How to Decorate a Graduation Cap
It’s your time to rejoice, so make sure your mortarboard is dressed in style and commemorate this great achievement! You might want to decorate your grad cap for full sparkle potential with lots of shiny, glittery accents.
How should you decorate a graduation cap? The graduation cap should not be painted so much that it ruins the entire thing. In the cap, you will want glitter and bright colors that reflect your achievements and accomplishments.
While decorating the cap, it is important to avoid ruining it. Here is a step-by-step guide to decorating your graduation cap.
Celebrate the Big Day
Graduation is a major cause for celebration: the day that, for years, you have been working hard toward and dreaming about. Although a decorated graduation cap will provide fond memories of your commencement, make sure to celebrate the true graduation star: your university degree!
To secure and show the most costly piece of paper you’ll ever own, browse our large range of diploma frames.
Things to Remember When Decorating Your Cap
Things you should not decorate your cap with:
- Any marks of a sexual nature, drugs, or firearms.
- An association with gangs or promoting domestic and drug use, criminal activity, and the sort.
- Anything that endangers the protection and welfare of any person.
- Only the top, flat region of the mortar panel can be painted. Nothing from any of the sides of the cap can hang down.
- On the surface of the hat, decorations must be smooth. 3-D creations are forbidden.
- Obscene, profane, pornographic, or vulgar things.
- Numbers other than the year of graduation are used.
Things you can decorate your cap with:
- Thanks to parents, grandparents, teachers, colleagues, and friends.
- The year of graduation.
- The branch of the military you’re going to join.
- The flag of your home country.
- The university you are going to attend.
Time to Design Your Graduation Cap
The theme is first outlined on a sheet of paper to avoid damage to your graduation cap as you decorate it. Measure the cap and see if the graduation cap suits your theme.
Use good-quality materials. Being patient will keep you from ruining the cap when decorating it.
Your Design
Think about the theme you’d like to use for your graduation cap. Do you want to feature a funny meme or catchphrase that was famous this year? Are you looking to build a template that has to do with your particular major?
Want to decorate your cap proudly in the colors of your school or with a logo that features your favorite mascot? Or maybe you’d like to introduce your favorite movie, book, or TV show with a clever line or heartwarming quote? The opportunities are infinite!
Phrases power some designs. A lot of students use their favorite quotes from films or philosophers. Others might put a verse of the bible on their hat. Thanking your parents is another standby.
Whatever you decide to do, because words are just words, the context and the lettering will be the artistic side of this kind of cap. Have some fun with the lettering process.
Some individuals do hand lettering for a living because, clearly, the letters might be a piece of artwork themselves.
Don’t make it too complicated for your context; otherwise, people will have a hard time reading the words.
Other designs are more visually oriented. You could put a picture of a heart on your cap or a stethoscope if you are a medical school graduate. Or if you’re a business student, you could put a calculator drawing up there.
All these are merely suggestions. You can also go online and see what others have done before you.
Keep in mind that you will eventually produce a piece of art that will undoubtedly become a treasured keepsake. It can be a handmade object that honors one of your life’s most important events.
More than likely, along with your school trophies and varsity letter frame, you will want to put this personal and meaningful artwork on display.
Design Inspiration
Settling on the right design will probably take more time than the actual process of decorating your cap. This is a huge milestone in your life. Your family and friends will want to take plenty of images of you.
If you are looking for fun and creative ideas for a grad cap design, Google some themes on photo galleries. Or find artistic inspiration on our board of decorations for Pinterest graduation caps.
Get the Crafting Supplies You Need
Once you’ve settled on the ideal theme for your graduation cap style, it’s time for shopping: the best part!
You’ll probably find everything you need at most arts and crafts shops, but at your local dollar store, you might be able to find similar and even better-crafting supplies for less.
So, check out the crafting and stationery sections of the dollar store for crafting supplies before you fork out a lot of money at a chain hobby shop.
You can even find appropriate one-dollar adhesives or bags of glue sticks to use for your crafting projects. Even so, while you’re sure to hunt down plenty of bargain-basement deals at dollar store chains when it comes to protection, you can never cut corners.
This is why investing in a high-quality glue gun from a brand you trust is best.
Prepare Your Workspace
Once you have all your crafting supplies, you will want to find a workspace with a nice, flat surface that’s perfect for crafting.
Because you’re going to be working with glue, make sure you put down multiple sheets of newspaper to cover the table or countertop surface you’re going to work on.
Steps for Decorating Your Grad Cap
Before you start working, make certain that you remove the tassel from the cap. Keep your tassel in a safe place when working.
This prevents any mishaps with the glitter glue, sticky letters, or hot glue gun. Sketch out your template on paper before you cut into it or peel off any adhesive backings.
Using a pencil, ruler, eraser, and white copier paper to work out the grad cap proportions and decide where each decoration will be put is a good idea.
That way, you can make any “happy accidents” on paper before committing to a catastrophic tragedy with the only grad cap you have for the big day!
Step 1: Put your graduation cap face down on a white paper cover. Using a pencil, trace around the hat.
To decide on the tassel button’s position at the center of the grade cap, use a ruler. Sketch out the concept of your template.
Step 2: Put glitter paper face down on the surface. Put the cap on top of the paper and trace the square mortarboard.
Test to assess the tassel button placement. Split along the surfaces, including the one that leads up to and around the region of the bell.
Step 3: Slide the glitter paper carefully on the grad hat, smoothing down the cut edges for a seamless fit below the bell.
Glue paper with glitter to the grad cap. Before you glue it on, cut out the key piece of art and decide on the graduation hat’s final location.
Step 4: Add letters, gems, foam stickers, and other decorative elements, using your drawing as a reference.
The textured surface of glitter paper does not bind well to adhesive letters and foam stickers, so it’s safer to hot-glue all decorations to your grad hat.
Reattach the Tassel
Make sure to reattach your tassel to your freshly decorated grade cap once the glue has fully dried.
Although this sounds like a no-brainer, this crucial move has been forgotten by many crafters! An integral part of the graduation regalia is the grad cap tassel. You’ll need it for the symbolic “turning of the tassel,” so it’s something that you certainly don’t want to lose before the big day.
(And, yes, what they say is true: The tassel is worth the trouble!) You’ll want to remove it carefully from your decorated grad cap after graduation and display it in a diploma frame.
This is a cool way to secure and highlight your hard-earned diploma alongside a special graduation day memento!
Do You Need to Decorate Your Graduation Cap?
For the most expensive piece of paper you’ll ever get, you’ll want to dress up. You may as well decorate the cap so that your successes can be celebrated.
If you intend to throw your cap at the end of the ceremony, try to take the tassel off first. There’s a fair chance you’re going to miss a toss.
Conclusion
A meaningful cap is adorned with personal or motivational symbols for you. You shouldn’t put anything that won’t resonate with the same emotion five years from now.
Even the smallest decoration is going to make you stand out from the crowd.
