It’s no secret that I love throwing parties. Some of the gatherings that I’ve hosted recently, like the Sabra Hummus taste-testing party and the Johnson & Johnson Cause Party, were sponsored events where I was given free promotional party supplies. I held another such gathering last Sunday – this time, it was a fun makeup party sponsored by CoverGirl and BzzAgent.

If you haven’t heard of BzzAgent, it’s a “Word-of-mouth marketing” company that connects people with samples in a unique way. You simply sign up for a free account, and BzzAgent will send you invitations to participate in campaigns for different products. When you sign up for a campaign, you receive products to try and samples/coupons to share with your friends. Then you send a quick message (or “BzzReport”) to BzzAgent, letting them know what you and your friends thought of the product. Companies create these campaigns as a way to advertise their product and get feedback from consumers. My rule of thumb with frugal endeavors is always to determine the value of what you’re getting versus the amount of time invested in the activity. I like BzzAgent, because it only takes a moment to log on and send a quick message telling them what my experiences with the product were. I’ve done all kinds of fun things for BzzAgent – they recently sent me two bags of Mahatma Rice and ten coupons for free rice to pass out to my friends and family, and in the past I’ve done campaigns for beauty products, cleaning supplies, and more.

My latest campaign was to host a COVERGIRL & Olay Simply Ageless party. I invited my girlfriends over for a fun afternoon giving each other makeovers using a box of free makeup that I was sent by BzzAgent.

Our makeovers – you can read the full recap here if you like.

If you want to get in on the fun, it’s totally free to sign up for a free BzzAgent account – tell ’em BzzAgent Harderotbreathe sent you!

Another organization that does this type of marketing is Houseparty. While each BzzAgent campaign is different – this was the first party Bzz campaign I’ve ever seen – Houseparty is geared exclusively towards sponsored parties. They have an ever-changing list of parties that you can sign up to be considered for. Every party has a limited amount of spaces, so only a select number of participants are chosen for each one. I personally haven’t been selected for a houseparty yet, but perhaps you’ll have better luck!

Other sponsored parties that I have thrown were a result of projects that I got involved with through my other blog, Contest Corner. Many companies connect with bloggers directly to review products on their site, and in some instances I have thrown a party with the review products, gotten feedback from guests, and then blogged about what we thought of it. If you’re interested in starting a blog and possibly reviewing products on it, check out this helpful article at The Motherload. If you already have a blog, here are some review panels that I recommend signing up for – please bear in mind, these panels are not specifically for sponsored parties, but rather for product reviews in general. However, I think it’s worth mentioning them, because it’s due to my general involvement with organizations such as these that I find out about various product campaigns; and occasionally, this results in me throwing some sort of gathering.

MyBlogSpark
BlogFriendlyPR
FuelMyBlog
One2One Network
Uprinting Blog Sponsorship Program
The Product Review Place

Entertaining is a lot of work, whether your party is sponsored or not. But I enjoy having gatherings, and working with companies to throw these unique soirées has been fun and a different experience than anything I would put together myself.

And speaking of parties – I am having yet another this weekend, but this time it’s all my own creation. Jai’s birthday is on the 13th, and we are celebrating a week early with friends and family. I will be spending Friday preparing for the event; so I’ll see you on Monday, readers!

So here’s some photos of the menu that I served at my Halloween party. The spread fed 17 guests, and I have a TON of food left over. I always seem to overestimate how much I’ll need, but it’s better to have too much food than not enough!

Mummy Hot dogs! This is an annual staple at my Halloween party. This year, I made home made biscuit dough instead of using the canned crescent rolls. It tastes better but doesn’t look very mummy-ish.

Sadly, this was the only picture I took of the food before the party started. I got so caught up in hostessing that I totally forgot to get snaps until the party was over. So forgive the rest of these pics, since they’re of leftovers!

Lemon cupcakes! I made the cupcakes from scratch but cheated on the frosting – it’s canned Betty Crocker stuff that I got for free over the summer. For the decoration, I was trying to imitate this super cute bat cupcake from Woman’s Day magazine, but it didn’t quite work out. I was in such a hurry this year and I could not find miniature peanut butter cups anywhere, since I was shopping the night before Halloween – I guess it’s a pretty popular candy! So, I tried to substitute Junior Mints, and gave up after the first few I tried. Good thing I had the cute cupcake skewers! I found those along with the Halloween cupcake liners for about .50 cents on clearance ages ago.

Pumpkin bread, and a half-eaten bowl of candy. I adapted a breadmaker recipe for carrot bread, and just substituted canned pumpkin for the carrot. This bread is especially good when served with:

A vat of pumpkin soup! This picture is terrible, but the soup was delicious. I used this recipe, and the only change I made was that I omitted the celery. This is the first soup I’ve ever made – I usually don’t care much for soups, but I really loved this one. I’ve been eating the leftovers for lunch every day because I like it so well. Here’s a slightly more appetizing picture that I snapped of it yesterday:

We visited a pumpkin patch just before Halloween, and this was a great way to use up the insides of the pumpkin instead of just tossing it. I also put the seeds to good use:

Roasted pumpkin seeds are so yummy, and really healthy too. After carving the pumpkin, I rinsed these in a colander and tossed them in olive oil. I sprinkled them with salt and baked them on a cookie sheet until they had a nice crisp texture.

I told you these pictures were all of leftovers!! This is a seven layer “Graveyard dip”. I layered refried beans, homemade guacamole, salsa, black olives, fresh chopped tomatoes, cream cheese, and shredded cheese in a pan. Then I cut round tombstone shapes out of bread, and iced “RIP” on each one, sticking it into the dip to form a haunted scene. As you can tell, the dip was a big hit. I served it with tortilla chips and wheat thins.

Jack-O-Lantern toast! I had some packages of cheese slices that were free with coupons a few months back, so I cut faces into the slices and melted them onto Sara Lee bread – which was also free with coupons!

Not pictured are the various dishes of candy and the bowl of goldfish crackers that I also set out.

I also made goodie bags for each guest:

I made a TON of treat bags for both the guests and the trick-or-treaters that never came.

I also held a costume contest and a pumpkin carving contest. I gave away three Halloween-themed prizes in each category, wrapped in spooky bags that I got as filler items at Walgreens. All of the prizes and goodie bags were also funded by coupons this year.

I hope that everyone else had an equally fun Halloween!