The Minions are coming! The Minions are coming! Today’s premiere of the aptly titled Minions movie is bound to turn even more kids into fans of those yellow goofballs, meaning you may find yourself planning a Minion-themed birthday party for your own little critter before the year is out. While we’ve seen some truly impressive–and impressively time-consuming–Minion birthday party ideas all over the web, we’ve rounded up a bunch of easier, yet still totally adorable and affordable ways to incorporate them into a birthday party without losing your mind.

Kampai! 

(That’s Minion for “Cheers!”)

-Christina + Liz

Minion Birthday Party Invitations

Just send The Indigo Studio your party details, and they’ll get everything set up onto a simple Minion Movie Ticket Party Invitation for you to print at home. You can even change the text on the little Minion sign from Let’s Party to something else. No, Let’s Not Make a Mess won’t fit. I tried. ($7.50 for customized, downloadable PDF)

Bailynn’s Corner’s Minion Party Invitation has cool hand-drawn lettering and a bold graphic that lets partygoers know just exactly what theme they can expect at the party. Once customized, the invitations can be printed and mailed, or just emailed to your guests to save on ink and stamp costs. ($5.50 for downloadable PDF)

We didn’t think it was possible, but Minions get even cuter with the illustrated interpretation on these free printable Kawaii Minion birthday party invitations. Either print them yourself and fill in the party details by hand, or use their option to type your info directly onto the PDF to customize yourself. Whichever one you choose, there will be lots of “awwww” when the recipients open their envelopes. (free download, HaleGrafx)

Minion Birthday Party Decorations

Instead of going out and buying Minion-patterned everything, which can get expensive, it’s so easy to just use the two main Minion colors, blue and yellow, to decorate the main table. Love this example of Minons Party Decor from Cupcake Diaries. Look how easy it is to take little more than a blue tablecloth and yellow utensils and accessories, to make your room look “Minionized.”

Related: 5 easy Minion treats to celebrate the Minions movie

Little Minions get thirsty, so we like Moms Saving Money’s idea that uses plain yellow cups and a couple of craft supplies to create a flock of Minion party cups. Whether you make them look all the same, as shown above, or create a different character for each party guest, scribble the names of each child on the back of the cup so your minions hang on to their cup for the entire party.

I love Tidbits & Twine’s easy-to-make DIY Minion Party Hats tutorial and free printable which will look adorable to line the front entrance as kids enter, then go right on the heads of your busy party goers. It’s a party decoration, costume, and–at the end of the day–party favor that the kids can use for dress-up when they are home. Or to wear when they go see the movie on the big screen.

Add a whole lot of personality to some yellow balloons with a black marker and turn a bunch of helium-filled balloons into a bunch of high-flying Minion Party Balloons. One Lucky Pickle’s idea is one our older kids could do while we’re setting up the rest of the party. Or, it could be a party craft activity in itself. It doesn’t get much easier than this.

Related: 10 birthday party craft ideas that can double as party favors

Minion Birthday Party Activities

Aside from decorating balloons, scavenger hunts are always one of our favorite party games. I love this Minion Party Scavenger Hunt idea that takes advantage of those plastic Easter eggs you may have tucked away in the house. Also, Tidbits and Twine’s tutorial has a great suggestion for insuring that the egg hunt is fair and fun for all the kids.

Looking for a semi-healthy, edible craft? Then check out Lunchbox Dad’s totally fun video instructions for making frozen banana Minions. Not only do Minions loooooove bananas, but kids will love decorating their critters and giving them some personality with colored modeling dough before they gobble them up. Just prep the bananas ahead of time and you’ll have a cool activity ready by the time the party starts.

Java Cupcake’s DIY Pin the Goggles on the Minion Game is a cute twist on the standard. Just hand-draw a large Minion on poster board — don’t worry about perfection — and print out the free goggles provided on their site. If  there is anything sillier than a goggled Minion, it’s a 15-goggled Minion.

Also on Cupcake Diaries, love this fun idea for creating a Minion water gun shooting gallery and turning the guys into the evil purple variety. Definitely follow her tips to make sure yours come out right — like using washable Crayola fingerpaint (we found it here from our Amazon affiliate) to mix with the water is key!

