How to Create a Fun Photo Booth Plus More Graduation Party Decoration Ideas

If you want to see grown adults acting like kids, and kids having a great time being silly together, just add a photo booth to your next gathering. It’s extremely easy and everyone will love it.

We did this last year at our oldest daughter’s graduation party and again this year at my nephew and nieces’ party. It’s so much fun (and easy) that I wanted to share it and our other favorite graduation party ideas with you.

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DIY Graduation Party Photo Booth

For our photo booth, I found some old ornate frames at various yard sales and estate sales and painted them in bright, fun colors. The brighter the better for this project. The colors I used were Benjamin Moore Yellow Green, Blue Spa, and Million Dollar Red. 

I took 3 frames and attached them to a rope that I had tied between two trees. I simply used some colorful ribbons to attach the frames to the rope. 

I added some fun photo booth props to a galvanized bucket next to the frames. Two bags of beans were placed in the bottom of the bucket the keep the props standing upright.

After a little nudge, almost everyone wanted their photo made in the “booth”. And we laughed until we almost cried. (Bonus points if you spot the photo bomber. He was feeling left out.)

I highly recommend this for your next party. It’s simple and fun and gets everyone into a good mood.

Graduation Party Decorations

This was a low-key, casual party and the decorations weren’t super complicated. One of my favorite things we used were the vintage mason jars with flowers on vintage tablecloths. They added a cozy, colorful touch. 

For a bit of whimsy, add graduation cap cupcake toppers for a fun finishing touch. Serve them on a tiered galvanized stand. (More tiered trays found here – Tiered Metal Tray)

A large round divided tray held yummy fruits and cheese.

Personalized gift buckets for each of the graduates was an easy and practical setup. 

We definitely had a galvanized theme going on! What’s your favorite thing from this party? 

More Graduation Party Ideas

We’ve had several graduations since I originally posted this so I thought I would add a few more ideas for a winter graduation party. Both our daughters (as well as my husband and I) graduated from the University of Tennessee. Our youngest had a December graduation so we celebrated indoors with a decidedly orange theme.

If you want to do a colored theme, here are some ways to do it.

1. Colorful Candies

Since we had a big orange theme I used gourmet orange fruit slices and tangerine jelly beans. I ordered them online and they were surprisingly fresh and very tasty. I’ll definitely be ordering from them again the next time I need something similar.

2. Cupcakes with Personalized toppers

I made some custom pennant toppers for the cupcakes using my Cricut machine and orange and white cardstock. I haven’t made a tutorial for these but let me know in the comments if you’re interested and I’ll write one. They were pretty easy to make.

3. Thumbprint cookies

Thumbprint cookies are one of our favorites and are so easy to make. I love to use this concentrated food coloring for intense colors. Get our recipe here: Really Good Thumbprint Cookie Recipe

Here are sources for the other items I used:

• Colored paper plates
• Colored paper napkins
• Colored plastic cutlery

Let me know if you have any other good ideas for a graduation party!