For a simple spring place setting at your next dinner, look to the farmers' market and a bunch of hot pink radishes! Tie two radishes — leaves intact! — with twine and place on top of a cloth napkin. I particularly like them paired with a pea green napkin; so lovely and fresh! 

You know what automatically makes a sit-down dinner a little more fancy and fun? A printed menu of all the food to come! But you don't have to be a graphic design whiz to have a personalized menu at your next dinner party — we found five pretty, customizable templates you can download for free.

Even if you don't send them, you're probably familiar with the concept of writing thank-you notes to dinner party hosts. But what about sending cards to guests, thanking them for attending? 

Here's a little tip from the department of Do Things Ahead: scooping ice cream is one of my favorite little things to prep ahead of time, especially before a birthday party. Why? Well, do you just love scooping ice cream at the table? I know I don't...

One of the sadder parts of working with a team distributed all over the country is the fact that we can't close up shop early on Friday and have a drink together. But we can still raise a glass to the fun of working together, and to Cocktail Week, with a virtual happy hour! A few of us editors threw our own happy hour, wherever we were, and shook up a gin drink to celebrate the end of a long week. Want to see our drink picks, and to join us? Can we entice you to jump in to our virtual happy hour? 

Punch is a fun-to-serve, often less expensive way to offer an adult beverage to your guests. And have you noticed? In the last few years, the cocktail bowl has made a comeback in bars, a festive way to share a drink with a table of friends. At the very least, punch will make your party memorable, even more so if you make a complementary ice ring. My favorite punch recipe has a secret ingredient, a really cheap one, that no one suspects.

Grenadine is that bright red, super sweet syrup that helps put the sun in a Tequila Sunrise and makes a Shirley Temple blush. It also occasionally puts the cherry in cherry cokes, but actually, grenadine is traditionally made from pomegranates (grenadine is French for pomegranate) and has a lot more going for it when you make your own. This quick, simple method for making homemade grenadine allows the tartness of the pomegranate to really come through and is a big improvement over the commercial versions.

Sparkling wine is already a festive pour for a party, but here's an idea for making it a little more special: serve homemade fruit liqueur lollipops for guests to stir into their bubbly. It's an elegant, surprising take on the usual champagne cocktail.

Q: I'm hosting a burger bar party for 36 guests, including 6 kids. I'm planning on serving mushroom burgers, beef burgers, salmon burgers, grilled chicken, and grilled cheese sandwiches. How much of each burger should I make? I want to make sure I have enough!

Sent by Lucy

For the longest time I thought entertaining meant an all-out war with my family, my kitchen, and my senses. It was something I felt I had to conquer in order to become an amazing wife and friend. But I now realize that had I taken a step back and just made a few simple things a little extra special, I could have saved myself the stress and had more time to enjoy those around me. Here are 5 things you can do so you don't make the same mistakes I did!