AMC Summer Movie Camp

AMC is offering $1 admission on Wednesdays from June 17-August 5th. Go to the AMC site for participating locations and movie listings. All proceeds will benefit the Variety Children's Charity and the Will Rogers Institute.

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Regal Cinemas Free Family Film Festival

Regal's annual Free Family Film Festival is back. You can watch free rated G and PG movies each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10am thru July 30th. Go to the Regal Family Film Festival site for a search by state listing of participating theatres and movie listings.

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Free Sheet Music and Lessons

Sheet music can be expensive. Why pay for sheet music when you can get it for free? Check out 8Notes where you can download sheet music from a variety of genres. You can get the sheets in a variety of file types (although you must subscribe for $20 a year for the pdf versions).

Craft Project Instructions for Free at CraftBits

Thanks to Diana for letting me know about CraftBits. Want to get your family out from in front of the TV this winter? CraftBits is an easy to navigate site that has simple instructions on a multitude of crafts. Ever wanted to make soap, a bath bomb, gifts in a jar or engage your kids with some paper crafts? CraftBits has not only written instructions but also links to online craft videos. Sure, you could go to the library, but this is so much easier!

My Barilla Piccolini House Party

I hosted a Barilla Piccolini House Party this weekend.

What is a House Party? Well, companies spend billions of dollars every day marketing their products consumers, many of whom are ignoring the messages. Consumers are bored. We want excitement. This means that companies have to constantly come up with creative ways to market their products in order to appeal to a new generation that is accustomed to using TiVO to forward through the ads that these companies invest so much in. A House Party is a new, creative marketing technique that benefits, rather than bores consumers. If you regularly have friends over for dinner and you like to get free stuff, this will probably appeal to you. This is how it works…you sign up on the House Party site and apply to host a party (it’s free). You then fill out an online questionnaire and wait a couple of weeks for an e-mail indicating whether or not you have been accepted as a host.

I applied to host a Barilla Piccolini House Party and was accepted, along with 1050 other hosts (16,000 had applied). I was then set up with my own House Party website where I could invite my friends, post photos, download recipes and images for party favor bags and post comments on a forum. A few days later in the mail, I received a box of free goodies from the sponsor (Barilla). I then held my party on the same night as the other 1050 families, in effect, creating a big, exciting national party. We had a great time and everyone enjoyed their free gifts from Barilla.

It’s win/win marketing. The company gets a completely attentive audience who is keeping their product top of mind during before, during and after the party. The consumer gets to enjoy lots of free stuff.

Check out House Party to host a party of your own! There are usually several House Parties to choose from involving products ranging from chocolate to cars, toys, cheese, cleaning products and more.

The free goodie box contained: 2 boxes of Barilla Piccolini Pasta, an Andrea Bocelli CD, a Frommers 2008 Italy Book, 8 Mealtime Magic Books, 8 stress balls, 8 timers, a bottle opener, a set of silver wine glass charms, a cooking magazine, recipes and many coupons.

Free Park Entry and Parking

If you have a Georgia library card, you can borrow a Georgia State Park "ParkPass" and Historic Site Pass from your local library! The passes are good for free parking or admission at any of the 63 parks and historic sites statewide for up to five days. Get Outdoors Georgia recommends that you plan early as supplies of the ParkPass are limited. Contact your local library for more information.