Guest Post: Glorious Graduation Party

Today I have a special treat for you ~ a guest post written by my friend and Assistant Extraordinaire, Jen Bowles.  Jen recently designed and hosted one of the most creative and colorful graduation parties I’ve ever attended.  Her daughter, Ebby, obviously deserved a wonderful party ~ she was Salutatorian of her class and gave an amazing speech at the graduation ceremony.  I just love how Jen took a unique and personal theme and built the party around it.  Come take a peek…

I guess you could say I enjoy planning parties ;-).  For Ebby’s graduation party I knew I didn’t want a typical theme ~ no high school colors (green & white), no paper goods with bright primary colors.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, I just strive to be more unique and personal when I design a party.  So I looked to Ebby for inspiration.  Her middle name is Blossom, she loves books, reading, and  her job at the library–boom, theme!

After creating a secret Pinterest board to gather ideas & inspiration, my next step was finding the perfect invitation.  I knew I wanted something professionally printed on heavy weight stock with great graphics and a photo of Ebby on the back.  After much searching (picture me on every invitation site searching ‘floral graduation invitation’), I settled on this invitation from minted.

I customized it with our information, changing ‘the wedding of’ to ‘graduation party celebrating’ and incorporating a hand drawn calligraphy font for Ebby’s name in a salmon color.  I was able to have one of the photos from her senior picture photo shoot printed on the back as well.

The invitation really became the inspiration for the ‘look’ of the entire party.  I pinned all sorts of fabulous ideas and created quite the detailed vision in my head ~ a vision I would never be able to execute on my own.  Fortunately for me, I have a Mom Extraordinaire (shout out to Mrs. Blossom!) who was happy to become my personal paper flower making slave.

We have a large and lovely backyard and had planned for this to be an outdoor party.  Beginning on Monday, the forecast was for rain on our party day so we had to adjust on the fly.  Luckily graduation day itself was bright, sunny and beautiful ~ it just so happens that the one day in May that it rained was the day of our party.  It ended up working out just fine though, creating a more intimate and cozy gathering…

We hung this Welcome sign beside our back door.  Yes, my mom designed, painted, cut out and embellished every single one of those flowers.  Yes, she is amazing.

Oooh, the details!

This photo booth/backdrop greeted the guests as they entered and I tried to snap a photo of everyone that attended.  I tore pages out of thrifted books and stapled them to a lattice panel to create the background.  I filled the top with tissue paper flowers made by….my mom.  We had a fun stash of props and I love the resulting photos.

Me, Ebby, and Bubbe (aka Mrs. Blossom)

Pam, looking fab in her flowered frock and 2015 glasses

Way to photo bomb, Brianna! 😉

Also in this room we had a spot to write a note to the Graduate, at a spray painted, ball fringe adorned old school desk that was purchased at a thrift store for $2.  There were blank library due date cards to write on ~ and Ebby received lots of good (and funny and heartfelt) advice.  Additionally, this was the spot for guests to leave gifts and cards.

I made the card box out of cardboard shipping box and chipboard.  After covering the base with book pages, I cut a slot in the top and added the embellishments.  Hopefully you can tell that it is supposed to resemble a graduation cap, complete with a yarn tassel.  Maybe this visual will help:

In the background you can see our dessert table.  Here’s a better view:

So much going on here!  I made the banners and the tissue paper tassel garland.  I had an old bookcase in the garage (I’m pretty sure my parents picked it off a curb on trash day sometime in the 1960s) that I painted and then decoupaged old book pages onto the shelves.  The floral tablecloth was one of several that we originally had made for our wedding, we also used them at my bridal shower and as window treatments in Ebby’s nursery.  The beautiful floral bouquet was done by…my mom (that’s why she’s known as Mrs. Blossom).

We had several other smaller centerpiece bouquets as well, adorned with paper flags celebrating Ebby’s Salutatorian achievement.

We placed these arrangements along with stacks of vintage, thrifted books on tables that were set up outside under a small tent.  These photos were taken before the Great Deluge…

My mom is also a genius with silk flowers.  She created this giant floral E that we hung over the sandwich and salad table.

We had a candy bar with a decorative garland that incorporated some of Ebby’s favorite quotes along with genuine library card catalog cards (Etsy is a wonderful thing!).

Others spots around the house were also decorated with easy to make garlands using library ephemera, tissue paper tassels and lots of photos of Ebby and her friends and family through the years.

The most impactful, most time-consuming decoration of the entire party was this, The Book of Ebby:

I spent way too long covering sheets of foam core with old book pages, gathering photos & memories and assembling this “book” whose pages were displayed throughout the party space.  It was truly a labor of love and much appreciated and enjoyed by everyone.

It was a great party (if I do say so myself) and I know that the guest of honor was very appreciative ~ because she said so on Twitter 😉

You are more than welcome Ebby, we are so proud of you and know there are amazing things ahead for you!  In her speech at graduation, Ebby spoke about the importance of collaboration and listening to viewpoints that are different than your own.  During the planning and set up for this party, working with others and collaborating was of the utmost importance ~ in other words, it takes a village to throw an awesome graduation party and I couldn’t have done it without a ton of help.  Thank you to everyone for helping turn my vision into reality ~ and thank you to Pam for inviting me to share here on Posh Palettes!

Wow!  Thank you, Jen for sharing this incredible party.  You and Bob have raised an outstanding young woman and I too know there are great times ahead for all!  I hope you enjoyed this special guest post, I’m hoping to share my own amazing event (Em’s wedding!!) in this space in the very near future!

xo,

Pamela

Share this!

Tweet