Do your family and friends crave your delicious birthday treats created with Duncan Hines products? If so, perhaps you’d be interested in entering Duncan Hines Birthday Party Bash Recipe Contest with a chance to the grand prize worth approximately $500:

• A Wii system
• Birthday Party Bash Wii video Game
• 4 Confetti Cake Mixes
• 4 tubs of Vanilla Frosting
• $250 for party decorations

All contest participants will be entered into a sweepstakes for the chance to win 1 of 100 Birthday Party Bash video games for Wii (SRP of $19.99)!

Duncan Hines is committed to providing new ideas amplifying the baking experience. We believe Birthday Party Bash is a fun, economical way to put a giant bow around that birthday baking experience and we’d like to celebrate this,” said Vice President, Marketing for Duncan Hines, Lora Van Velsor. “You don’t have to be a professional baker to create unique, innovative birthday cakes… we want people to show us their creations!

All entries must be received by January 30, 2010. No purchase is required. Entries will be judged by a Duncan Hines panel of judges and authors Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, authors of Hello Cupcake.

That’s a pretty sweet prize package that I’m sure some lucky child will be thrilled to receive! Just be sure to read the “fine print” when entering at Duncan Hines’ website.

On a side note…Duncan Hines is also on Twitter for all you Twitter addicts (myself included): www.twitter.com/realduncanhines

Good luck to all that enter!

To find local businesses offering birthday discounts & freebies for adults, kids and pets, visit: Free Birthday Treats.

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If you are looking for a fun, inexpensive party to organize for your two to three-year-old child, you can take the simple game of Hide & Seek and build a complete set of party activities around the idea of hiding and seeking.  This will be loads of fun and low-key. Parties really can be so simple for kids this age. Take a look at the Hide & Seek Fun to be had:

• 1. Play Hide & Go Seek ~ the classic game, of course
• 2. If adults will be attending the party, reverse it and have the kids look for their parents
• 3. Provide toddler-sized boxes that are either pre-decorated by you or that the toddlers can decorate themselves. What a great craft activity! Have them use markers, crayons, etc. to make their own “Jack In the Box.” (This can also be the take home goody from the party!)
• 4. Play Jack In The Box. Have the kids climb into the box, and duck down so as not to be seen. Play music, and let the kids pop up just as a Jack In The Box would do.
• 5. Hide a Piñata that the kids must find in order to enjoy the fun.
• 6. Organize a treasure hunt for chocolate gold coins.
• 7. Make a mock tent using a large cardboard box and a sheet. Let each child hide in the tent and pop out surprising the others. You can ask them to pop out using their imagination and become a lion, a dog, a cat, etc.
• 8. Give them boxes of Cracker Jacks to enjoy finding their prizes.
• 9. Hide candy treats in a batch of cupcakes. The kids will discover the surprise as they enjoy their cakes.
• 10. Play “I Spy.”
• 11. Read books that have flaps to reveal hidden pictures.
• 12. Have the kids make creations using Play Dough. Hide some small prizes in each little Play Dough jar for the kids to discover.

There will be plenty of surprises and prizes for the kids to find and take home at this party. This is very low-cost, high fun party for the toddlers. Amazing how a classic game can give a party full of kids a great afternoon.

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

Exciting news! FreeBirthdayTreats.com is partnering with Peppers and Pollywogs to bring you valuable recession-proof ideas and resources for your kids’ birthday celebrations!

Kids just want to have fun, especially when it’s their birthday, leaving you to figure out how to throw a birthday bash on a shoestring budget. Without the right resources this can take hours of research so where do you turn? Check out Peppers and Pollywogs’ fabulous budget-friendly, DIY, party ideas that are sure to save you money and time. Then be sure to visit FreeBirthdayTreats.com. With offers ranging from FREE kids’ meals to discounts on toys, parents will find deals that save money and are valid not only on their kids’ birthdays, but also for the birthday week – if not for the entire birthday month.” Now there is no way your special little someone misses out on a birthday that will never come again thanks to FreeBirthdayTreats.com.

If you’d like to know more, please read our Press Release!

To find local businesses offering birthday discounts & freebies for adults, kids and pets, visit my website, Free Birthday Treats.

Banana Splits are so yummy, especially for kids during summertime. One of the BEST parts of this ice cream classic is that you can either make your own concoctions or stick to the tried and true. If your child loves to make and eat banana splits, a great summer-themed party could revolve all around making, judging, and eating them!

