A Super Cool Retro Grad Party for Your Grad

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A retro grad party is such a fun theme to celebrate such a big milestone. Here’s a few tips for bringing a retro grad party to life.

The end of this school year marks such a big moment for both of my kids. Trevor is moving on to kindergarten and Tatiana is moving to high school. I honestly can’t believe that the end of the year has gotten here so quickly. It seems like just yesterday they were starting the school year. To celebrate such a big milestone, we’re having a little graduation party at home with our family. One of the things I vowed to start doing after having my kidney transplant was to celebrate all of the moments, even in the littlest ways. So, I pulled out my Cricut and grabbed a couple of supplies from my go-to spots to put together a small party while staying on budget.

Tips for Planning a Retro Grad Party

1. Create a budget and stick to it

The first thing that I do before planning any party is to create a budget. This helps me stay within my means while planning and shopping for the party. It also helps to determine what I will be buying and what I’ll DIY. DIYing saves me so much money when it comes to party planning and hosting. There’s honestly so much that I can DIY with my Cricut and the crafting supplies that I have at home that it just makes sense to make what I can.

Since this party was just for my family of 4, the budget was pretty simple. I needed a few things like plates, a table cover and I wanted to make small party favors filled with candy for dessert. Other than that, I pretty much DIY’d everything at home.

2. Pick a theme

The theme for this one just popped into my head one day. I wanted it to be colorful and fun but the theme was inspired by this smiley face image that I found on Cricut Design Space. One day I was making stickers for another project and came across the cutest smiley faces wearing grad caps and immediately knew that was going to be the inspiration for this little party. I found the striped wrapping paper that I used for a table runner in Dollar Tree and everything else fell into place from there.

3. Get to DIYing

There were a few projects that I absolutely knew I wanted to DIY for retro grad party. I wanted to create more of the stickers that I previously created to use for the party favor boxes. Of course confetti was a must for this celebration. I made banners to decorate the arches with. The last thing that I wanted to DIY were napkins. I customized napkins for my 33rd birthday and they were such a huge hit. Even though my family and I were the only ones at this party, I knew my kids would love the napkins.

If you’re wanting to DIY the projects that I used for this party, you can grab the Cricut Design Space files that I used here:

4. Set the scene

Once all of your DIY projects are complete and you have all of your supplies, you’re ready to have a retro grad party. I set the table with a plastic tablecloth and wrapping paper from Dollar Tree. These iridescent plates from Michaels were perfect for a retro themed party and cost under $5. For dessert, I found these grad cap plates at Dollar Tree. These plates from My Mind’s Eye are a great alternative. I love finding things that fit perfectly into the budget. We kept the food simple and ordered pizza and had cupcakes.

I used mini iridescent gable boxes from Hobby Lobby for party favors. A pack of 12 cost $2. To customize them, I put the stickers I created with my Cricut Joy Xtra on them and tied ribbon to the handles. You could also use iridescent cardstock to create gable boxes with your Cricut.