Bucket List and Retirement Party

I am a teacher at a local school. My team and I hosted a retirement party in honor of one of our team members, Karen, who will be leaving after 32 years. We are so sad to see her go but were excited to throw a celebration in her honor. We put our minds together and quickly had the perfect theme and layout planned. These table settings and decor ideas would go great with really any party, baby shower or get together.

The team decided to go with an antique-y/rustic theme. We usually host showers and parties at our school in our library so we would be working with two tables and a small area. Most of the decor and materials we decided upon we already had in our own homes. This made the set-up easy and inexpensive (which is great when you are working on a budget). One of the crafts we needed was for a bucket list idea. We wanted guests to enter the party and write a retirement bucket list idea and clip it to a frame. Then, when our friend Karen retired she could use some of the bucket list ideas to plan her time off. I went to a thrift store and found a used frame for 99 cents. I like to think that the frame found me. It was PERFECT! I'm sure it was so cheap because there was no backing, picture or mirror with it. This just worked in our favor. I snatched it up and ran to the register.

The chicken wire was needed to use as backing. It also goes with the antique/rustic feel of our theme. You could use strips of ribbon instead or maybe even a cork board and this same idea.

This craft required some tools... a wire cutter, a staple gun and a screwdriver...

First the wire hanger was unscrewed from the frame. Then the chicken wire was cut to size and the staple gun secured it to the frame. Just be careful that the staples are shorter than your frame width or you could make some holes. I would suggest taping down the edges so that chicken wire doesn't snag anyone. It can be sharp.

Next we needed some tags for the frame. I already had a stack of white tags in my craft room. I found a case of at least 500 tags for $1.00 at another thrift store. We had twine already handy. Just cut and tie, cut and tie. We had maybe 50-75 guests so we had to make sure we had plenty. Many guests wrote on more than one tag.

This hardly took any time at all. Here are some pictures of the bucket list frame at the shower and some of the other decor items. The frame inside an old trunk...

A sign telling guests what to do when they got to the table...

Doilies... lace table cloth... burlap runners...

Old books and a book with folded pages (tutorial to come soon!)...

Mason jars... flowers...burlap ribbon....

The lovely cake...

Galvanized bucket filled with water and Dr. Pepper (Karen's favorite)...

The school staff chipped in money to give Karen two Cracker Barrel rocking chairs and cushions as her retirement gift...

Team pictures...

Here are some pictures of the bucket list frame after the party.

The bucket list frame is a great idea for any party or event. You could even just use frame and tag idea and alter the use... maybe write wishes for the bride and groom at a shower, parenting advice at a baby shower, or memories written down for a reunion, anything!

What would be on your retirement bucket list?