Graduation Son!

I had so much fun getting ready for the graduation party I didn't have a ton of time to make a handmade card.  I opted to purchase this Congratulations dimensional sticker at Hobby Lobby.  I did fancy the card up in a couple of ways: I used a black and white patterned paper as the backdrop.  I also added a die cut S-O-N and used Crystal Accents to create a dimension to the letters, adhering them to the pre-made sticker.  I think what really mattered was the heartfelt words on the inside.  My husband, Dan, wrote some touching words to encourage and strengthen Timothy on his graduation.  Here's some details on the party:

Timothy and his girlfriend, Jessica, as they prepared the photo booth.

We wanted to be sure to get photos of all the guests so we set up a photo booth with my new curtains as a backdrop.

We also played one game where I printed off pictures of Timothy at various ages.  Guests were to guess the month and year of the pictures.  Some were easy- a photo of the newborn Tim - and some were more difficult.  You'd be surprised how tough early elementary years are to discern from!  Guests were given party favors (sorry, no pics!) inspired by this pin.  Creating your own circles for the bottom of Hershey kisses is very easy.  I used internet available free clip art for the Class of 2015.   The following step by step presumes you know a few things about using Internet Explorer and Word.

Step 1 - Internet search for free clip art.

Step 2 - I added the clip art to the Word document as a picture (right click on the image in your internet browser and select copy as image (or just copy).  In an open Word document you can click the Paste button in the upper left corner of the Home ribbon.

Step 3 - Crop the image so that the edges of the image are very close to the edge of the picture.  Click the Crop button on the Picture Tools ribbon (upper right side of the Picture Tools ribbon highlighted in yellow in my image).

Step 4 - I resize the image to 0.75" (or 3/4 inch).  This is so that the image fits on the bottom of a Hershey's chocolate kiss. To do this I click into the height box in the upper right corner of the Picture Tools window.  In my picture below, I've already typed 0.75 in the box and hit the enter button on my keyboard.  The image is resized.  At this point, I click on the image and copy the image into the clipboard before moving on.

Step 5 - With the image copied into the clipboard, I insert a table.  I usually just randomly select a large quantity of rows/columns to fit the page.  Here I used 7 columns by 7 rows.  I then pasted the image into cells of the table leaving a blank row and column next to each image.

Step 6 - At this point is is simply a matter of filling in the table.  Ultimately, I used 240 images.  I selected 5 different images to create a bit of interest.  Once the page is full, print the page onto copy paper.  Really, there is no need for anything more fancy and the thinness of the copy paper made it lie flat to the Hershey's chocolate kiss nicely.

Step 7 - I punched the circles out using my 3/4 in. circle punch.  I turned the punch upside down to see where the image would be cut and fit it in nicely in.









Step 8 - I used a Glue Dot to adhere the punched circles on the bottom of the Hershey's chocolate kiss.  Since this was a boy's graduation party, I simply placed the kisses in a clear treat bag and used the silver foil twist tie to close.





I hope all your end of the school year plans were met with success. I know that Timothy thought his party was great and we finished with a fabulous graduation ceremony.  The young man is now officially graduated.