Happy Thanksgiving from Gold Leaf Design Group

On Monday, we had a pot luck lunch for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. We had a lot of great selections of home-made dishes, from Keiana's chicken pasta to Allan's dressing to Dora's spicy (!) potatoes.

This year, we're thankful and grateful for our loyal customers like you and for the hard work all of our fellow co-workers put in at each level, from customer service to shipping our great products.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween from Gold Leaf Design Group

We dressed up for Halloween for the first time in our company history, all thanks to Dora!

Chicago Marathon 2011

On October 9th, Darren and Jose ran the Chicago Marathon again this year. Since it was warmer, it was a little more difficult to run in the Windy City than last year, but they still both completed the 26.2-mile course.

Gold Leaf Product on New Book Cover

Gold Leaf Design Group's Circle Wire Vases are featured on the cover of Lena Malouf's new book, Events Exposed: Managing & Designing Special Events, due to be released in the Spring of next year.

The author is the first Australian to receive a Special Event Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Events Industry Awards last year.

The event shown was designed by Chicago's own Into the Woods, who were approached to feature their photograph on the front cover. Kudos!

Wall Play @ Hyatt Rochester NY

Therese Virserius Design in New York City just sent us a photo of their beautiful installation at the Hyatt Rochester NY using our silver Wall Play Cubes and Pivots!

Look what we won at the New York Gift Fair!

"Best overall!"

"Gold Leaf Worked For Us!"

"We, at Inner Design Studio, wanted to share how your product was used as part of the recently completed Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. We were able to use your birch dividers in the main lobby and wanted to show you how your product helped us achieve a unique healthcare design.

Attached is a photo that shows how your product looks within this design. We are big Gold Leaf fans and want to show you how we put your dividers to use."



Westin Houston Memorial City

Gold Leaf recently completed artwork for the newly opened Westin Houston Memorial City hotel in Houston, Texas. It was designed with the assistance of Morris Architects. The panels, featuring our Wall Play and custom-painted with a silver nickel finish, were assembled in our design center in Chicago.



The piece, entitled "Memorial City Sky", was created by Gold Leaf Design Group's creative visionary, Allan Howze.

St. John's on The Lake

Gold Leaf just returned from Milwaukee, our neighbor to the North, after performing a custom installation at St. John's on the Lake, a retirement community located on the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.

The installation features our dried branches with our original Wall Play, custom-colored specifically for this project. Gold Leaf worked with with the creative designers at Perkins Eastman in Chicago over the past few months to create these pieces as part of the properties' brand new expansion!



Gold Leaf Featured in Hospitality Design

The recent renovation of the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay was featured in this month's Hospitality Design magazine. Gold Leaf worked with WATG Interiors to produce a few original pieces using our monkey ladder vine and natural kuwa branches.

Click here to view the full photo gallery of the renovation!

El Amazonas

Our trips to the Amazon Rainforest never cease to amaze us. We are on the never ending search for sustainable resources such as natural dyes, decorative pods and seeds, natural branches and indigenous handicrafts. Since our planet receives the majority of its oxygen from these forests, this is the heart and lungs of our world. Sadly, our research shows that 1.5 ACRES (the equivalent of ONE FOOTBALL FIELD) of Amazon Rainforest is destroyed EVERY SECOND!

We hope that our products bring people closer to our natural world, and serve as an elegant and gentle reminder of all that we have to lose.

On the Move

This year has been full of so many exciting developments. One new project that we are beginning today is the redesign of our website. Although our website has served us and our customers well, it has its shortcomings. Our new site will be state of the art, offer online ordering, be more intuitive and user friendly. We hope to launch the new site before the summer Gift Shows. Stay tuned! If you haven't looked at our online catalog recently, you will be in for a surprise. We have added 70 pages of items for this Spring. We have updated the format, to make the catalog easier and quicker to view. Our warehouse is full, with more merchandise arriving daily. We continue to add more products to enhance outdoor living. We have been travelling the world, creating even more new designs and entering new categories. Many will be unveiled on our new site and at the upcoming shows. As we approach our 17th anniversary, we thank you for your continued support! We think you will be quite happy to see what is on the horizon. Thanks.

Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Gold Leaf Design Group partner to create “outside of the box” artforms and plant designs for the December 15, 2010 opening.

