A Gracious Welcome: Etiquette and Ideas for Entertaining Houseguests

Loved thumbing thru this book at a friends and decided I needed my own copy. Lots of helpful tips and great pictures.

I'd suggest borrowing this from your local library. It's a nicely packaged book with pastel pages, high quality photos and a sampling of hostess tips. The text probably equals 2 or 3 magazine articles, so I'd hate to pay $19 for it. It gives guidelines for preparing the guest room (add hangers to the closet, flowers on the bedside table, etc.) and a sampling of recipes for impressing your guests. They are lovely sounding (cranberry scones, strawberry iced tea, peanut butter s'mores)and the photos look good enough to eat. Note the Martha Stewart touches like the chocolate chip cookie photo showing a well-loved teddy bear with the cookies and milk. Along with these are some craft ideas like stamping your initial on your cocktail napkins or layering colored bath salts in a jar for the guest bath. It even includes a couple of pages with instructions for playing charades and twenty questions. All the ideas are pleasant enough, but overall it seems skimpy at 120 small sized pages.

A wonderful book from a former Martha Stewart editor with many ideas for entertaining guests in your home. The pictures are beautiful and the recipes and ideas are creative and easy to implement.