Inspiration: 15 Ideas For Graduation Party Decoration

Graduation parties are like a rite of passage. It’s your reward for all of the hard work you’ve put in over the years and also the last hurrah before moving on to the next chapter of your life. It’s one of the landmark occasions of a lifetime such as 21sts and weddings. As such a special occasion you want it to be fun and memorable. The best way to do that is to invest some time in awesome graduation party decorations, gifts and keepsakes. This will enhance your guests and your own experience and will give you something to look back on for the rest of your life.

1. Giant Year Keepsake

You will thank yourself later in you invest in keepsakes now. A great keepsake that’s easy to make for graduations is a large plague in the shape of the graduating year that guests or classmates can sign and leave short messages on. Giant wooden numbers can sometimes be found at your local craft store and can always be found on the internet. Simply paint them your favorite colors and grab a permanent marker to start signing!

2. Graduation Banner

An interactive decoration that we love here is to get a large white banner or roll of paper. Tape it securely to the wall and place old sheets on the floor to protect it. You’ll also needs lots of paints and any other decorations you may want like glitter or googly eyes. Paint the graduation year in the middle and let all of you guests have a crack at adding artistic touches to the banner.

3. Graduation Cap Box

Another great keepsake to remember all of your peers and time together is to make a little box for them to put cards or notes into for you. This can be made easily from wood or cardboard depending on your preference and made into a graduation cap shape to keep theme. Leave some decorated paper and a fancy pen by it to have notes from your friends you can keep forever.

4. Money Leis

Money Leis are an awesome gift for newly graduated people that will have to start earning a wage. Basically using 30 one dollar bills and alternating with paper you can fold them into stylish shapes and form a necklace or leis. On the plain paper write some money making ideas to help get the newly graduated individual started!

5. Graduation Straws

By using a little bit of black construction paper you can easily make little graduation caps. Use a long strip to make the base and a square to make a top. Then punch a small hole into the tops of the hats to insert a straw. Now little graduation hats can sit atop your drink just like the tiny umbrellas!

6. Graduation Bottles

After you get your straws sorted you’ll need some sleek bottles to go with them. Simply get some small glass milk bottles or some mason jars. Use black construction paper to put a black stripe in the middle of the bottle then place the graduating year on the strips. We suggest using nice big white circles with the date as that’ll make it pop and still look classy.

7. Balloon Bottles

Alternatively a fun easy way to decorate bottles is the get balloons with nice patterns on them (stripes, stars, snowflakes, whatever’s your thing) and stretch them over the bottles. This enlarges the patterns slightly and provides strong colors. For little work with a lot of pay off, this is a great method.

8. Graduation Water Bottles

A lot of graduation parties can have a lot of alcohol. Make sure your guests stay hydrated by providing them with easy to access water. Simply use paper, cardboard or plastic squares to top your water bottles and then make tassels for them with a bit of string or yarn.

9. Stair Timeline

If you have stairs at your graduation / party, or even if you wanted to use a long wall, a great way to decorate is to put some color paper or streamers in the background and then in chronological order place photos of you and your friends over the years. To make this really look nice don’t line up photos perfectly, stagger their positioning a bit!

10. Graduation Lanterns

If you need some outdoor lighting then lanterns with graduation caps may be the way to go. These cute lights are easy and cheap to organize. Simply purchase normal lanterns and craft some graduation hats with paper or cardboard.

11. Party Hats

Everyone loves decorations that you can wear and play with! Either having mini graduation hats for guests to wear or hats from a bunch of different professions (doctor, fireman, police etc) can be a fun way to get conversations going and the party started!

12. Confetti Balloons

Everyone loves decorating with balloons but it can easily turn cheesy without some forethought put in. If you grab some clear or semi translucent balloons and put some glitter and confetti in them they will look glamorous and posh once blown up. If that doesn’t match the theme traditional black, white and gray balloons can also look nice.

13. Balloon Garland

Rather than bunch up balloons in threes tried to random spots a nice way to decorate with balloons is to string them in a row through the end bits that aren’t blown up. This creates a garland that can be hung to highlight a table or decorate boarders of rooms.

14. Retro Photos

It’s important to make sure your guests also get some keep sakes to take home. Think of the old polaroid floppy pictures. It’s so easy to get some cardboard to look like the outside boarder of those photos and then at the bottom write something along the lines on ‘Class of 2016’. Guests can hold up the frame for pictures to create a cool retro look. These photos can be printed and given to guests on exit or can be played in a loop on the big screen for everyone to see.

15. Photo Timeline

To really show the amount of time that’s past for you and your friends grab every single school photo of yourself. By putting them on framed spikes you can place them evenly on the lawn leading to the house. This will set up the graduation and moving forward vibe for guests when they enter.

Conclusion

Considering how few graduations anyone gets in their lives and what a big milestone graduations are you owe it to yourself to go all out and make it spectacular. Make sure you have an amazing night you’ll remember for the rest of your life.