Graduation Party DIY Style!

My daughter just graduated from high school (CONGRATULATIONS to my girl!), and I had asked her a few months prior if she wanted a graduation party. No surprise, she did. I am a big fan of open house style parties when there is a large crowd involved. (I am also a fan of pot luck parties when there is a large crowd, but that did not seem appropriate in this situation.) I really wanted to host a party that she would enjoy, and I wanted her to be able to invite whomever she wanted, but I didn’t want this to break the bank.

I am sharing this information because it was all very DIY, and I am proud of it. Perhaps my plans may give you some ideas for your future shindigs.

We started with an E-vite. My daughter created it (her party, her job), and she was in charge of inviting her friends. My jaw nearly hit the ground when I saw that there were nearly 130 people on the list. Knowing my daughter, though, I believed that they were really all friends from different aspects of her life. I did not set a limit on the number of invites (but really prayed for nice weather since there was no way I could fit large numbers of teens in my house). I did, though, decide that this would have to be a friend party only. No adults were invited, and the only other family there was my husband, my son, and my nephew who graduated with her and is her friend. (In the end, approximately half of those invited were able to atend.)

We planned a mid-afternoon event, 2-5 pm. That way, no one would expect a meal, but I would have A LOT of snacks available. Something I learned is that I am a poor judge of how much teens at a party will eat. More on that later. The food plan was to keep things fairly low key but fun and easy. In the end, I had three main “categories”–chips/crackers/munchies and dips, popcorn, and cookies.

Using two canvases and one old circular baking pan, I had made three signs to use at the party. They were all painted with chalkboard paint. From when my kids were little, I still have an ample supply of chalk, so that was available to prep and then write on the signs. The first sign: “Dip Dip Hooray!” I had bowls of two types of store bought salsa (the mango salsa from Sam’s Club is SO good!) as well as several homemade bean dips. One of the beautiful things about beans dips is that they are so easy to make! I had made hummus, a black bean dip, and a white bean dip to join the two salsas on the table. There were also platters and bowls with tortilla chips, pretzels, pub mix, baby carrots, and various types of crackers. Although I love dips made with sour cream, I intentionally avoided those to avoid potential spoilage outside.

The next sign had popcorn instructions: “Scoop, Spray, Season, Shake.” I was very excited about the Popcorn Bar! It just seemed like a fun idea. I had read about them but had never seen one in action in real life. This included two types of popcorn—white and yellow. Using my hot air popcorn popper FROM COLLEGE (yes, it still works great), I popped a lot of popcorn the day before the party. When I say a lot, I literally mean garbage bags full of popcorn. This was served in large foil pans. For fun, I ordered some “Popcorn” bags from which to enjoy the popcorn. The neatest part, from my standpoint, was the selection of seasonings. To add to the popcorn, guests had a butter spray plus several containers of different seasonings. Ready for this? The seasonings were: Nacho Cheddar, Sour Cream and Onion, Ranch, Caramel Corn, Dill Pickle, and Chile Limón. If that is not a fun popcorn bar, I don’t know what is! Anyone could have also added some of the chips or cookies (more on the cookies soon) if interested. The seasonings and butter spritz were all purchased at my local Woodman’s grocery store. (If you have never been inside a Woodman’s, it is a grocery shopping experience!) If you are interested in them but cannot find them at your local grocery store, they can be found on Amazon.

My personal “hostess with the mostess” aspect of the food was the cookie bar because my daughter is “One Smart Cookie” (as written on the third sign). All of the cookies and fudge (included in the cookie bar because it is so good and so easy) were homemade or semi-homemade. This part I was able to start weeks in advance thanks to my freezer. I would regularly make a batch of cookies in prep for the party. Can you really ever have too many cookies? Due to fear of not having enough (this turned out to be an unfounded fear), I even made one final batch of cookies the morning of the party. There was a nice variety, and they were all easy. “Easy” is a basic recipe criteria, especially when there is a lot of baking taking place. I have never had so many sticks of butter my house prior to the cookie prep! Ready to drool? On the cookie bar were sourdough chocolate chip cookies, sourdough mint chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate espresso chip cookies (the recipe for that came straight off of the bag of the espresso chips), snickerdoodles (found a recipe not needing cream of tartar, which is apparently normally an ingredient that I did not have on hand), regular chocolate chip cookies (using the recipe from that chip package), shortbread, strawberry cookies, and red velvet cookies. The last two were semi-homemade in that the ingredients for those were boxed cake mixes, white chips, oil, and eggs. I figured that it allowed for some additional variety and color without buying extra ingredients that might not ever be used again. The recipes that were not on the chip package were just recipes I found searching Pinterest. In addition, there was salted chocolate fudge, espresso chocolate fudge, and mint fudge for everyone to enjoy. Those three were all made the same way, just with different flavored chips. I intentionally avoided making items with peanuts or tree nuts. Anyone with a gluten, dairy, or egg free diet, though, was out of luck with the cookies. (The shortbread was egg free but included A LOT of butter and flour.)

Drinks were Country Time Lemonade, Lipton Iced Tea, and soda (I picked up a few 2L bottles). I didn’t want the soda, but my daughter requested it, so I succumbed. It tasted like summer (specifically the lemonade and iced tea)! I can continue to enjoy the taste of them all summer; the mixes were purchased at big box stores, so the canisters are really large. I certainly did not want to run out. We are ready to provide beverages for any other occasions for quite a while!

Decor was very basic. We had a sign on the front door which was repurposed from when my son graduated in 2020. My husband had 3-D printed “S H S 2 0 2 0” but also had printed a “3” as well back then due to foresight. Good planning! I wrote “Congratulations Class of 2023!” in chalk along the sidewalk. There was a small inflatable “Grad” sign used both in 2020 and this year. There were the three chalkboard signs by the food. Paper goods were very basic. No flatware was required. There were some tables and chairs as well as some picnic blankets set up. For fun, we also threw a lot of beach balls into the backyard. These were balls that I think I purchased for a summer birthday party when my son was a toddler. Yay! I had a chance to reuse and enjoy a lot of them after holding on to them for over a decade! Plus, my daughter will be attending Florida State University in the fall (Go Noles!), so beach balls seemed on theme. (Her brother attends University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My kids’ college criteria included “bigger than their high school” and “warmer than here.”) One cornhole board was placed in the yard with bean bags. Using only one worked well from the space standpoint and was really all that was needed. Music was playing, and the kids all really seemed to have fun hanging out and catching up. (Some of these friends graduated over the past few years, so they had not seen each other in quite a while.)

Prior to the party, we discussed ordering pizza halfway through. This turned out to be completely unnecessary. I prepared WAY too much food. WAY too much! Granted, anytime I am invited anywhere this summer, I will gladly offer to bring homemade cookies straight from the freezer! If my daughter goes to hang out at a friend’s house, I will send her with cookies, too. My afternoon snack has consistently been popcorn. (Hot air popcorn involves NO guilt, and it really does make for a great snack.) The dips are being incorporated into other meals (just today I mixed some of the black bean dip with rice and cheese for lunch, and it was delicious). My son brought an unopened bag of tortilla chips and an unopened jar of salsa back with him when he drove out of town for his summer internship.

There was a lot of preparation involved with this party, but the prep was stuff I enjoyed doing. There was personal glory in knowing that I put this together, prepared so much from scratch, and that the whole party was a success! I will also forever be grateful that the weather was perfect!

Hopefully you have gained some inspiration or encouragement from these ideas. This party was a great way to celebrate my daughter, her great friends, and all that they have accomplished!