I'm pretty devastated, depressed and a terrible weepy mess at work sad to have my brother gone - he's currently sitting in SeaTac boarding a flight to Texas. It was fun to introduce him to my home, my town, and my friends through a series of fun days. We had a "big" party (big in the apartment is 8 people) on Saturday night where we served appetizers, lots of delicious drinks, and sang a lot of impromptu songs on the guitar, ukulele, etc. I think my brother was a little overwhelmed by the group of us who've all known each other for so long that we don't really avoid any conversation topics and are comfortable doing embarrassing things in front of each other.
I thought it'd be fun to show you the little entertaining touches I like to use when people come over! I filled my pretty blue bowls with different appetizers: sliced pineapple, cheese curds, a homemade tapenade, and then laid out salami and cheese. Appetizers can be easy and shouldn't stress you out. Once you cut the french bread or lay the salami out, it doesn't look so haphazard or store-bought. By sticking a little toothpick in each dish and making a tiny flag out of washi tape (cut a strip, wrap around the toothpick, cut a triangle out of the end, embellish) everything looked dressed up and fancy. I also had a fresh bunch of insanely gorgeous peonies to put on display with my new pink candlesticks. The color theme fell together magically in homage to my growing love of everything pink. I also wore some fantastic pink shorts from the Gap and a girly polka dot tank to top off the summery night!