Pom Poms

What an amazing graduation celebration we had with friends and family for our Ciara. With a total of 230 plus people passing through our doors, 400 cupcakes, 20 some pom poms, 350 home made croissant sandwiches filled with smoked brisket and blt chicken salad our Saturday was perfect.. Our budget was more focused on good food than decorations. With that being said my mom always told me growing up that when it comes to decorating, It's not what you don't have, but what you do have and do with it that counts. I firmly believe that statement and my oh my did we have fun decorating on a budget.

We had everything backyard ready for the celebration but the day turned out to be rainy and cold. So after throwing a little fit, we decided to still stay at our home and open up the two rooms I had not cleaned for graduation.. the sun room and garage. My garage is used for my trash to treasure shed so you can imagine what we were working with. We borrowed a friends chimanea (sp?) and put it in the sun room. It kept the chill off and was fun to hear the rain coming down.

So all of our pom poms that were meant to be hung in the back yard now were placed wherever we could find a place to put them.My amazing sister in law went to work decorating with what was meant to be in the back yard. Wow did she do an amazing job!

My brothers wedding was this past August. Mindy had used burlap as runners down each table. So we repurposed all of the runners and it added a little sumthin sumthin to the lovely green and black graduation colors. My m-i-l had a bunch of old antique bottles that we decorated for centerpieces. I will post about those soon.

Mindy used some more burlap and a star that was meant for the back yard and spiffed up my old dresser in sun room. We had used small tarts to house mints for the guests as well.
Thanks again Mindy for all of your help. How blessed I am having you as my sister.
Blessings
Roxanne

Graduation Decor Part I

It's almost been a month now since we celebrated the graduation of our oldest daughter. Wow how time flies. Our daughters are on a vacation of a lifetime now with their Aunt. They are in Italy! So that leaves me with some time to finally sit down and share some of our graduation ideas and decor.
When we began planning our graduation celebration, I went to all of my favorite blog sites and began taking notes. Right away we knew this would be an amazing time to try the beloved "candy bar".

So every time we went out of town, we would purchase one type of green candy.

Sour pear jelly bellies were the favorite! (Thanks Grandma Sandy!)

Large sour apple gumballs........

green licorice

We had friends, coworkers, and family on the "hunt" for green candy. We searched for green rock candy and didn't have a lot of luck. Then I received a call from a gal from my office who was with her mom on a trip through the badlands of South Dakota. They stopped at Wall Drug and guess what they found? ROCK CANDY! Thanks Pat!:)

When we first found out our colors were green and black, I panicked but with the help of Hobby Lobby, I soon realized there were many amazing patterns in black and white. The takeout boxes turned into the perfect container for green suckers. Notice the filling? That would be Easter basket grass purchased on clearance for 20 cents.

Due to inclement weather, we had to move our celebration inside. So the candy bar found its place in the corner of the dining room. It was going to be out on the patio for guests to pick at during the concert Ciara had planned on putting on.

I borrowed apothecary jars from friends and family as well, making the presentation awesome.
More to come tomorrow...
Blessings
Roxanne