Make invitations using bright yellow construction paper cut out into the shape of bananas. Write all of the party details on one side, and draw brown spots on the other. Alternatively, hand-deliver real bananas with tags tied to them that include all of the party details. In the invitation, ask the guests to bring their own favorite ingredient for making banana splits along with them, or have them bring a banana that they dress up in some way, i.e. with a hat on it.

Decorate the party area with yellow and brown balloons, streamers, and party ware. Have a large piece of butcher paper lying flat on a table. The kids can draw a huge banana split together and hang it in the party area.

Make the banana splits on the party table. Be sure to arrange the table so that there are dishes with all of the toppings laid out, as well as spoons, bowls, etc. You may want to pull the chairs away from the table while the kids are making their sundaes.

The main activity of the party will be making banana splits. You can have a competition where the kids make their splits using the ingredients you have laid out and the special ingredient they brought. Hold a tasting competition, where everyone gets to taste everyone else’s and wins prizes.

If you have had the kids bring a banana that is “dressed up,” have a competition to see whose is most creative, the funniest, etc. Hand out banana candies as prizes and make sure everyone wins!

Play Pass the Banana like Pass the Parcel.

Have the kids jump up and down and do “banana splits!”

Hold a series of relay races with bananas. Divide the kids into two teams, and have a bowl of bananas at the opposite end of where the kids race from. When a kid runs down, he or she must peel a banana, eat it, place the peel on his or her head, and race back to the team. The first team done wins!

For another relay race, have the kids peel a banana at the start, race down to the other end and make a mini banana split, eat it, and race back. The next kid must do the same. The first team done wins!

For a favor, have the kids exchange toppings that they brought. Combine them into plastic Tupperware containers so the kids can try them on banana splits they make at home!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

What a great budget birthday party idea that will be fabulous fun for the kids: a FOOD FIGHT! If the idea interests you and your child, here are some ways to put this together:

1. It would be great to host this party outdoors, but it you are willing to have the food fight indoors, it would be good to have it in a space that you don’t mind getting messy, like a garage or a basement or perhaps a shed if there is enough room inside. You may want to cover the space with plastic so that clean up is very easy afterward.

2. When the kids arrive at the party, for both safety and easy clean up, provide kids with shower caps, plastic goggles, and a rain poncho to wear. These will keep the kids safe and relatively clean through the food fight.

3. After they have their outfits on, give the kids a bag of marshmallows and slingshots, and they can start the fun of slinging marshmallows at one another as they wait for everyone to arrive. Make sure the kids are supervised in the designated party area.

3. On a table, put out lots of foods that are perfect for a food fight, spaghetti, whipped cream, mashed potatoes, chocolate pudding, Jell-O, Cereal, hard boiled eggs, popcorn, oatmeal, bananas, etc. Whatever you like, and you can make it even more interesting by putting food dye into the different foods, for example, green mashed potatoes.

4. You may want to announce a few “rules” to the kids before the food fight breaks out: some suggestions include: they must keep their goggles on, they must stop throwing if they hear the sound of a whistle or something else you find appropriate, and that the food fight must stay within the space you have designated.

5. If there are kids who do not feel comfortable participating, let them have fun watching on the sidelines.

6. Make sure to have your video camera out to capture this fun!

7. You can also have the kids play some organized “food games,” including blindfolding the kids and having them eat donuts that have been strung on a string. First kid finished eating his donut wins! Have the kids partner up and feed each other pudding standing 5 ft. away from one another using a plastic spoon. Afterward, the kids can use squirt guns to clean themselves up.

8. Your party menu can be very simple, as they will be playing with the food at this party, more than eating any of it! Serve ice cream and cake to top the party off.

9. Send the kids home with a splattered brown paper bag filled with good food: a piece of fruit, a veggie, pudding pack, etc. as a reminder of their foodie fun!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

It’s that time of year when you begin to plan your Fourth of July celebration, and you want to include the kids in the fun too, of course! Check below for easy, budget-friendly ways to make the Fourth of July full of family fun!

Decorations

• Instead of filling vases with flowers, fill them with blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. This is yummy and festive looking. Guests can scoop the berries out and add whipped cream for a truly red, white, and blue treat!
• Use different-shaped vases to hold dips and chips as well. These make great centerpieces as well as unique serving dishes.
• Mix and match red, white, and blue solid paper ware. Cloth napkins in the same colors would also add an elegant touch.
• Roll butcher paper out onto your party table. Scatter red, white, and blue crayons across the table for the kids to color with while eating.
• Fill balloons with red, white, and blue crinkled paper. Have the kids pop the balloons for festive explosions of color.
• Using pop-cork place mats and attach the kids’ names to the pop corks for easy seating arrangements. The kids can take their pop cork home along with their tags, so use red, white, and blue colors to make them festive.
• Sprinkle red, white, and blue confetti and candies around the table.

