What a day! Actually, the last couple of weeks have been absolutely exhausting. I’ve been missing in action on the blog, but I took lots of pictures.

While preparing for graduation I decided we needed to clean out the garage. We had a garage sale last September, and are planning on another in the next month or two. We still had our leftovers from the garage sale stacked high in boxes, taking up a good portion of the garage. I spent a very hot day moving the boxes and miscellaneous to the barn.

My whole thought was to straighten it enough to look “okay” just in case someone needed to get something out of the garage. A week ago our weather forecast showed rain on graduation day. Since extended forecasts tend to change dramatically, I wasn’t too concerned, but I did decide we needed a Plan B for our outdoor party. I couldn’t wait until the day before to put it together so this last week has been pretty crazy and full of aches, pains and sore muscles I didn’t even know I had.

First off, I needed to expand the available space inside the garage. We work in our garage so having it clean enough to have a meal in it had never crossed our minds. It’s a two-car garage with a work bench area along the right side. There is also about 4 feet separating the the two car sides. I pushed the things in the 4 foot area over to the right and part way into the right car side. I dug out all my salvaged doors from the barn. I hosed them off and hauled them to the garage. They became my walls to enclose the party space and to block the eye from seeing the garage stuff.

I also pulled out a shelf I use for craft shows to display all the things my son wanted to show his guests. It’s open on the back. I placed old salvaged screens on the back to close it off from the garage, although you can still see the garage through the screen. (sigh) Nothing’s perfect.

I have a tall shelf that I keep craft junk and supplies on. I wrapped a blue tablecloth around it and hung the painted sign I made on the front.

That’s the bones of the party space. Decorating came next.

I made tablecloths from old blue jeans. The table decorations were the balloon block weights I made and old Coke bottles with artificial flowers I already had. More to come on the construction of the tablecloths at a later date.

I made a garland using rope and scraps of blue fabric. This was hung across one wall of doors. I made copies of all of my son’s senior pics and pinned them to the garland using clothespins. More to come later on this project.

I brought out vintage touches, flowers and the things my son wanted to display for the shelf. One of the ideas I stole from Our Life In A Click was the Jenga Block guest book. The blocks also went on the shelf. I had plans to steal a lot more of her ideas, but…well…life happened and plans had to change.

Stay tuned…I plan on doing something with those blocks.

I used an old galvanized washtub to hold ice and salads.

A vintage-looking pedestal held the lemonade.

An old quilt was hung as a backdrop to the dessert table.

So these are the photos of the setup. We found out early on graduation day that we would need to use this plan. The following pics are kinda dark because the skies were dark and my camera flash doesn’t work.

This is my husband and one son frantically grilling as soon as we got home from the ceremony. They finished grilling just before the rain started. We kept everything warm in an electric roaster.

We enjoyed the company of lots of family and friends…

…then the tornado sirens sounded…twice! Nobody seemed interested in going to the fraidy hole.

We kept a close eye on the radar and kept the party going. Then a severe squall went through. Thankfully, we had no problems or damage where we live.

Yes, I know, we were extremely lucky.

Enjoy!

Places I’m partying this week:

Monday

Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesdays

Thursday

All Things Pretty

Friday

Weekend