The “Great Big BlogHer 2011” Post

(or, “How I ended up at a rooftop party for feminine hygiene products with Mario Lopez.”)

For my regular coupon blog readers, allow me to take a (small) break from coupon talk and fill you in on my adventures at BlogHer 2011 in San Diego. BlogHer’s been a lot of fun so far! It’s pretty much everything you’d think it would be. There are a lot of sessions during the day that you can attend to learn about various aspects of blogging (among others, today I attended one on frugality blogs, which is the category that my blog falls into.) But the big draw here, of course, is the expo hall.

Numerous brands, stores and manufacturers are represented here, and nearly every one of them will send you away with a hefty load of samples, merchandise and coupons.

Here’s CVS/Pharmacy’s booth, which was very eye-catching, as it looked like a mini CVS store. Unlike the real CVS store, everything you picked up here was free! They were handing out everything from Snickers bars to Maybelline and Salma Hayek’s Nuance makeup, to mini hand lotions, sanitizers and first aid kits. They also had a functional coupon center machine in the booth which popped out a $4-off-$20 coupon when you scanned your CVS Card.

Here’s GladWare’s booth. They were showing off a new GladWare with a small snap-in cup that holds salad dressing or vegetable dip inside the same container as the vegetables… and everyone visiting the booth could take a set home too.

Procter & Gamble had an entire house set up inside the expo hall, and in each room you could pick up coupons, products or samples. Here I am in the bathroom sitting on the largest toilet I’ve ever seen. (The toilet bowl was filled with [what else] packages of Charmin so you wouldn’t fall into it.)

You truly could eat your way around the expo. Here, Dannon was giving out free full-size cups of Oikos Greek yogurt…

Hillshire Farms‘ booth is a “cafe” with a menu that changes throughout the day – chicken wraps, salads and other foods, all of which are free.

McDonalds had a variety of treats throughout the day, including mango-pineapple smoothies, apple dippers and yogurt parfaits…

Knorr debuted a new cooking stock and had a kitchen demonstration going where you could go up, cook with the new cooking stock, then eat the food…

As many blogs focus on parenting and children, there were quite a few booths focused on toys, learning, and children’s television networks. Here I am sitting on the legendary Sesame Street steps. :)

I ran into a lot of bloggers today from around the country, including fellow Chicagoan Rachel Singer Gordon, author of Mashup Mom. Here we are making Mr. Potato Heads together. We were informed that a new Mr. Potato Head was being debuted at BlogHer, and for the life of me I could not figure out what was different about Potato.

The answer? The new-and-improved Mr. Potato Head is thinner. You read that right… he’s a trimmer and more slender Potato Head. (Was the world asking for Mr. Potato Head to lose weight? Apparently so.)

After playing with the skinny Mr. Potato Heads, Rachel and I went to the Dove Bar booth, where they were hand-dipping Dove Bars. Mmmmmm. (That’s right. Seeing Mr. Potato Head looking unnaturally thinner drove us to eat ice cream in the middle of the day. And that wasn’t the only time… the Skinny Cow booth also had a steady supply of free ice cream bars available. BlogHer serves two meals a day to attendees too as part of our admission, but I felt like we ate all day long… so much that when mealtimes came, I was not hungry..!)

A lot of the booths’ displays were really creative and fun. Here’s Pepsico’s garden of snacks!

Truly, you pick up SO much stuff at BlogHer. I made two trips back to my room to dump my bags on the bed and go back for more — and I was trying to be selective about what I was picking up!

Here, I’m trying to sort everything out and go through it all… whenever possible, I was picking things up for you guys too along the way – particularly coupons, which will become part of blog giveaways here over the next few weeks!)

Here are some fun cookies from the CoffeeMate and PBS Sprout booths, plus various food items I picked up throughout the day…

Here are some Salma Hayek Nuance products I picked up at the CVS Beauty lunch party, a Post-It Notes dispenser and notes, and various toys, crafts and DVDs for my kids to enjoy when we get home. (I liked the coloring sheets depicting “Mommy’s Trip To California!”)

NOW we’re into my territory :) Here’s an assortment of coupons I picked up today. (I scored a $5 off any Brawny coupon by taking a photo with the Brawny paper towel man in their booth.) The coupons on the right are all FREEs, which of course are our favorite kinds. Two of those free Michael Angelos Italian frozen dinner coupons will be for an upcoming giveaway.

The people at the Dole booth were incredibly generous when I asked if I could have “some” coupons for a giveaway:

(!!!!! Look forward to this! :)

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BlogHer is known for its parties too. There are a LOT of parties going on at any given time. While there are three official BlogHer-sponsored parties each night, most of the parties are hosted by individual companies or brands. These are invitation-only though. From informal discussions with the bloggers I talked to today, many of the “mom bloggers” got invited to events with Johnson & Johnson, Playskool and other such companies. Aside from the CVS Beauty luncheon party (which I’m sure I was invited to as CVS/Pharmacy sponsored my trip to BlogHer this year,) I wasn’t invited to any others… until this afternoon.

I was walking in the expo hall past the SoftCup booth (it is a feminine hygiene cup) and I heard the booth workers explaining the cup to some bloggers. At the risk of heading into the “too much information” realm, I am a fan of the SoftCup. So, as I was walking by, I told them so. The booth staff gave me an invitation to their party, which was being held on a rooftop of the Andaz Hyatt a few blocks away…

The view of the city from the rooftop, watching the sun set, was fantastic! (The food was also fantastic [yes… eating again!] and I ate quite a few bacon-wrapped skewered, grilled shrimp.) This giant firebowl on the roof was really pleasant to sit around as well.

And, in the “celebrity sighting” department, look who else was at the Softcup party. Extra host and “Saved By The Bell” legend Mario Lopez:

And that’s how my night ended – exactly as I said at the beginning of this story. I was on a rooftop at a party for feminine hygiene products with Mario Lopez.

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CVS/pharmacy is partially sponsoring my trip to BlogHer 2011, though all opinions expressed on JillCataldo.com regarding the event, CVS/pharmacy and products sold in their stores are my own.

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Don’t miss part 2 of this series on BlogHer ’11… Read it here.