Activities:

• Have the kids make small US flags and place them into red, white, and blue sand pails that have sand filler at the bottom! Turn this decoration into a game. Divide the kids into two teams and have them run, grab a flag, and quickly walk back to the team line, where the next person must do the same. The team that has all of the flags in hand most quickly wins! Let the kids take the flags home as a goody!
• The kids can make a sidewalk chalk mural. Have red, white, and blue sidewalk chalk on hand to give to the kids and let them create their own patriotic mural. They can create an American flag, fireworks, the Washington Monument, etc. This is a great activity for a dry Fourth of July Day!
• Boil a dozen eggs and color some red and blue (be sure to keep some white)! Have an Egg Spoon Relay Race. Divide the kids into two teams, and provide each team with a spoon and eggs. The kids must balance a colored egg on their spoon and walk quickly from one end of the yard to the other and return. If the egg drops, the team member must begin again. The first team with all members completing the relay race wins!
• For older kids, water balloons will be loads of fun. A fun twist on traditional water balloon games is to create a small hole in each balloon, and then fill it with water. Let the kids toss the leaking balloon, which will become a bit of a time bomb as you don’t want to be the last one holding it when it finally runs out of water! Quick, easy, and fun!
• Play classic relay races and picnic games, such as ring toss, sack race, and three-legged race.
• Have the girls add red, white, and blue star beads to their shoelaces for added fun.
• The kids can make their own creative rockets with cardboard tubes, tin foil, craft paper, tissue paper, glue, markers, ribbon, and child-friendly scissors.

Tasty Treats:

• Have a red, white, and blue taste test with the kids. Put out all sorts of foods and spices in a series of small dishes. Blindfold the kids and have the kids taste the foods and spices and guess what they are. Ideas for tasting include salt, ketchup, blueberries, strawberries, French salad dressing, mayonnaise, sponge cake, strawberry jam, pepper jack cheese, beets, tomatoes, garlic, bananas, cherries, etc.
• Freeze blueberries and raspberries in ice cube trays to make star spangled cubes.
• Make a rocket pop drink. Fill a glass with ice cubes. Carefully pour cranberry juice, blue Gatorade, and 7-Up into the glass directly over the ice cubes to maintain the patriotic colors.
• Using blackberries, cut up/halved strawberries, and bananas, have the kids create a fruit flag using the fruit pieces. They can place this on a cookie tray, and then you can lay it out to serve to the rest of the guests. The kids can also make mini flags for themselves. You can also provide lollipop sticks to the kids to skewer the fruits with.
• Using a star cookie cutter, make up a batch of patriotic gelatin stars, star sugar cookies, cheese slices, and sandwiches filled with cream cheese and blackberry jam.
• Make a batch of cupcakes and have the kids frost them and decorate them with red, white, and blue sprinkles.

So much fun for so little money and time. Happy Fourth of July planning!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

Photo Courtesy of Shindigz

A Luau is a very popular theme for any age and can be enjoyed by both kids and adults. This is especially fun during the warm summer months. You can plan a luau to be very inexpensive to more costly depending on the invitations, decorations, crafts, food, and goody bags that you have at the party. The following ideas are designed to provide ideas for any budget.

To save money, you can easily send an e-invitation to your party if your guests have access to the Internet. There is no cost associated to sending e-invitation and they have a wide variety of themes to match your party.

If budget is a consideration, ask your local party store and/or grocery store and see if they have any old decorations, such as grass skirts, tiki poles, lanterns, that they would be willing to give to you for free. Often major stores have old decorations that they would be happy to donate to your party. It just requires asking a question.

Another inexpensive way to decorate is to make tissue paper flowers that you can scatter across your party tables and area, as well as tissue paper tropical birds.

