How to Organize a Book Swap

Do you and your friends love to read? Are you always swapping books, or would you like to? If you want to save some green and have fun at the same time, then a book swap is a good idea.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Guest list and invitations
• Books
• Inexpensive cloth book bags
• Fabric markers
• Book lights
• Soft background music of your choice
• Light refreshments

1. 

   Gather a list of friends and family and send out invitations to your book swap up to a month in advance.

2. Have a informal designated area set up so guests can drop off their books and take which ones they think they would like to read.

3. Create personalized book bags for each guests with colorful fabric markers.

4. Keep the gathering lively with soft background music and encourage guests to mingle and discuss what they loved about the books they read and the authors who wrote them.

5. Serve light refreshments.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep the swap informal and casual.
• Refreshments such as coffee, tea and cookies are a good choice to serve at the swap.
• If you want to add door prizes to the party, create personalized cloth book bags and embellish with markers, or you can hot glue appliques to the bag to create a trendy look. Your guests will then have a nice bag to take their books home in.
• Another door prize idea would be to give each guest a small battery-operated book light to take home.

[jpwhickson]

on 2/14/2008 Great idea!