One of the easiest treats to dress up for holidays and birthdays is the cupcake. All you need is food coloring, cake decorator gel and frosting, and a little imagination.

You will need:

• your favorite box cake, any flavor
• red food coloring
• white buttercream icing (follow link for recipe)
• red, pink and green decorator gel
• red, pink and white decorator frosting
• flower decorating tip
• red & white sprinkles cupcake liners

Instructions:

Prepare cake mix as directed. If desired, you can make pink cupcakes with either a flavored mix, such as cherry, or add a few drops of red food coloring to a prepared white cake mix. Put cupcake liners into muffin tins and fill liners as directed on box cake mix. Bake as directed and allow to cool thoroughly before frosting and decorating.

Prepare the white icing by following the recipe. When finished, separate into two dishes. Add a few drops of red food coloring to one bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed. You should have one bowl of pink icing and one bowl of white.

Decorate

There's really not much to decorating cupcakes, especially in the eyes of your admiring children. Just a dollop of frosting is artistic enough for them! Here are a few simple tips that will help you decorate your holiday cupcakes.

• Piping - Using the flower tip on the decorator frosting, pipe a border around the frosted cupcake. Use contrasting colors -- red piping on white frosting, white piping on pink, etc.
• Sprinkles - The beauty of sprinkles is that there is no perfection involved. SImply drop them and let them ly where they fall. Use contrasting colors, and mix colors when pleasing.
• Shapes - Use the decorator gels to "draw" on heart shapes or to add flowers and leaves to a cupcake. You can also use these to dot around the outside edge of one of the treats. These are also ideal for writing words, such as "love", "be mine" and "kiss".
• Frosting only - Use the two different colored frostings to decorate one cupcake. Spread half of a cupcake with white, and carefully spread the other half with pink. You can also spread a full coat of white on and dot the center with pink. Get creative and try swirls or other shapes by using only frosting.

Be sure to store your cupcakes in a tightly covered container so they do not harden or go stale. That is, if they last that long!

Amanda Formaro is the entrepreneurial mother of four children. She and her husband live in southeastern Wisconsin. She is also the owner of FamilyCorner.com Magazine. Subscribe to her free weekly kid's craft newsletter, Busy Little Hands, by sending any email message to kidscrafts-on@mail-list.com.

For more great kid's party ideas, check out Penny Warner's Kid's Party Cookbook.