• Make a flower napkin/cutlery holder out of felt. Wrap the holder around the napkin and cutlery and this will also add a festive touch for a small amount of money.
• Make paper lanterns and hang them on trees throughout your yard.
• Have your guests wear tropical attire, i.e. their wildest Hawaiian shirt. This will also make for a festive atmosphere.
• Provide your guests with leis as they enter the party. You could either make these out of string with tissue paper flowers all the way to real, tropical flowers. Just depends on your budget.
• Paint a Hawaiian tropical scene on an old sheet and hang it between two trees. You can take pictures of guests there as well.
• Other decorating ideas would include: grass skirting for your tables, tiki torches, which can also be filled with oil that keeps the bugs away, a big “Aloha” sign can be hung to welcome your guests as well. (You can either make it or buy one.) Blow up Palm Tree Balloons.
• Use fun cocktail umbrellas in all of your drinks for a festive touch.
• Have Hawaiian music playing in the background.
• To give it a tropical feel, spray paint an old white sheet with a tropical scene…and hang it outdoors…perhaps between two trees…when the guests arrive, take pictures of everyone with the tropical scene as a back drop.
• If you have a pool, fill it with beach balls…you could even get a small kiddie pool and fill it with beach balls as well.

Games:

• Have a limbo contest!
• Have a Hula Hoop contest!
• Teach people the Hula. Provide grass skirts to your guests to make it authentic.
• Play Pass the Pineapple. Purchase a pineapple. Have your guests pass it around to music. When the music stops, the person holding the pineapple wins a prize. Have a relay contest, but with a twist. Fill a suitcase or a big tote bag with clothes that both a man and woman would wear on a vacation. The relay consists of running to the bag, getting dressed in the outfit, running back with the bag, taking the costume off, and then the next person must put on the costume and run with the suitcase to the other side.
• Coconut Bowling: Use a coconut as a bowling ball to knock over three pineapple pins.
• Play Pin the Monkey on the Palm Tree.
• Have a tropical piñata. Kids can take home the candy from the piñata.

For your party menu, serve fruit salad, (try to include some tropical fruits like pineapple) veggies with a ranch dip, crackers and cheese, and chips and dips

Set up these snacks at a Snack Shack, a cute store front for guests to get their goodies.

• Have a BBQ and enjoy chicken, steaks, and kebabs on the grill
• Hawaiian Pizza
• Make fresh pineapple boats
• Have the kids create their own fruit skewers and dip the skewers in chocolate and other sauces.

For the kids, serve punch and add in cherries with the umbrella for extra fun!

Send the children home with a hula-hoop or an inflatable beach ball.

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

My favorite reality TV show is “Amazing Race.” Pre-teens and teens will enjoy this party theme and will be quite an adventure. Still, it is an ambitious theme that will take some good organization and planning. Here are some tips on how to approach planning this party, and may make it a bit more doable as a kids’ party:

First, have enough kids attend the party to sub-divide the kids into groups of 3-4 kids. You can decide the groups by the arrival of the kids to the party. The first 3-4 kids who arrive are considered “Team #1″ and will be the first to leave on the race with their first clue. Make up Team #2 and so on. It may be a good idea to have an adult supervisor in each of the teams who has a cell phone on hand in case the supervisor needs to contact you.

This is clearly going to be an “Out and About” party and will need very good planning skills. If you live in a town where kids can race around a town center safely that would be one good suggestion. Other ideas: have the kids race around a mall or the local neighborhood.

You will need to do some pre-planning of activities, including:

• Devising the routes that the teams will take to complete the race.
• Thinking through the various activities that will be done at each locale.
• Making up clues, roadblock and detour envelopes.
• Provide an envelope of money to each team depending on activities.
• Scouting out stores that the kids will go to and tell the store’s manager about your party activities.
• Recruiting enough adult volunteers to hand out the clues to the teams when they complete their tasks.

So, some sample tasks that can be done include:

• Find a town marker or mall marker and have the kids take pictures of themselves and sing a silly song to get their next clue.
• Go to the library and look up some interesting facts on a topic that they must tell the adult helper in order to get the next clue.
• Go to a coffee shop and order a particular drink in a particular way. They must drink it in a particular way to get their next clue.
• At a fast food restaurant, have the teams sing a silly song for their fries and shakes. Have them put together the “Happy Meal” toy before getting their next clue.

No matter how many activities you have the kids do at different places, send each of the teams on a different route to complete the tasks so that the teams are all separated. On the show all the teams follow the same route, but it may be an idea to divide these teams up for a little more fun as the kids won’t know exactly where everyone is. Invariably, the teams will run into one another, but it will keep them guessing.

Don’t forget about the “Roadblocks” (a task that only one member of the team can do) and “Detours” (a task that the team must do together.) Given that the teams are larger, you may only want to designate 1-2 people to do the tasks, rather than only one person or the whole team. Some examples:

• At a coffee shop, one or two of the kids must drink a black coffee…probably not a favorite drink for the pre-teens. So, this is considered a roadblock.
• Or, if the kids are at a neighbor’s house, one or two of the kids will have to eat something disgusting.
• For the Detour, have one or two kids choose between untying ribbons that are tied throughout the yard to find one marked with a black “X” or they can decide to count a jar of buttons. Once they know the number of buttons or have found the black “X” they will receive their next clue.
• If you are at a mall, a Detour could be one or two of the kids need to count up the number of mall benches throughout the entire complex, or going to a clothing store and finding a yellow ribbon among piles of clothes. (Of course, you will have to ask permission from the store to plant the ribbon.)

