Graduation time is fast approaching for everyone. Do you have a graduate in your home? Are you trying to plan a party? Or do you need to find a great gift for any graduate. I’ve compiled a few of my favorite graduation party ideas and gift ideas.
Graduation Party Planning
When I do any party planning I like to have a few things that are fun and unique to my party. This does not mean I spend a ton of money or a ton of time planning or setting up for my party. I look for fun ideas that are reasonable. For High School and College Graduations it is very easy to dig out old photos of the graduate to show off how he or she have grown. What can set you apart from others is how you display those old photos.
Of course all of these ideas are going to depend on what kind of space you have and if the party will be held indoor or outdoor. My first photo display is VERY simple. Pick up from your local craft store cloths pins and cord. The cord can be any color and you want to look for medium wait. Hemp works great as well as bakers twine and jute. You find a place in the main room that you want your pictures on display. Take the ends of the cord and string them up. You can tie the ends to something to make sure it stays up for the entire party. You then pull out your clothes pins and hang your photos. You can do more than one clothes line of photos if you want. You can also hang them in different places in the room or house. The hardest part of this project is picking your favorite photos.
A second idea to display photos is to scrapbook your photos. This can take a while depending how many years of photos you want to scrapbook and how detailed you are with your scrapbook. To do a scrapbook you need to get a scrapbook and refill pages. You will need to decide on what size of album you want, 8×8 or 12 x 12. Then you will need paper, acid free double sided tape or acid free glue dots to hold your pictures to the paper. Embellishments if you desire, this can be stickers, cut outs from magazines, cut outs using a cricut machine, sports momentous, the list is endless. This project can be costly depending how much you put into it.
Third option to display photos is to take flower pots or buckets and fill them with dirt, peanuts, candy, rocks, whatever yo
u want and attach photos to Popsicle sticks. You can get very creative with this and decorate the pot or bucket with paint, stickers or other school momentous and ribbons or you could keep it very simple and leave them unfinished. You can paint the Popsicle sticks if you would like or purchase colored ones from your local craft store. I would attach a photo to each side of the Popsicle stick so no mater which way someone is looking at it they see a photo. Again the most difficult step in this one will be picking your favorite photos.
Food Ideas
I have two simple food ideas to share that I found online and thought they would be fun to make. The first one is made with a variety of fruit. Depending what is in season or what kind of fruit you and your family like to eat this is what I would purchase. In the photo I’ve attached you can see what was selected and how it is displayed. The trick to make this work is to get containers that will hold your fruit and will not fall if and when someone removes some or bumps the table. You can build this as high or as wide as you want. I really liked the idea of using the green tops of the pineapple as part of the decoration around the fruit display. It looks like this helps keep the fruit from rolling off in places as well. Remember to use plastic as much as possible so your favorite glass piece does not get broken when fruit is removed. You can also
find a fun fruit dip that you can put in a bowl to the side for dipping as another fun option.
Who would not want to eat these delicious looking diploma’s? They are cute and supper easy to make. Purchase a package of hostess HoHo’s and “wrap” them with a ribbon. You want to select the color of the graduates school. If you want everything to be edible then you could use frosting to tie the ribbon again using the graduates school color. It’s cute, easy to make and tastes great. The stars that are in the photo could be cardboard cut outs or you again if you want everything to be edible you can make sugar cookies and frost them or leave the unfrosted.
Gift Ideas
I have two gift ideas that are related but a fun twist on giving money to the graduate. Yes we have all seen and given the stand by money card or a gift card. Yes I like to give money because I know how expensive college life can be. It seems every graduate needs dorm room supplies, food, or just necessities. I found these two fun ideas on pinterest this last week. The first option is to take dollar bills in ay denomination and put them into an empty bottle. You can decorate the bottle with scrapbook paper or construction paper again in the graduates school colors. Then take curling gift ribbon and tie it around the top to add a little extra decoration. You now have a fun way to give money that your sure your grad will not get from someone else.
Option two to give money is to purchase a document frame. Document frames come in a variety of styles depending how fancy you want it to be. Your frame does not need to be super fancy as the money inside is going to be the real gift. Take a piece of copy paper and decorate it as little or as much as you want. In this photo there is a border around the outside and the bills are attached in the middle. Don’t use a permanent adhesive to attach the bills. Make sure to use a low tack tape or glue dot. You could use stickers to write the saying “In an emergency break the glass” or hand write it. I personally do not like my handwriting so I like to use stickers or use my cricut machine to cut out the letters for this. You could be really funny and purchase a toy hammer to go with it or small real hammer. You can stack the bills on tip of each other in the frame or just a couple of single bills. Again it depends how much money you want to give. I like to stack some bills on top of each other so the grad does not know the true amount of the gift until he or she opens the frame to use the money. This way you can give more than what they think they received.
Happy Graduation to all 2013 Grads!















