Saturday, August 18, 2012

I Couldn't Have Done This Graduation Party Without Mod Podge!

Boy, I've been pretty busy this summer. I've also been challenging my decision to ever blog. However, that deeper inner desire to write the rest of my life has emerged again. So here, I am - geared up to start all over. So many people have written about how superior word press is as compared to blogger, that I even struggled with the idea of if I should transfer everything to word press or start all over. But, I guess I am technologically challenged and got lost in understanding everything. Blogger just seems easier to me. So here I am, still plodding along.

One of my big projects was to participate in a mod podge contest. I didn't do it because I thought I had the best mod podge projects in America. I just did it to take on a project and follow thru to the finish. You had to post 10 different projects by a certain date and time. Since at the time I read about the contest, I only had about 3 or 4 finished projects, I had quite the frolicsome time getting 10 projects finished. One of the things that started me off being busy back in the spring was when our youngest son graduated from college in May and we wanted to give him a nice party. Since we live about 185 miles from his college, it was no small feat to get the food and decorations organized. However, I was a home ec major in college, so I was up to the challenge. Plus, I had the help of my sister, my mother, aunt, and James' girlfriend, Janae. I've been waiting on the graduation party pictures before I created these photo collages, but I still haven't received them and I really wanted to at least post what I have at this point, so unfortunately I still can't show you what the college themed decorations looked like at the party. However, I wanted to improve my pictures on Pinterest, so I needed to get this cleaned up. 

 This was our graduation tree. This was my mother's brainstorm. She wanted to use an old Halloween tree that had been stored down in her basement. She made a bunch of detailed little felt ornaments of the school mascot, Pistol Pete and other Oklahoma State icons. She even made cute little felt books. (which of course I don't have a picture of yet to show off) My brainstorm contribution was to decoupage old book page scraps to little plastic Easter eggs...that I bought marked down after Easter, of course, so the only project cost pennies practically. I went for days decoupaging Easter eggs to the tune of TV marathons. Every once in a while I'd peal another layer of mod podge off my fingers and cook my husband a meal. I made hangers of orange ribbon and hot glued little cream colored flowers to match the old book pages. I have a full size tree picture coming with the grad party pictures, so more detail will be showed later.    

A final graduation collage. The "time to graduate" clock was simple: I used an inexpensive clock I had bought on sale at Dollar General, then just added a variety of OSU stickers. Then I filled in the between areas with "time to graduate" strips that I had created in word in a variety of fonts. I think I got the clock in either a 75% or 90% off sale. (Plus, I bought a few more to use at a later date for a different theme.) I finished it off with a couple of coats of clear poly.)


                                                               
The chalkboards are just some simple chalkboard's I bought on clearance several years ago. They've been packing away in my craft room until I found a good use for them. A few stickers and paint pens and they were perfect for what I needed them for. So that's all the graduation party decor I can offer until I receive my additional pics.

Go pokes!


Elaine, aka, the Red Dirt Cowgirl


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