sure to have 3 per child and added a small piece of candy inside. Each kid had to bring their boxes to the center before destroying (just to make sure everyone got five 😉 )
- Mission: Complete 2 Laps in a Short Time: For this game, we had planned to let them run around the yard but it was a bit too cold… Instead, we had them do a few sillier ways to get across the hallway as fast as they could (walk backwards – without bumping into anything, side-ways walk, crab walk).
- Mission: Collect 20 gold coins. If you can get some Gold Coins, these would be great to hide around. Depending on how many kids you have, you can also alter the # of coins to find 😉
- Mission: Find all the Yoshi Eggs: Collect 5 eggs. Time to bring out all those plastic Easter eggs! If you want to get really fancy, you can use Polka Dot Eggs to resemble Yoshi’s Eggs a bit more closely. Otherwise, the little ones will have just as much fun finding the regular plastic eggs 🙂
- Yoshi Egg Pinatas: These are easy & don’t cost too much to make (but take some time planning out) – They’re oval shaped pinatas made from paper mache. You can make them look like Yoshi Eggs by making them mostly white with a few green spots. We used the recipe from instrutables.com: Paper Mache With Flour. We used them pretty successfully for a number of parties including our Dinosaur Party!
- Mario Kart Video Game!!!: And if they still have energy when all the games are done, turn on the Mario kart video game and let them race away!
GOODIE BAGS & GIVEAWAYS
Since we had a smaller group, we decided to give out one small but more costly gift for each kid (roughly $5 each). We had a small bag with the yellow question mark – to resemble the mystery box – and added in Mini Mario Kart Lego Figurines. They’re supposed to be part of an expansion and play pack but they’re fun to put together even without the track 🙂
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking our our article. We hope you found this party guide helpful and maybe even inspired more ideas! If you get a chance, let us know what you think in the comments below or follow us on Pinterest!
Also, if you’re still looking for a perfect party theme, feel free to check out our other Gaming Party Ideas or Party Ideas!
Happy Party Planning!
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