Scenes from the Martha Stewart Bloggers’ Night Out August 5. More pictures can be found on the official MSLO Flickr set.

One of the highlights of my New York City trip was a bloggers’ night out at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. I’ve reviewed the new Martha Stewart eco-friendly cleaning products, but the e-mail invite came as a complete surprise and yes I was feeling pretty hot stuff blogger to be on the guest list, I must admit.

Then I got a little nervous. I am SO not Martha Stewart. I don’t knit or own a glue gun, I’m not a great cook, and I just willingly brought store bought potato salad to a pool party. I have committed many Martha sins. Still, I was excited to just witness all things Martha up close and personal and I doubted they’d have a non-Martha bouncer at the door. I was in the Martha inner circle…at least for a night!

I immediately started seeking out something to wear in the perfect shade of Martha blue but never found it. I also considered painting my toenails Martha Stewart blue, but decided to stop it already with the Martha obsessing. Plus I was certain Martha herself would not be at the party. That would just be CRAZY.

I was staying about 8 blocks away from the Hilton, the official BlogHer hotel, and I walked in my cute strappy heels from the Royalton to the Hilton to share a cab ride with Jessica Turner, a Nashville blogger who works in PR. I’m not sure what kind of super woman I thought I was, but for someone who rarely wears heels this was a mistake. Ouch. The rest of the weekend I wore flats and packed my strappy heels in my purse.

Twitter was blowing up due to the throngs of women bloggers in the Big Apple and Jessica had messaged me that she was running late. I decided to wait in the cool, air conditioned lobby a few minutes longer until I overheard someone say, “I just read on Twitter that MARTHA HERSELF will be at the party!” so I started scoping out the growing cab line and decided I’d better go ahead and hitch a ride.

I met up with a couple of craft bloggers in the cab line and as we chatted it was obvious I was out of my league. I don’t know a Provo Craft cutter from a pizza cutter. These women were HCC: Hard Core Crafters.

And then they asked me: “What do you blog about?”

Cue the rambling.

“Well I’m a uh…mommy blogger. You know, I have a parenting blog. I write about being a soccer mom and a working mom from a humorous perspective. Kind of like a Southern Erma Bombeck! But I am NOT crafty.” (Nervous laughter and then silence. Crap.) “But I love Martha Stewart. I just reviewed her new green cleaning products.” OK maybe that sounded lame, but it was true. I was just thrilled to mingle with some of the editors behind Martha Stewart’s publications powerhouse. I am an editor at my day job, after all.

(L-R) Alexis Stewart, Jessica Turner from The Mom Creative, me, and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt…Photo courtesy of Jessica

Highlights of the evening:

• Watching as Martha herself walked right by me as she was leaving  (we missed the first 10 minutes or so where she welcomed everyone and then smiled, waved, and floated out like only Martha can.)


• Having my photo made with Martha Stewart’s very gracious and approachable daughter, Alexis, who co-hosts “Whatever” on Sirius Radio with Jennifer Koppelman Hutt


• All the classy Martha touches, from the food and beautiful drinks, which were of course delightful to look at AND consume. My favorite drink was the Honey Dew Aqua Fresca with fresh raspberries, which is perfect for summer.


• Mingling with the creative minds behind the various Omnimedia departments (from Everyday Food to the crafts line to her pet product line and Daily Wag blog). Everyone was very friendly and more than happy to speak with all of us enthusiastic blogger types.

Now I’m back to my very unMartha existence, but as I cleaned out my closet last weekend and color coordinated all my clothes, I knew that Martha had left her indelible mark.