A Daisy Themed Graduation Party

I created this sweet daisy theme Graduation Party for my daughter. Our school colors are green and white and I thought it would look pretty to use daisies for the flowers – that became my theme! I then added a splash of yellow to the party palette. Knowing my theme and colors several months in advance helped tremendously in preparing for the party. As I was doing my daily shopping I would come across great items to make every detail special. I found so many of my items at Michaels in the dollar bins including tons of pretty ribbon and these super cute green frames.

I also wanted the party to have a soft shabby chic feel. I bought several yards of quilting fabrics in a variety of prints and a good pair of pinking shears using this for many of the decorations. My favorite was a pretty ribbon garland made out of Jute string, a variety of ribbons and strips of the quilting fabric. It hung between the columns of our pavilion and look lovely blowing in breeze. My centerpieces were made from small galvanized pots, strips of fabric and ribbons. I used green flower sticky notes and self adhesive paper daisies to decorate the front of the pots. The pots were filled with daisies and greens from my yard. Each centerpiece was place on circles of quilting fabric that had been cut with the pinking shears and placed on white table clothes.

Since my party did not have a traditional graduation theme, I felt like the cake should not look like the traditional graduation cake. I wanted it to be sweet and pretty. I can’t say enough that I love how it turned out. I ordered a two tiered cake from my local grocery store requesting it to just have a pale yellow frosting with no decoration or piping. I then made my cake topper and banner from scrapbook paper and this beautiful ring of daisies found in the Martha Stewart Crafts collection. I bought Wilton sugar daisies that I attached around the cake with a little icing and added a row of ribbon to the bottom of each layer. The great thing about decorating the cake this way was that I could make everything a few weeks ahead of time and assemble it the day of the party.

I also made a few additional store bought desserts look custom. I took packaged cookies and dipped them in white chocolate and into green sprinkles and bought white yogurt pretzels and drizzled them with green chocolate. These were a big hit! Following with the cupcake trend, I also purchased 40 of these from the grocery store. I customized them by making white chocolate daisy candies to top them off. At Easter I found Wilton grass cupcake liners…perfect for my daisy cupcakes! Before placing the chocolate daisy on top, I gave them a dash of green sprinkles. Due to the hot sun I could not set up my dessert table ahead of time. The guests were taking the desserts as I was putting them out and a few are missing from my photos!

At most graduation parties you see a collage of photos of the graduate. I decided to make mine the backdrop for the dessert table. First, I covered foam core board with quilting fabric. I had three unused white frames that I replaced the glass with green gingham scrapbook paper. Each frame contained a collage of photos from my daughter’s life – the early years, middle years and the high school years. Each white frame was attached with green gingham ribbon and the individual green frames, with a paper daisy accent, were velcroed to the board.

I had the meal catered, but wanted to create great tasting appetizers that would feed a crowd. I chose recipes that I could partially make the day before and assemble right before the party. I always love to have a signature drink. One of my favorites is lemonade and blueberry vodka – the guests love it! I created blueberry skewers with ribbon to top off the drinks. I also bought green paper straws and added a paper daisy to each one – so cute! The wine glass markers were made from Martha Stewart tags, felt green and yellow embellishments that were tied with a thin multi strand green yarn.

Party styled and craft details created by Susan at Entertain Exchange.

Straws from Sweet LuLu

Paper Daisies from Martha Stewart Crafts