Make No Bones About It....

 Our daughter, Taylor, graduated from radiology school last week. Oh my gosh. I thought the day would never come!  (Notice her skeletal shirt? It also has pants and socks to match that she did not have on. The ensemble not only has every bone, but list the scientific name along side it. I told her to wear the outfit when she takes her national boards. Ha. Like that would be unnoticed!)

 We were SO excited that Taylor graduated that we celebrated in a big way. For the past two years, I had been buying (as non-Halloweeny as I could find) skeletons, after Halloween was over. (Get it?  Radiology...skeletons..... Just making sure you saw the connection.) I kept them all together in a closet. (Yes, skeletons were in my closet!!) I had forgotten how many cute ones I had until it was time to decorate. 

 I bought flowers at Sam's before I even went through my skeleton bag. When I got the flowers home I realized that they went with a couple of the skeletons like I had planned the whole thing. (Shhh...I let the guests think I had!!) 

 I had the cake made very plain on purpose, so I could put (a very-matching!!) skeleton on top. ....Like he was just resting there. 

This skeleton held the napkins for the guests. My little niece, Caroline, found these napkins when she was out with her mother and insisted on bringing them to the party. I mean really, could they match any better?  Again, not planned!!

 I also bought these plastic (heavy-duty, I might add) plates at Sam's and the cups to match. Again, they matched many of my skeletons, and of course the bouquet. We had 50 people over to eat and there was no way I was going to use real plates. 

 This guy met the guests at the door. I am sure my neighbors wondered what the heck was going on with a giant skeleton hanging from my front door!

 As guests walked in, they were greeted by a skeleton poster (again sporting the scientific names). The poster is one of the Staples $3.00 specials. I took a picture on my flashdrive and blew it up on their engineering copier. 

 I simply taped the poster behind the huge gold frame I have on the mantel for the summer. 

 There were skeletons in every single room I thought a party-goer might be in. This silver glitter skeleton (oh-so-cool in real life) sat on the mantel. 

 I did not take down my seashells and driftwood theme I had going on the mantel. Instead, I just wove the skeletal strands through the summer decor. Yes, there were some skeleton heads sitting throughout the house as well. 

 Something funny that I had not expected were that many (or most actually) of the skeletons glowed in the dark. 

 Friday night, as I was up all night getting ready for the party (because I have mentioned before how I am the World's Worst Procrastinator ....and I never sleep)....I was "surprised" several times as I walked room to room getting things ready and a huge glow-in-the-dark-skeleton was staring back at me. (Cue the scary music). 

 And because I am an English teacher and have to have words everywhere, I put the word "BONES" around the house. This is just two examples. 

My mother, bless her heart, was one of the stars of the party. I have mentioned before that my mother is handicapped. (Some day I will write an entire post about it.) She became that way through a mistake by a doctor. Over the last ten years, she has had MANY surgeries. When Taylor got into radiology school, my mom gathered up some of her X-rays and let Taylor take them to use for practice. You can see some of my mom's "hardware" in the above X-ray. 

 Each of these envelopes holds at least 10 x-rays, and that is just part of my mom's collection she gave to Taylor. I used some of the x-rays to decorate with, therefore making my mom (and the skeletons) the stars of the party. 

 My mother did not mind at all. She found it funny. She enjoyed telling people which operation and what hardware was involved in each of the x-rays. (Even if they didn't ask!!) ha! I put many of the x-rays in the large windows. (Again, I wonder what the neighbors had to be thinking!) 

 I also used the x-rays as both table runners and placemats. They worked out perfectly! 

 I had several (ok, many) people question where in the heck I got so many skeletons. Really, I only collected them for two years and bought them ALL after Halloween. Because I had such a fun collection, I put them everywhere! 

 This little guy was a stick-on skeleton. I did test just one bone before I put up the entire skeleton. Talk about glow-in-the-dark!  He almost lit up a room! 

 He came from Hallmark and I did not even remember getting him. He is reusable and very cute! 

 I even had skeletal dishes, but I used them only for serving pieces. I put all the flatware in the cups, and the food on the plates. We had all kinds of black plastic serving pieces as well. 

 We served lunch to the crowd. We had people all over the house. Everyone seemed to have a good time...make no bones about it! 

At the end of the day, this is how I looked. Bone tired!!

Linking to:

Wow Us Wednesday's 

Tablescape Thursday

Open House Party