Since there aren't many ideas on the web about decorations for high school reunions, I thought I'd share what I came up with and hopefully help others out. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was not a lot of money for decorations and fru-fru things. Total bummer for me, but I was happy with how it all turned out.
Let's start at the entrance!
I made paper bag luminaries to line the walkway entrance. I went to my old school and used the die cuts from the teacher workroom to cut out eagle silhouettes from black construction paper. I already had the paper bags and the black construction paper so this was a no-cost project! The candles used on the inside were left over from my cousin's wedding a few years ago.
Here is what they looked like when it got darker.
For the front steps I made some maroon, white and gray bows to put on the hand rails. And for the doors I made hangings from old picture frames.
Basically I took the glass out of two old matching picture frames that were laying in my mom's garage and spray painted them silver. I got the wooden "E"s from Hobby Lobby for 99 cents. I bought a 99 cent bottle of maroon craft paint and painted them. Then I took a black permanent marker around the edges to give it some dimension. I used a hot glue gun to attach fishing line to both the E and the frame. A bow looped around makes everything hang pretty! Oh, and a nice little clear Command hook held everything up. I used 1 huge roll of maroon ribbon for the bows and door decorations and I got it half off at $7.00 or something like that. Total cost for outside decorations: around $10.00
Once through the doors, my classmates got to see a table of some high school memories.
I borrowed the pom-poms and megaphone from my niece (who attends my old school) and everything else was stored somewhere in either my mom's house or mine. I had our class picture matted and framed back when we graduated and I was glad we had it to display.
I used the same silver spray paint to paint the glass vase in the right hand corner. I've never spraypainted glass, but it was actually pretty easy and didn't have any problems. I used the same silver paint along with some primer gray and white spray paint I had laying around the house to add some color to the curly willow (also left over from a friend's wedding). Painted a few more with the maroon craft paint and that was that. Total cost for the entry table - $8 for a roll of maroon table cloth (which I used elsewhere) and $6 for the gray table skirt...$14.00!
Then there were the food tables.
Since there were so few of us, we just had finger foods and a cake. We might try a dinner next time. I used the maroon tablecloth sheeting again for both tables and another skirt for the food table. I made the banner over the table using posterboard, ribbon, and more diecuts from the school. The gray posterboard was $1.00 at the Parent/Teacher store and the white was .50 at Dollar Tree. I used exactly 1 roll of gray ribbon, also found at Dollar Tree and maroon curling ribbon my mom had laying around. I cut the letters and eagles from scrapbook paper I already owned making this another inexpensive project at $2.50! The cake table didn't cost anything b/c the pom-poms were in my mom's upstairs playroom.
And finally, the centerpieces. I thought they turned out pretty cute, but then again, I made them all so I'm probably a little partial. =)
They were all different. I used more die cutouts and scrapbook stickers to make the toppers. The toppers were hot glued to kabob skewers that I painted with my maroon craft paint. I stuck them in a small square of foam to keep them upright. The vases are from my mom's house. She has about 15 of them that she purchased from my cousin after her wedding. We use these vases for EVERYTHING! I had planned to use maroon and gray tissue paper inside them, but it's almost impossible to find maroon tissue paper. So, I stumbled up on the solid silver/gray and white with silver starts at Dollar Tree. Each package had 3 solid silver, 3 stars and 2 white sheets. So I was able to do 3 tables for $1.00 (I didn't use the white sheets). On some I did the silver on the inside with the stars on the outside. I had 10 tables so it cost me $4.00 in tissue paper and the table cloths were about $3 each (I think). So for less than $35 we had all the tables decorated.
There were also some outdoor tables, but I didn't take a picture of those centerpieces. I basically used 3 different size mason jars filled with white aquarium rocks (again borrowed from my mother). I use the maroon curling ribbon to tie a bow around each one and set a maroon tealight inside each jar. We got a bag of 25 tealights at Michael's for $2.50 (reg $5 but we had a 50% coupon). All 8 outside tables done for $2.50.
So that's that. My reunion decorations on a budget. Here are all my classmates who attended.
And me with my two besties: Kristi and Megan (L-R)
I didn't really decorate for family day b/c everyone was playing on the playground anyway. But here are all the kids that showed up with their parents. They are all soo cute!