With just some clothespins, markers, and big googly eyes, you can have kids make their own clothespin Minions craft like these adorable ones at Wife Mom Geek. She has all the instructions there — but they’re easy!

For something super easy, try free printable Minions coloring pages! We’ve looked at a lot of sites, and JustColoringPages.com seems a little less spammy than the rest, plus there’s no shortage of designs there. Leave a stack out on a table with crayons and let the kids go to town. You could also print them on legal paper and use them as placemats for each guest, giving them a little something to keep them busy before cake is served.

And what’s a kids party without a photo booth these days?  For just $3.70, Australia’s Upon a Time Designs has these cool printable Minion photo booth props. We really like that Margo, Edith and Agnes are represented too. Just leave time for printing and cutting!

And if you need one, we’ve got a great tutorial on Cool Mom Tech for how to set up your own easy photo booth on your laptop; or download the Simple Booth Event Edition app for iPad, like we did at a recent family event we threw.

Minion Birthday Party Food and Drink Ideas (for parents who haven’t gone to culinary school)

We’ve seen a ton of cute Minions cupcakes all over Pinterest but let’s be honest, unless you have a lot of baking supplies and some serious fondant skills, they’re not going to look like most of those photos. Here’s a cool shortcut that actually comes out well: My own kids made these easy Minion cupcakes using a YouTube tutorial they saw from popular food blogger Nerdy Nummies; we found it from Stacie’s recent roundup of the Best YouTube cooking channels for kids. (Thanks Stacie!) I love the not-too-perfect results, and the party guests were more than happy to gobble up their Minions after admiring their cuteness.

Then again, if you’re going for perfection, try semi-homemade. Mini banana Moon Pies make pretty great Minion Moon Pie Treats, don’t they? These from Kitchen Fun with my 3 Sons look like they can come out pretty well if you just follow her instructions which is mostly about mini marshmallows and black licorice ropes. Skip the blue food coloring if that feels too advanced for you, though it does make them look awesome.  The result: almost too cute to eat. Almost.

What is the perfect Minions drink? Lemonade, of course! Serve in the cups above, or you can even decorate the pitcher so easily, like in this Minions party drink idea from My Skoop. So easy and cute, right?

Another fun option spotted on MomSpark: Amy turned a mason jar into a Minions lemonade dispenser with a simple photo booth printable. If you don’t have too many kids, you could do this on lots of small mason jars, and give each kid his or her own instead of going the paper cup route.

Whether you make your own pizza from scratch, like this one at NeverBored, or doctor up a regular cheese pizza, we love how easy it is to create Minion Party Pizza to serve the party guests. We also appreciate the child-created imperfection, which really does make it perfect. Of course this does require kids to eat black olives, which they may not all do. Our solution: Just make one Minion pizza and leave the rest plain. We get it; our kids are picky too.

Bananas also make the perfect Minion themed treat. And hey, healthy! Liz (as you might know) is always looking for Type B mom party planning shortcuts, and found this world’s easiest way to make Minion bananas thanks to Jess at Me Sew Crazy — with a Sharpie pen. The blue overalls are optional, but it’s worth clicking over for her cute suggestion on serving them.

If you want to spend a little more time, UK’s Party Delights blog offers up these really cute, free Minion banana printables. You can even turn it into a party activity if you’ve got older kids who are handy with a scissors and glue stick.

Individual lemon pudding packs are also the perfect size and color for turning into Minions, as in this clever DIY Minion snack cup treat from I Can Teach My Child. We might look for an organic kind; or you can even use individual yogurt cups — our kids all love Stonyfield Farm yogurt, and wrap with construction paper before decorating.

Want to cheat? Minions Peeps. Seriously. There are a few left at our affiliate Amazon, but local candy stores may have them in stock too. We can’t vouch for the taste but, you know. Peeps.

How awesome is this! Life is Poppin shares a recipe for Minion Snack Mix but we think of it as “Deconstructed Minions.” Or, you know,”Exploded Minions.” The mix of sweet and salty flavors in this easy-to-make snack is so quick to throw together, it’ll give you time to do something else for your little minions. Plus, it might help to break up all those other yellow snacks everywhere.