Time to Celebrate Lily: Her Graduation and Party

In this family, we love to celebrate the big and small things, as most of you know by now.  But the reality is– it feels like our life has been one BIG celebration after another for the past year! The latest is Lily and her official graduation from high school!  Our sweet little Lily is growing up fast.  Remember this girl?…

 

 

She actually completed high school early, back in December after working hard to reach that goal.  But this past weekend, she was able to make it official at her graduation.

 

 

 

We celebrated well with family and friends on graduation night…

 

 

There was a lighted lantern send-off and lovely reception for the grads.

 

 

But the highlight of the night for all of us was when Lily was announced as the recipient of a very special scholarship that goes to the student who is most known for their strong testimony of living an authentic Christian life.  We had no idea there even was this award, but it is definitely the one we would want above any other for our kids.  Lily was so humbled and honored to receive it and we are thankful that this is how she has been known at her school.

 

 

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On Saturday, we hosted her party, and several friends and family stopped by to celebrate with us!

 

 

 

And of course a balloon garland was necessary for such an occasion!  I loved THIS KIT and it coordinates perfectly with the printables we made for the party! Thanks to Knox Balloons for putting the balloon garland together for me!

The free printables can be found HERE in case you missed it! We used them all over the party table!

 

 

 

 

 

Her graduation board has been a favorite on Instagram since I shared it, and I am regretting not taking pics of the process as I was putting it together so I could give you a full how-to, but I did take a few after the fact to give you a few easy steps.  (Please pardon the fact that the flowers were wilting by the time I was able to take some instruction pics!)  The board is made from a 24″ x 36″ piece of acrylic on a circular stand.  My husband and a few guys at our shop made this with some materials we use in our graphics business, but I’ve found some similar items to link for you all!

Here’s the way ours looked…

 

As I said, it’s a piece of acrylic that’s 24″ x 36″ , and approx 3/16″ thick.  You can find that HERE.

 

 

The base is a circle of foam PVC that’s approximately 18″ in diameter, with a slot cut across to slide the acrylic in so it will stand.  This base could also be made out of wood or you could use an easel or other creative way to hold it!

 

 

I started the floral display with a faux greenery garland to give us something to add onto.  a couple of suction cup hooks held it to the acrylic.

 

Then I used floral water tubes to hold water for each of the fresh stems we were using.  You can find those HERE.  Almost all of the flowers came from our own yard or from the Dogwood Cottage!  The tubes kept the flowers fresh for a good 48 hours before they started wilting.

 

I just created a little spray over the base, layering fresh greenery and fresh flowers…

 

I also used a little floral wire to wire a couple of stems to the side and top…

 

Lily used a chalkboard marker to add her name and taped on the pictures with double stick tape.

 

A little more greenery and chalk art made the foyer mirror into a great sign!

 

To say we are proud of Lily for all her accomplishments and finishing well is a major understatement.  And she’s pretty happy to be finished!  We are going to enjoy a fun summer together before she’s off to her college adventure in the fall!  Congrats to your own grads finishing up right now!  If you have questions about the ideas in this post, let me know!