Graduation is around the corner. Graduating from college is an accomplishment that is sadly reserved for only 9% of low-income students receive a college diploma.[source: CNN Money]

Our amazing niece, Lydia, has overcome many obstacles, including growing up poor, to achieve the incredible accomplishment of a college diploma. And she did it all on her own!

Although, Lydia did have the emotional support of her family, her family did not have the financial resources to assist her in the overwhelming cost of attending college.

Her parents couldn’t buy her a car, so she did not have a car to get her to classes or to her job at Walmart. She relied on friends and public transportation. Her sacrifice in attending college was huge. Sadly, she even had to spend holidays alone, away from family, because she had to go to work to make her way through college.

We saw her grow up from a fangirl, to color guard, and now a college graduate!!!

All those sacrifices and tough times will cumulate as she walks the stage to receive her college diploma from University of North Texas on May 14th. Her road to success has not been easy, and we honor and celebrate her determination and accomplishment. We are so proud of Lydia!

Through the years, I have struggled with graduation gift ideas. They say money is always good, but money isn’t a personal gift at all.

I wish I could give her my car as a graduation gift, but we just aren’t in a position right now to do that.

We moved to the Texas Hill Country a year ago, and I recently asked my husband if he had seen the diploma for my Master’s degree when we packed. Nope! It must be in a box somewhere, and hopefully, I can still find it! I have a Master’s degree and never framed it! After the five years I spent working full-time and going to graduate school at night – my Master’s degree is in a box…somewhere…hopefully I still have it!

That’s when I realized that the best college graduation gifts would be college diploma frames. We are so proud of Lydia, and now she can show the world her biggest achievement displayed beautifully on her wall, and not in a box somewhere (unlike her Aunt Penny).

But a cheap frame isn’t the way to display such a hard-earned diploma. I found that diplomaframe.com (Church Hill Classics) is a professional framing company that handcrafts officially licensed diploma frames in the US. They have a huge selection of custom diploma frame styles for more than 1,500 colleges — including the University of North Texas.

Check out the University of North Texas diploma frame that I picked out for Lydia. It has a green suede matting with the school name embossed in gold and a medallion with the school seal.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Church Hill Classics in partnership with The Motherhood.