13 June 2023
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
22 April 2022
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
13 March 2017
Ever since Brooke wrote about throwing a “Favorite Things” party many moons ago, I’ve wanted to host one myself! The rapidly-approaching end of my 60 Before 30 project was enough to get my butt in gear, and I’m so happy to say that this eagerly-anticipated event was just as fun as I thought it would be. Here’s how I organized mine, in case you’re interested in hosting your own! Instead of inviting my usual roster of friends, I decided to use this party as an opportunity to get to know our neighbors a bit better. To make things simple, I issued a Facebook invitation. Here’s the text I used in case you’d like to copy it :) Hi friends and neighbors! I’ve wanted to host a “favorite things” party for a long time, and figured Valentine’s Day and meeting more neighbors were perfect excuses! :) If you reply YES (which I hope you do!), plan to bring your favorite thing with you on the 16th (anything you like… your favorite lip balm, favorite kitchen tool, favorite gift wrapping supply, a gift card for your favorite frozen yogurt, favorite plant, etc.). Don’t spend more than $10, and bring THREE of the same thing (for a total of $30 or less). You’ll go home with the favorite things of three other ladies! If you’d like to bring a dessert or bottle of wine or another drink to share, as well, that would be great! You can comment below with what you’ll bring so we can all get excited :) Finally, please feel free to extend the invitation to any other ladies you love in [our neighborhood]!! Looking forward to it! Emily Going the Facebook route made it very easy for friends to invite other friends, something I was really trying to encourage!