Stitching for a Star! 

Styling a First-Class Stirling Graduation Party 

Another graduation season is here, and this past weekend was an incredibly special one. Our son, George, hosted a spectacular graduation party to toast his wonderful girlfriend, Emma, on a truly magnificent achievement - she got a First! As if that wasn't enough to celebrate, she has also already secured a job at Durham University. After three years of hard work on her part, and a massive amount of secret sewing on mine, the weather held out, the drinks flowed, and she had the celebratory send-off into the next chapter that she so richly deserves.

Whilst George offered to host, I couldn't resist jumping right in to take on the event styling! If you saw last year's graduation post, you'll definitely recognise a few elements. I had to paint, adapt, and upcycle though, as Stirling's university colours are green, whilst Stephenson's are red!

Fortunately, we live near a huge Amazon distribution centre that regularly donates unsold stock straight to our local charity shops. It is the absolute ultimate upcycling loophole! It meant I could justify sourcing additional theme-specific decorations and a mountain of balloons, knowing they were rescued items. The shops were also brimming with fantastic glassware and teddy bears, which I was once again all too happy to snap up and give a new lease of life to.

A mannequin display looked right at home next to George's brilliant 'First Class Photos' prop sign! The head was originally a tacky white polystyrene number, but with the addition of some vintage encyclopaedia pages and patterned napkins decoupaged onto it, it was completely transformed. I actually made it for last year's party using the exact step-by-step napkin decoupage technique I shared on the blog all the way back in January 2014, so it felt wonderful to see it repurposed for another special occasion. Dressed up in a mortarboard and glitzy 2026 glasses, it made the perfect quirky addition to the windowsill!

We knew a Stirling graduation party definitely needed a nod to the famous campus red squirrels, so my first string of bunting featured free-motion appliquéd characters at either end of the 'STIRLING' flags, all hand-cut to the perfect size to hang across the mantelpiece (more on the balloon boxes later).

I had also stitched over 120 feet of classic chintzy floral bunting to give the garden a traditional British garden party vibe, but heavy rain during the morning setup meant we didn't bother putting it up. Luckily, I had made plenty of indoor alternatives. The 'LET'S PARTY' garland looked right at home under the kitchen clock, whilst a 'STIRLING 2026' banner hung beneath the window balloon arch, just above where the buffet table would be. Finally, a 'FIRST CLASS GIRL' banner made an appearance across the bookcase—a very fitting tribute to Emma's brilliant degree result!

Next up were the graduation teddy bears and, being sourced from various local charity shops, they were all wonderfully different shapes and sizes! The miniature gowns and mortarboards were pre-loved finds from eBay, but I added custom '2026' tassels to bring them right up to date.

The t-shirts, however, were a bit of a saga. I initially attempted to make one myself by cutting up an old top of mine and hand-embroidering 'Stirling 2026' across the front. After George kindly informed me that my prototype looked completely hideous, I swiftly admitted defeat! Instead, I took the design to a lovely local Durham business to have them printed properly, and they turned out beautifully.

I think it is probably fairly obvious that I get rather focused when I have a project to work on, so I didn't stop at bears. Months were spent keeping our eyes peeled in charity shops specifically to find soft-toy squirrels! Once we’d tracked enough of them down, they were given their own tiny mortarboards and matching 2026 green tassels. They were very cute, but the graduates weren't overly keen on them, so the hats will be removed and they will be going back to the charity shop!

Rather more popular was the sweet station and ice cream bar! We set up an great spread of toppings, cones, and treats, complete with custom posters designed by George. To keep things eco-friendly, I used last year's collection of glassware - a mix of empty preserve jars and charity shop find - making the containers entirely recycled, free, or donation-based.

Each jar was then styled with ribbons in the black, green, gold, and tartan theme. The final flourish was provided by the punning labels. They were admittedly pretty lame, but we had fun coming up with them! A couple of my favourites were 'Percy-verence Pays Off' for Marks and Spencer's iconic Percy Pig sweets, and 'The Wallace Monu-Mint' for Mint Matchmakers!

The preparations were finished with some custom balloon art. The only element I did myself was based on a pack of Amazon-donated baby shower balloon boxes - although when I opened the pack, it was one box short! Whilst I wouldn't have used the original 'BABY' letters anyway, I had been hoping to use the boxes to spell out ‘GRAD’.

Being one box short for a four-letter word, necessity became the mother of invention! I instead stacked them in a pyramid arrangement, cutting '20' and '26' in black card to go across the lower two, and then topped the third box with an upcycled cake topper. It ended up looking like a perfectly intentional, tiered display!