The team that arrives to the final destination FIRST WINS!! Of course!

The majority of the party will be taken up with the race. To end the party, serve pizza, cold drinks, cake, and put on a taped episode of the actual “Amazing Race” for everyone to enjoy as a final activity.

It’s complicated, but this age will love it!!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

It’s summer, and that means it’s time for some fun in the sun. Summer is such an easy season for a kid’s party for several reasons: good weather means you can take the fun outdoors, and summer vacations and school being out means there is less pressure to invite absolutely everyone.

Keep the following important tips in mind when planning your summer parties:

Feel free to limit your guest list.

It’s a great season to not invite everyone because everyone won’t be around. Invite the number of guests that works best for your time and budget, and then send the invitations to those who are in town.

Expect an extra guest or two.

As people may be returning from vacation and receiving your invitation late (even after the RSVP date), expect that some guests you haven’t heard from may just show up.

Parties may fall on weekdays during this time of year.

Given that people often have more flexible schedules during the summer, you may find that parties fall on weekdays or even weeknights. If your child and your schedule can accommodate this, that’s great, but don’t feel pressure if you can’t.

Make a plan B in case of rain.

Often, summer parties take place outdoors. If you are throwing your party outdoors, make an alternative plan in case of rain. Make sure that at least some of the activities you have planned can be done indoors or you have a general idea of other activities that will fill the time.

If you are planning a party at an outdoor venue, prepare the food beforehand.

The easiest way to serve lunch or snacks at an outdoor venue is to have the food pre-packaged and prepared for easy hand out during the party. Whether you serve it in lunch boxes, shoe boxes, or beach pails, writing each child’s name on the container will make for easy distribution as well.

Coolers keep hot food warm.

If you are serving hot food, wrap it in foil and place it into a cooler after you’ve cooked it. Heat up microwave warmer pads and place them between and on top of the food in the cooler. Now you have your own portable oven to keep things warm when you serve them at your summer party.

During a pool party, designate someone to watch the swimmers for the entire time.

Children and water always create a potential for danger. When lining up your party help, make sure to designate someone to watch the kids in and around the pool area the entire time. A neighborhood lifeguard would be ideal for this.

Make sure to plan time for free play.

Given the nice weather and chance to simply be together with friends, do not fill the entire party with activities. Make some time for fun free play in the yard or park if you are there. The kids will want to play together, and scheduling free play into the party is a perfect way to handle this.

Keep outdoor activities down to a limited time frame in extreme heat.

If your party is mainly outdoors, be careful of the hot temperatures. Children running around for extended periods of time in the heat can become exhausted. See what the temperatures are and limit outdoor activity if they are extreme. Also, make sure you have plenty of beverages on hand. Cold water with crazy straws and fun ice cubes is a great treat.

If it’s a particularly sunny day, make sure the kids are wearing sunscreen.

When the guests arrive at your party, have a bottle of sunscreen available for them to slather on before they head out into the sun. It’s a great precaution to take if the kids will be outside for the entire party.

Happy summer party season! Enjoy.

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

Group Gifting

Guest post provided by Katherine Klinger, creator and founder of (oopdoo)TM hug

One way to make your dollar stretch farther is to organize a group of friends to go in on a group gift. For the same cost as sending a card or a small trinket, you can pool your money together to send a more substantial gift.

One site that makes organizing a group gift easy is fromgroup.com.

The process is simple:

• Choose a gift from over 700 gifts ranging from gift baskets, to jewelry, to baked goods.
• Set up a group purchasing page and invite your group to make a commitment to the gift at their own budget level in amounts as low as $5.
• The cost of the gift gets split between participants with respect to each person’s budgeted amount and shipped!

FREE Group e-card

Why send a free birthday e-card to a friend, when you can go one step further and organize a group of friends, coworkers, classmates to send a free group e-card! At groupcard.com you can do just that!

The organizer starts the card and then invites others to come add their own personal touch. To personalize it, you can upload pictures, choose different fonts, etc.

Organizing a group takes a small amount more effort, made easier by modern technologies, but the impact it makes on the recipient makes it worth it!