When I hosted my first book swap in 2019, it was such fun that we vowed to make it an annual thing, or at most an every-other-year affair. Well… you know what happened next. But here we are, four years later, living our best readerly lives at a book swap once again, and it was a delight. In case it might inspire some of you to host a swap of your own, I’d love to share some photos and details from this weekend. (And if you’re just here to vicariously enjoy our readerly shenanigans, that’s a-ok, too.) This time around, my beautiful friend Bethany agreed to be my co-host. She’s an avid reader, a wonderful cook, and an even better friend – plus, she has an inviting home with many large surfaces on which to display books (so you can see why she was a slam-dunk pick). One Paperless Post invitation later, our guests were a mixture of Articles Club gals, preschool mom pals, and neighborhood buddies, plus a smattering of book-loving friends from other corners of our respective lives. It can feel a little nerve-wracking to bring together different groups of friends, but books are the great uniter, aren’t they? We invited 24 guests and had about 16 attend with summer travel and a few last-minute sick kiddos. Food for a book swap brunch We opted to host this year’s book swap in the morning – 10am – and so we kicked off the party by piling plates high with brunch food: two kinds of quiche; mini white chocolate baguettes from a local bakery; a mini pancake platter with nutella, soft butter, and syrup; smoked salmon sliders; and a monochromatic fruit salad inspired by a long-ago Cup of Jo post. (I’ve been holding on to that inspiration for

In honor of Earth Day (today!), I wanted to share about something fun we tacked on to Articles Club this week: a stuff swap! Our beautiful table at Stephanie’s! She is good at what she does! :) What’s a stuff swap, you ask? In our case, it was a chance to trade our gently-loved items for someone else’s: similar to a yard sale or thrift store adventure, but with only the creme de la creme of items – the treasures you’d be thrilled to bring home after a long day of hunting. Ours was very casual, quick, and simple, but still fun – and it made me want to host a more full-scale swap in the future! Here’s a little bit about how it worked. Unlike a book swap or a clothing swap, this was a stuff swap, and anything was fair game. Gals did actually bring clothing and books, but there were also beauty items, home decor finds, kids’ stuff, paper products, and more. We limited everyone to bringing just ten items so it didn’t become overwhelming, but I think if the swap was the focus of your event, you could raise the limit! Some of the goodies and the gals Steph had set up a folding table in her living room, and as we arrived, we rather unceremoniously arranged our items wherever they fit. This was just fine, but again, if you were going all out, it could be fun to designate different areas for different categories or provide more surfaces/levels to “merchandise” the goods. To decide who went home with what, we started with a snake draft. (A snake draft, if you’re not familiar, goes like this: person A picks, person B picks, then person C, C, B, A.) We did two snake draft rounds and then

As an introvert, I’m a big fan of parties with a purpose, and my recent book swap party perfectly fit the bill: gather with likeminded friends, eat dessert, and head home with an armful of new reads? Sign me up!! Here’s a recap, if you’d like to plan something similar! The venue: My friend Katie graciously agreed to host this soiree, which couldn’t have worked out better: her husband is an author, so their home is filled with books and was therefore the perfect backdrop! Her first floor is also a more traditional layout, with several distinct rooms, which helped with the flow of the evening. In addition to playing hostess, most of the adorable details you see here are the work of Katie’s hand – she is incredibly crafty and a genius hand letterer!! She made the book table runner, the adorable treat bags, the “library cards,” and more. (She also makes AMAZING wedding invitations and other fun things, so please email her to talk about a project!!) The invite: I sent out an invitation on Paperless Post (this one). We had an almost 100% RSVP rate, including a few EFM readers I had never met before! :) The swap mechanics: My research turned up all different ways to host a book swap – some people do a Yankee Swap, or a Yankee Swap with wrapped books for extra mystery. My goal, however, was to clear out my shelves, pass on well-loved books, and get several new books in return, so I allowed gals to bring up to 5 books to swap that they already owned. (One book was totally fine, too! I’d say most people brought about 3.) Any kind of book was welcome – fiction, nonfiction, memoir, cookbook, coffee table book – the only requirement was that