The party

[Savin' Moola]

The party

Start buying paper supplies and decorations early. Last year, I purchased
some plates and napkins at the end of June that say, "Congratulations Grad";
Also, our school colors are black and silver. So, I bought black items after
Halloween and silver items after Christmas and New Years. For the yard banner, I
bought five yards of muslin, put a hem like you would for a curtain at each end,
used old political yard sign wires, and planted it in the front yard. My
daughter wrote what she wanted on it and all the guests signed the banner. Need
something in which to hold forks, napkins, spoons, and small food items? Look at
old lunch boxes or pencil boxes. As a surprise for our daughter, we went
through all the old photos, school papers, and awards that were accumulated
through the years. I created a display with all of them using three science
display
boards. We really enjoyed looking back "through the years" theyears" My
daughter graduated last year, and I did everything on the cheap! We had 85
people come and didn't buy one invitation. I designed an invitation on the
computer, with bubbly type letters for parts of the front, printed one out in
black
on white paper, and hubby ran off copies. My daughter used a purple pencil
(school colors purple and white) and colored in the bubbly letters neatly,
folded
them into quarters, and to make them cuter, I punched 2 holes on the folded
edge, and slide a piece of purple ribbon through and tied a small bow on the
fold. It cost less than $3.00 to make invites for all the guests, and we had a
blast doing them! I also made my own candy wrappers for the mini chocolate bars,
printed them out, cut, wrapped, etc. I did this a few weeks in advance! We
also bought pretzel rods and melted bags of chocolate wafers (of course purple
and white), and would dip a rod in the white chocolate and drizzle it with
purple chocolate, and then of course do the reverse on more. Big hit!

Roll the plastic ware inside the napkins and rubber band them. Place them in
a basket on the serving table. Make sure you put out separate forks for desert
if you are having it.

You don't need to break the bank when a child is graduating from school. My
daughter followed my lead on saving money on the party and didn't use the
traditional two envelopes on the graduation announcements. We used the second
envelope for invitations only and thank you notes. We did, however, splurge on
postage and bought the stamps that make a donation to breast cancer research as
a
dedication to one of her elementary school teachers who died from breast
cancer.