Nicolita3,
It's just persistence, plain and simple. Like Dory in Nemo says, Just keep swimming? Well, our motto is Just keep clicking, just keep clicking. It's boring, it's arduous, it's annoying as all get out, but it works. It's only October 7th and I've had 10 host pins already, given six of them away! I got a candy cauldron from one of the host games. I have quite a few bat bags. To get this stuff you either have to be very good at trading (some days I'm good and some days I'm not) or very persistent.
I'm like a cave fish with this stuff: I will keep running my head into the wall until I either bleed or succeed.
Having said all that, I've said things I shouldn't have within ear shot of my children, I've broken a mouse from slaming it down so hard when I dc'd in hosts rooms, I've called VMK every name in the book. Now that the dc monster is dead, it is much easier to do than it was before.
Just keep clicking, just keep clicking, clicking, clicking...