2014 BlogHer Sponsor Wrap-Up and Giveaway

Well, I just got back from another BlogHer. I think this photo of me and my friend Raquel sums up the event. We laughed, we cried, I vomited. There were ups. There were downs. There were parts that inspired, and there were parts that made us want to stand up and scream. Am I glad I went this year? I think with any event you can learn some great things from it, and that’s what I’m trying to take home from this event. Besides the stomach flu. I didn’t really want to take that home.

This is a picture of me before embracing the sweet sweet sleep of demise. I mean before I threw up everything I’d ever eaten. I think I look pretty good for harboring some sort of virus inside multiplying and waiting to conquer its host.

Okay, but let’s actually talk about the event and some of the great brands that were there. Thanks to the One2One Network, I was invited to come to the EPPA Sangria event with Soybu workout attire and Whole Foods/Whole Planet Foundation. I loved their sangria and I’m actually looking forward to finding it in Arizona and downing an entire bottle to celebrate when I start to feel better. I won a $100 giftcard from Soybu, so I’m excited to look at their collection. EPPA Sangria is gluten-free and it’s pretty damn delicious sangria.

Garden of Life was there (just like last year) and they were showcasing their new Alicia Silverstone-backed vegan/non-GMO/gluten-free Kind Organics brand multi-vitamin pill. I am STOKED about this line, as I used to take something similar that was just real food and a probiotic. This was probably the most relevant product that was on the show floor for someone like me (besides the blogger-focused technology). Look for me to work with Garden of Life in a promotion of this item in the future.

BONA was one of the brands that I was actually excited about. Why? Because I’m a freelance writer that works from home in pajamas without shoes on. What does that translate to? Dirty floors. Bona also cares about green and sustainability – and their cleaners are pH balanced so they’re not harmful to the environment (read about it here). Look for me to work with these guys in the future. Plus I look awesome holding a mop.

I’d be pretty lucky to work with brands like Cuisinart, because…even though this woman doesn’t look like she wants to talk to me in any way or form, she did an awesome demo of their new panini press. It’s like a George Foreman grill times one million.

Skype is pretty great. As a freelancer I used it for job interviews and talking to coworkers in another state. I commend Skype for trying to work with bloggers on this BH conference, and giving away the best swag of the conference. Kudos, Skype.

Any booth with a photobooth is fair game in my land. Fair game…for awesome to happen. There is something about these booths that give me a model-like glow, and honestly, this will probably become my Facebook photo one day. Regardless of how great I thought I looked at their booth, it was nice to see this machine in action, as I’ve only seen it (and had sticker shock) at the one at Williams Sonoma. The Nescafe Dolce Gusto is a pretty awesome one-shot machine that can make just about any drink. I had the Americano (since I don’t do milk) and wasn’t overly impressed with the flavor. What sucks about their event is that the line was so long I could only try ONE of their pod offerings. Bummer. They gave us a discount code for 30% off a machine on dolce-gusto.us “BLOGHERDOLCE” up until 9/30/14 if you are interested.

I like that Chuck E. Cheese is a sponsor of BlogHer every year. Why? Because they offer gluten-free bake-in-bag pizza for kids. And they have fun games that the adults in us can play where there are no kids around. I won Candyland. This game will be a part of the swag giveaway, because as much as I tried to convince Non-GFBF to be the Princess Lolly it was a no go.

Lentils.ca is a body of lentil producers. Lentils are inherently gluten-free. I’m not sure why they were there at all. But they had a photo booth, and you know how much I like photo booths. I would have been over the moon to take home products from them (aka LENTILS) but they had to go and make lentil cupcakes and ruin it all for us (vegan and gluten-free people….we’re consumers, and we can’t eat your contaminated baked goods!).

Pets Add Life was a great mini-party that my gal and I went to where we ended up bawling like we just saw a Sarah McLaughlin commercial with kitties on the TV. By the end of the event, I just wanted to leave the event and fly home to hug the cats. I think that was the point? Anyways, Pets Add Life is a great non-profit organization that helps people understand the benefits of pet ownership. And yes, they were formed by the American Pet Products Association (c’mon the world can’t be all non-profit puppies and unicorns), they’re doing some pretty awesome stuff to convince people to adopt and get more pets. I dare you watch this video without crying (don’t worry, a kitten doesn’t die or anything). We luckily got to sit with Jill Rappaport – who apparently is super famous for being on the Today Show (I just looked and she’s Emmy nominated. I just thought her dog was the cat’s meow. Turns out she’s doing great things for the rescue animal community and is pretty magnificent. Made me want to adopt about 12 more cats.

While you may not need to know about Canva (more of a blogger design program – but it’s awesome), this guy is Guy Kawasaki and he’s brilliant. His talk last year at BlogHer, along with the Pathfinder Day, and his book APE, and Sheryl Sandberg’s talk was the spur that I needed to go home and actually write my book. It was like our version of meeting Khloe Kardashian. We stood in LINE for this!

Another great moment was meeting Andrea from I’mPerfect Life. She’s an awesome woman, and so inspiring. Read about her and her story here. Read about the article that made me fall in love with her spirit here. For anyone who has struggled with loving your body, and finding the inner strength for loving who you are and what your body is able to do – this post is a great reminder that we as humans are amazing creatures. We can find physical and emotional strength from places we could never find it before. For everyone working on being a stronger version of themselves, whatever it may look like – kudos to you.

And because it’s relevant to my current situation, the last brand I want to mention is Angel Soft. Yes, you’re getting toilet paper swag in the goodie bag – BECAUSE…CELIAC!

So how do you win some of these goodies from BlogHer ’14? It’s easy with this Rafflecopter. This sweepstakes is only available to US residents 18 and over. Sweepstakes takes place 8/1-8/8 (as seen on the Rafflecopter widget below).

a Rafflecopter giveaway