Nintendo-themed party!

Ok, this post is a fun one 🙂

It was just recently Ross’ birthday, and while we had a nice quiet evening to ourselves on the actual day, we had a bit of a grander celebration this past weekend, and it was a success! We are close friends with another couple (Brooke and Jeremiah), and Jeremiah recently had a birthday too, so we thought we’d do a joint birthday celebration!

And thus Brooke and I decided to throw a Nintendo-themed birthday for the boys. It took some planning and work, but overall it was totally doable and affordable and we had so much fun! If you’re looking for some easy ideas on your own Nintendo party or craft ideas, look no further 🙂

Oh and yes, we are all grown adults that still love Nintendo. What of it??
I’ll take you through this from the point of view of the guys. We had them stay at one of our apartments while us girls prepared the other apartment, keeping everything hush hush. Once we let them know we were ready, this is what they saw when they reached their destination…

Yaaay! A pretty standard birthday banner, sure. But what’s this little Nintendo Land sign hanging on the front?

Enter if you dare…

It’s a Nintendo Wonderland!! We had set up decorations all over the place, all themed after some of our favorite classic games.

These adorable balloons were so easy to make – we just got some plain white and pink balloons and drew on them with Sharpie. Ta-daa, a slew of Boos and Kirbies floating all around!

(We had some Starbomb playing in the background when they came in. Ready to partay!

I apologize for the lighting on this one, it completely slipped my mind to close the blinds before taking the picture! But the entire dining area had Pokemon-themed decorations. Can’t go wrong with Pokemon!

But that wasn’t the best part….

Mario costumes for all! I’m so happy with how these turned out 🙂

I had originally wanted to make a variety of hats for different characters, but this whole costume thing was a last-second decision so I didn’t have enough time to really conceptualize it all… But in the end, I rather like us all matching!

Here’s how to make a Mario costume:

The hat was much easier to make than I had first anticipated! I got all the supplies at Michaels – they had red caps that I could by as-is, and I bought red and white fabric and some fabric glue too. Word to the wise… watch out on what fabric you buy. The red fabric should match the red of the cap, and it’s best if you can find some relatively thick fabric, especially for the white one. I didn’t pay enough attention while at the store, and my fabric was actually pretty see-through. I had to glue four layers of fabric on top of each other so that you couldn’t see the red hat underneath! It turned out fine in the end, it was just a bit more of a headache.

To put these together, lightly draw a circle on the white fabric with a pencil. Take your time to measure out the circle and make sure it’ll look okay on the hat. It’s better to make the circle a little too big at first, it’s always easier to trim just trim it later.

Glue the white circle onto the hats with fabric glue (if you can see pencil marks on the fabric, make sure to glue them with the pencil marks facing down so that you can’t see them). Let it dry.

Repeat a similar process with the M’s, this time out of the red fabric. Again, take your time and make sure you like the shape before you cut. Glue these on the white circles and let them dry.

Not particularly fancy, but super easy and they look great! The fake mustaches I got in the clearance section of the store among the kids’ toys. I personally don’t recommend wearing them all day, but they do complete the outfit! At least wear them for the pictures 🙂

The birthday boys!

The sneaky planners of this fiesta.

After socializing for a bit and enjoying all the decorations, it was time for our first big activity. What could be more fitting than Go Karts?

It was time to enjoy Mario Kart IRL. Aww yessssssssssss.

We definitely got some comments from those who knew what the heck we were wearing. Someone even asked for a picture while we were in the cars. So much fun!!

After some racing and playing at the arcade, we headed back to the Nintendo Land apartment for the next activity…

See that Yoshi figure on the left? I think he’s trying to say something…

Ok, THIS is probably what excited me the most 🙂 A Yoshi Egg Hunt! I LOVE treasure hunts, and I think I like making them even more than I like following them.

The Yoshi eggs were super simple to make – I literally just printed them out and wrote clues on the back. One clue led to the next, having the guys run all over the apartment, until they reached their final prize (a birthday present!)

I tried to come up with a variety of clues: a couple that only Ross would know, a couple only Jeremiah would know, and some they could both figure out. That way they could both feel like they were able to contribute.

After this last activity and opening presents, we played a bit of Mario Kart (digital this time :P), and then it was time for us girls to prepare some food! The guys played some card games upstairs while we took over the kitchen. Some more geeky surprises awaited…

First up, appetizers!

I love these little Fire Flower appetizers! One thing that makes me sad about party food, is that way too often it’s a lot of junk food – chips, candy, cookies, etc. I’m fine with that in moderation, but I love it any time that I can cheat the system and get something a little healthier on our plates (while still making sure the snack is tasty and fun – it is a party after all!)

Omnom! Got some veggies in there and used Greek yogurt for the dip… Probably would use less cheese next time (it was the one part we couldn’t finish – we wanted more veggie believe it or not!!), but overall this was a fun and delicious snack, perfect with the Nintendo theme.

Full disclaimer – I grabbed this recipe from the fabulous Youtube channel Nerdy Nummies. Check out the video here if you want to learn how to make these!

And finally, dinner time! Specifically, PIZZA! Ok, back to some typical junk food, but at least the dough was whole wheat?

And yes… that’s a Pokeball pizza. It makes me so happy 🙂 And super easy to make – we just used some Pillsbury pre-made pizza dough and molded it into a circle. Then we added our sauce and cheese, and we used some black olives to separate the circle in half and make the middle line of the Pokeball. On one half we added a bunch of pepperoni to get that red color, and on the other we added a little extra cheese to make sure that side was white.

Since we were four people we thought we’d be a little short with only one pizza – the other one is not Nintendo-themed, but it provided some extra with other toppings (mushroom and bell pepper, yum!)

The finished Pokeball! So fun!

So much tastiness! Instead of doing a birthday cake, we all went out for some ice cream after this, then we came back to have some drinks, play some Cards Against Humanity, and just had a grand old time. I have great memories of this day, it was definitely a success!

The aftermath… You can see the Pokemon decorations a little better though!

 

So there you have it! Many of these ideas would be perfect for all ages and any occasion to party if you love Nintendo, so I hope this helps inspire you!!