March 01, 2011

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - The much awaited luxury resort, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, contracted Gold Leaf Design Group of Chicago to design and manufacture “unexpected” offerings showcasing custom high end stainless steel, fiberglass, wood, permanent botanicals and mixed media artwork.

For almost one year, Gold Leaf worked on developing site specific details in internal feature areas which include East and West Valet, Hospitality Suites, Fitness Center, Sahra Spa and Hammam, Wicked Spoon Buffet, Employee Dining and High Limit. The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas approached the well known company, Gold Leaf, because of their attention to detail, their creativity and their reputation for well constructed elements.

Gold Leaf Design Group worked on-site as well as off-site in their 75,000 square foot, high ceiling facility. The company is capable of in-house woodworking, fiberglass, painting, foil leafing, sculpting and tree and plant building. Four internal recessed loading docks can accept 53’ semi-trailer/ containers while its production department can easily manufacture mass quantities of “one-of-a-kind” botanical and sculptural elements.

Later, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas became part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection. Gold Leaf Design Group is a valued approved vendor for Marriott International presently working with seven of the Marriott corporate brands.

For additional information, please contact quotes@goldleafdesigngroup.com or contact any of our personable associates at 1.877.738.1790.

I Am Gold Leaf: Tony

Employee Profile:

Tony, Shipping

What neighborhood do you live in?

Humboldt Park, born and raised.

Why do you love Chicago?

Lots of activities. My family, baseball league that I play in, parks, Chicago in the summer! Ohh, and the pizza!

You say you like pizza, but I see a lot of pizza puffs in your hand. Why is that?

Man, its all about the pizza puff. Its like a french fry and pizza in one. Can't beat it.

Pizza puff beats pizza?
Yeahhhhh!!!!

Do pizza puffs beat the Chicago White Sox?
Did you not see the 2005 World Series. Its all about the Sox. I can eat something else.

Are there any Gold Leaf products that you like as much as pizza puffs?Marco Sculptures. I like art and this is the most artful unique item Gold Leaf has. Marco has a very distinct style and it makes me think of the warm weather that is elsewhere.

Snowpocalypse 2011

Amongst other nicknames, they are dubbing it "Snowpocalypse 2011" as a large Winter storm bears down on the Midwest, including the Chicagoland area. To make sure our employees get home safely and avoid the heaviest parts of the storm, we will be closing early today.

There is also a chance that we may not be open on February 2nd, so if you call our number and don't get an answer on Wednesday, fear not: We'll be safely trapped inside our homes but returning to the office on Thursday.

Stay safe!

Setting Up the Booth at the NYIGF

Darren, Allan and Jose have just begun setting up the booth for the New York Gift Fair and have already hit a wall. Wait, strike that. Reverse it.

12:10pm EST - "Jose crushes foot and toe setting up booth. We are now down one person but must continue."

We Love New York in January, How About You?

This morning, Darren, Allan and Jose checked out the 18" of snow that was dumped in New York last night.

On to New York?

Booth photos from this year's Atlanta Market will be on our website today! Just log in to goldleafdesigngroup.com and click on "HD Exhibitions" to see how it all turned out. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth.

Darren and Allan are at the airport now ready to head to New York International Gift Fair... but are now facing the same issues that plagued their delays into Atlanta and threatened their show attendance: Snow.

6:43am CST - "Going to O'Hare Airport. Changed to earlier flight to beat New York snow storm."

8:15am CST - "On plane, ready for take off."

8:32am CST - "Sitting on runway now. A sudden snowstorm in new York delays us for 50 minutes, they say.  Will we leave?"

9:16am CST - "New York airport closed. Sitting on runway for 45 more minutes."

9:29am CST - "Sleeping."

10:16am CST - "Going back to gate. No take off."

10:37am CST - "Here we sit!" (Broken-hearted)

11:15am CST - "De-planing."

11:57am CST - "Back on plane. The only flight supposed to now leave. All other flights today are cancelled into New York."

3:07pm EST - "Just landed in New York. After almost 5 hour delay. Lot of snow!"

4:30pm EST - "Made it to the hotel and now going to work. More wintry mix starting. 5 inches expected tonight."

5:05pm EST - "Slippery."

Phew! Catch us January 29 through February 2! Pier 94, At Home division, Booth #45044 at the Javits Center!