Creative (and cheap) Graduation Materials

Back when I was a senior in high school, my parents spent an unreasonable amount from the school company to purchase name cards, announcements, senior pictures, and invitations. I know back 20 years ago, we were all stuck in the same spot. Graphic design was a new thing and not very many people  knew how to do it or we didn't have the resources readily available to us to do it on a much cheaper scale.

This year I have a senior in high school. Being the frugal mom that I am, I have been trying to find frugal ways to get my daughter's graduation invitations. Considering that her high school graduation comes only once, I want to make sure that her invitations are creative and yet something that won't break my bank account.

So to cut back on the costs I have taken her senior pictures myself. Sure we'll make sure that we get a nice photo done in a full blown size. I have taken advantage of new membership give aways from photo companies so that has cut down on the printing costs. Good thing I know how to work Photoshop.

My name card from 20 years ago. It looked good in its day.

You know those 3x1.5 name cards that you puchase to insert into the graduation announcements? I can't remember how many you can get in a package, but if you look at them, all you get is your child's name on it. Really - a little card with just their name? Maybe their graduation year too? I got to thinking one day, why can't I make Sarah's? I wanted to put her picture on it, add more information to it.

Sarah's graduation Name card

After some work on it in Photoshop and then copying and pasting the same image on a Publisher document, I was able to get 15 on a 8x10 document. I saved the document as a picture file and sent the file to Meijer to get printed. For the cost of 15 name cards for $2.50, I think I got a much better deal.




Next, I had to make her graduation invitations to her ceremony and Open House. I had talked with several people from Sarah's class and the local printer in town wanted .50 cents per invitation. We decided that we would need around 150 invitations made - so that would cost $75. That was still way out of our budget. We thought of maybe printing our own from our color printer. Figuring that we would be putting more wear on our printer, plus considering the cost of ink - this was out of our realm as well.

I had checked out WalMart's prices in order to use their services. They would have provided the envelopes with either size I wanted. Still, with what they were charging, I would have spent a huge amount of money to get this printed. Another strike.

I created some mock ups of her invitations: 4x6 and 5x7. The Princess liked the smaller size. So with that in mind, we were able to fit 3 invitations on a 8.5x11 document. We checked out what the cost would be  to get them colored copy. This was the much better deal. Compared to what will happen to the invitations once the whole event is done, why spend so much money on this? As you can see in the side picture, there are two lines. With my exacto knife, I cut the lines and inserted her name card in it. Very home made, very simple and very chic.

Some people may not want to do all that I did...it may be worth the extra money to just let your school company do all of this for you and not have the worry (other than the stress of the cost). But if you are a penny pincher like I am, the stress level is worth it and you have something that you can look at later and be proud of it.

Finished project once done.

Love,