Laying a very small patio?

the way i usually do it, and it works pretty well, is bye digging about 3 inches into the ground, level the whole way, then stomped or beat the level plain to make it more stable and firm. after that, we added dry mortar mix to the ground, not too thick, to help when leveling the slabs, or bricks in our case. then we packed every brick nice and neat, no holes in between each brick at all. worked out great but an even better idea is to have a bricker or stone mason to just lay the ground for you, i believe thats better because it looks more stylish and lasts a lonnnnnnnng time. and the ratio of cement to sand in normal brick houses is 20 FULL shovelfuls per bag of cement or 3:1 sand to cement ratio. if your going to make an error, its better to have more cement than needed instead of vice versa