If you have ever priced up professional balloon installations, you’ll know they can cost an absolute fortune. George took on the challenge and created his own spectacular versions instead! Whilst I usually steer clear of balloons due to their environmental impact, I made an exception here as we were using pre-loved items donated to the charity shop. George applied his mathematical brain to the task with incredible results, crafting huge installations for the front of the house and stunning photo backdrops both in the garden and indoors. By mixing structured, classic spirals with a modern, 'organic' layout of varying sizes, he perfectly tied every element together and elevated the entire party to a professional standard, brilliantly capturing our Stirling colour scheme throughout.

After such a wonderful afternoon, a spontaneous living room disco got the youngsters in the mood for the long night ahead. They headed into Durham for some serious hard drinking and partying, whilst we were more than ready to collapse into bed!

Thanks Greg!!

An Ode to Stephenson College 

"Friends are the family you choose"

Another year has flown by, and graduation season is here again. While most of Alice's friends graduated last year, some were on four-year courses, so they got to celebrate again in 2025! 

Durham University is collegiate, and when Alice originally applied, she chose Cuthbert's, hoping to be on the Bailey. Although she received her first choice, she was gutted to find out a couple of weeks before starting that she’d been reassigned to Stephenson College. Durham gave her the option of either accepting Stephenson or deferring for a year to return to Cuth's. Unsure of what to do, we visited Stevo, and from the moment she stepped foot in the college, she was hooked!

Stephenson is one of the newer colleges and prides itself on its modern, inclusive, and forward-thinking ethos, making it the perfect fit for Alice. She made incredible friends and fully embraced college life. Her love for the college was so strong that her dad even switched from Castle SCR to Stephenson (I’m still Team Hild Bede, but it’s a close call!).

Stephenson truly lives up to its reputation as a progressive, values-driven college, with students actively embracing global citizenship and engaging in local civic service at remarkable levels (evidenced by the college being named Volunteering College of the Year).

Alice and her friends were each awarded lifetime honorary memberships, and hosting their graduation party was an absolute delight. College Principal Professor Rob Lynes and Vice Principal Katie Stobbs joined us for lunch - further proof that Stephenson really is that welcoming!

Fortunately, we live close to one of Amazon's largest distribution centers, and our local charity shops often sell items donated by them. This allowed me to justify buying single-use graduation decorations along with 200 balloons! The charity shops also had plenty of glassware and teddy bears, which I was happy to snap up ready to recycle.

Alice's friend Ella was incredible, taking charge of desktop publishing to create stunning bingo sheets, signs, favour toppers, and jam jar labels. Since I'm hopeless with computers, I was thrilled to have such professional-looking 'branding' for the printouts!

Durham University students don't actually wear Mortarboards to graduate but my Amazon haul included a rather fetching red number so I added a Stephenson motto (upcycled from a worn out shirt) and it made the perfect photo booth prop along with vintage gowns.

The party was a wonderful muti-age affair and Alice's Granny baked huge amounts of sausage rolls, cheese scones and quiches for the buffet, along with big bowls of pretty much every type of salad imaginable!

The youngest guests were primary school age so I had an excuse to craft party favours!

 

Alice enjoying Granny's buffet

  

Alice's friends gave me their Frep (Fresher's Representative), bar and shop T-shirts which I stitched up into keepsake Team Stephenson bunting and teddy bears.

The savoury buffet was followed by an ice cream bar, featuring Ella's beautiful jam-jar labels.

Personalised Bunting 

Durham University Garland

 

This week I have been upcycling 'Stevo Stash' in the form of well worn T-shirts and polo tops. Most were previously part of the bar staff uniform and had definitely seen better days!  My original plan was to create shield shaped badges which retained both the 'Durham University' and 'Stephenson College' text but the shirts were far too out of shape to allow for this!

Plan B was to blanket stitch just the main logo onto red felt and even then I still couldn't quite get them to square up! Thankfully using red thread, instead of the previous white satin stitch, proved slightly more forgiving.

 

Stephenson College is a relatively new college which proudly announces itself as "a modern, progressive, values-led college. Sustainability, innovation, global citizenship and civic engagement are the core pillars of Stephenson College life, and we believe that change starts with us".

My daughter graduated from Durham University last year, having originally applied to St. Cuthbert's College (I'm Hild and Bede so had no skin in the game!) but was then bumped to Stevo. She was pretty disappointed but as soon as she arrived at Stevo it was love at first sight!

The ethos of this fabulous college is very much echoed in the work of its current Vice Principal Katie Stobbs, and Alice's time there was definitely much richer due to Katie's amazing leadership and guidance.  It was therefore my pleasure to stitch up this little upcycled gift for her 💕  

Thank You Katie!