Married to the Empire

Monday, June 8, 2009

Graduation



Nine of our students graduated this weekend. It's been a bittersweet time for us as we attended graduation on Saturday and a big reception for them at church on Sunday. We're so proud of them and have considered it such privilege to know them and have them in our youth group. But we'll miss them dearly, as they've been such an important part of our group over the years.

Because we know all of the graduates personally, we had a lot of gifts to buy this year. I handled the girls' gifts, and Steven took charge of the boys'. I like to give jewelry, which can be done affordably through this site. These are the necklaces and pendants we wound up giving the girls:



Steven chose MagLites for the boys:



He was originally going to give them the really big, heavy MagLites, but then decided that the smaller ones are more versatile, as they fit easily in a backpack or pocket.

I happen to believe that presentation is as important as the gift itself, so I was very pleased with how the packaging for the necklaces turned out:



It's nothing more than colorful, mini-takeout boxes and ribbon, but they made for very pretty packaging. I did this simply because I couldn't find jewelry boxes at Hobby Lobby. I settled unhappily on the takeout boxes, but I'm so pleased I did! I think they turned out so much nicer than the regular boxes would have.

And finally, I cranked out 9 congratulatory cards for our graduates:



The stars seemed appropriate, as their reception theme was How Brightly You Will Shine.

Indeed they will.

4 comments:

Amy W said...

I love that jewelry site! I've watched it for years, never buying anything...LOL!

Allison said...

That's a huge class! I think my high school was 40 seniors. I guess everything really is bigger in Texas.

How lucky they are to have you and your husband in their lives, especially at what can be a super-challenging few years.

I like the flashlights. I imagine your husband fit in some kind of broader "light" theme with the gifts, too.

Catherine said...

Wow, I never heard of that jewelry site before, but I seem to be addicted now. I'm checking back every few minutes to see what is new! If just found it myself, I would probably think it was not legit. Thanks for the recommendation!

Anne Marie@Married to the Empire said...

Catherine, I was wary the first time I purchased something from them, but it was so cheap that I figured it wouldn't hurt anything if the jewelry wound up being bad. But, their stuff is very nice, and they have excellent customer service. If there is anything wrong with your order, they'll replace it. In fact, I once ordered a pair of earrings, and I found the design to be seriously flawed. When I contacted them about it, they let me go to their main website and choose any pair of earrings I wanted as a replacement. This place is great, and it's a wonderful way to give nice gifts that look like you spent a lot, but cost very little.

Allison, not everything is bigger in Texas, but the really good school districts become huge because everyone wants to live where the schools are excellent. My Texas high school only had about 170 in my graduating class; they're now a huge school like the once pictured. People heard about this great district and the city's population just exploded!

Amy, I watch the site a lot and rarely buy. It's usually only when I need to give a gift that I purchase anything. And it takes patience because I think a lot of their designs are really ugly. I watched for days before I finally saw these pretty ones cycle through.