Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival & License to Spill Anti-Carpet Stain Stop #licensetospill #shop #cbias

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and the License to Spill Tour for SmartStrand w/ built-in carpet stain resistance by Mohawk Flooring. All opinions are my own.

Saturday was a gorgeous day to head to east for the 43rd Annual Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival. Apparently, everyone else thought so too. That would explain the two-hour commute in stopped bumper-to-bumper traffic which normally takes only 20 minutes. If you’re at all familiar with the area, there’s only one direct road to and from the coast and it was PACKED with pumpkin-searching families!

License to Spill at Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival

Fortunately, I finally made it to the Mohawk Flooring’s License to Spill booth and just in the knick of time. Chef Ryan Scott was still serving his specially-made festival Sloppy Joes but I only had time to snap a quick photo before I had to run back to the car to move it (I could only find a spot in a 15-minutes zone). By the time I returned, the food was being packed up 🙁 Anyway, I set my mind on work and went to find out what this tour was all about.

A New Kind of Carpeting

Mohawk Flooring has a new type of carpet called SmartStrand. Instead of a topical treatment to resist stain / soil, it’s actually built into the fiber! That means it won’t wear off due to time and usual family wear and tear. It was super soft carpet and there were a ton of different colors and types on display. SmartStrand Silk had an even more luxurious texture. Chip Wade of HGTV’s Elbow Room (pictured later in post) shared that they have this in their own house and his kids sometimes just like to lay against it because it feels so nice to touch! I could so imagine my daughter doing the same.

How do you clean it? With water and maybe a little dish soap! Check out this demonstration the rep did for me:

Better Than Traditional Carpet Stain Removal

Seriously awesome, right? I sure could have used this kind of carpet several years ago. While were staying at my mom’s house, I decided to make some chocolate milk for myself. I started to shake the syrup bottle upside down while talking to my husband only to realize the top was not on. Whoops! For the next half hour or so I was on the floor trying to clean up each and every dark brown drop off the light tan carpets . . .

Chip Wade from was the event’s MC. He took hold of the microphone and helped visiting kids jump on the Mohawk Mash stage for a unique ‘don’t do this at home’ activity. He encouraged them to make as much of a mess as they wanted and he tossed fruit across the floor for them to stomp. They had full reign on shooting tubes full of blue Gaterade, soy sauce, and wine across the light SmartStrand carpet. Obviously, these children were having a blast!

It Had Better Be Stain Resistant!

Their parents couldn’t be happier to see them having fun but, at the same time, they couldn’t be more worried that their kids would do the same at home. No wonder so many families left the booth with hands full of information on getting new carpet and accompanying discount coupons. Plus, the fact that everything was picked up by a shampooer filled only with water was pretty impressive.

Samantha Harris, from ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and host of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire”, was also on hand for meet & greet between takes for a BetterTV tv shoot. She was very personable but it was really interesting how she went into ‘work mode’ when the camera started rolling.

The booth was pretty hoppin’ but so was the rest of the festival. If I didn’t have to face the nightmare commute home, I would have spent some time perusing the performances and other booths.

Enter to Win Your Own SmartStrand Silk Carpet

Now, I don’t want to make you feel bad that you couldn’t be at the Pumpkin Festival with me. So, you have a chance to join in the fun and enter to win your own 6’ X 9’ SmartStrand Silk bound carpet rug. Just had on over to the License to Spill SF Tour page for more info. I think we could all do with less carpet stains and inventive removal tips by preventing the stains in the first place. Wouldn’t you agree?

Online links:

• Mohawk Flooring Official Site
• @MohawkFlooring
• Mohawk Flooring on Facebook