When my friend Jill asked me to make decorations for her sister Erin’s college graduation party, I was thrilled. The only problem was that I couldn’t attend- I had a wedding the same day! My challenge was to make decorations that would make a big impact, but that were also portable and easy to set up by Jill and her family. Challenge accepted!

I focused on decorations that would add color and festivity to the main party area, the food table. I decided on four main decorations: a banner, hanging paper poms, mini pom cupcake toppers, and appetizer flags.

Erin’s school colors were white and gold, and her favorite color is blue, so I used those three colors as my palette (I cheated a bit by using yellow instead of gold). For the banner, I liked the idea of having tassels hanging from the letters, which I created using strips of tissue paper.

For the letters, I made accordion circles with colored paper and freehand-cut the letters.

I used yellow, white and blue tissue paper for the large paper poms, and blue tissue paper for the pom cupcake toppers.

I kept everything flat for traveling, and then Jill and her mom fluffed everything up for the party. Huge thanks to Jill for taking these pictures of everything set up!

I was so happy to contribute to Erin’s day from afar. Congrats again, Erin!