Quarterly Meeting & Rice Krispie Challenge

As we welcome April, we had our quarterly meeting here at Gold Leaf. And what better way to ring in a successful quarter than competitive baking! 

With loose guidelines and a lot of enthusiasm, our Gold Leafers competed in the categories of Best Taste, Best Presentation, Most Creative, and Best Overall. Using family recipes, original creations, and the best of Pinterest,  our team turned out some amazing treats. 

Pictured here are two of the incredible original entries. Recreated in rice krispies is a model showroom, complete with fiberglass duck, zen wall hangings, neon crystals, and rope wrapped kuwa in a barrel. 

Also pictured is a beaded Manzanita branch in planter, available from our Hospitality department. Check out the top photo for the life sized orange beaded Manzanita that this dessert was based on! Pictured left to right, Alex, Denny, Carol, Cathy, and Jose were the contest winners, but we all were winners in the end...sugar coma-ed winners. 

Big in Japan

As many of you know, Darren runs. For fun. It's true! He's been in multiple marathons where he runs not just for the challenge, but also raising money for worthy institutions like Test Positive Awareness Network. For the more indolent amongst us (like me) it seems a bit crazy...especially when I see him in our neighborhood on the weekends running past to stay in fighting form...but I'm sure it contributes to his boundless energy.

Darren is now going international! He and Allan are currently on their way to Tokyo, Japan for the 2015 Tokyo Marathon. The Tokyo Marathon started in 2007 and is an international marathon with 36,000 runners through the heart of Tokyo. Last year there were well over a million onlookers cheering on the runners. This video gives a sense of the event. It is thrilling.

Allan will also be participating! Not in the full marathon, but the day before in the International Friendship Run. This is a fun-run event with some cultural sight seeing and Japanese hospitality. Just the thing for someone who wants to get caught up in the sights and sounds of Tokyo with thousands of other like-minded individuals. Hopefully we'll get some great photos from him.

We're very proud of Darren and he's very excited to be participating. If you'd like to track his marathon time, you can start on Saturday at 6:10pm central. You can track his bib number (E81253) at the marathon website (you might not need the E). We'll get some photos of the race up when we can!

Congratulations to our Marathoners!

Darren and Jose both completed (yet another) Chicago Marathon this past weekend. It was a lovely day for a run (or for watching a run...there was a Gold Leaf contingent out there to cheer them on). We are proud of them both.

It's A Gold Leaf Halloween!

We at Gold Leaf never miss an opportunity

Gold Leaf Blog

My last day at Gold Leaf, and after eating deep dish pizza and more cupcakes than I care to count, I must focus and finish up my last quote, and one last blog post. For those of you reading the blog, this will be one of the last posts for a while. The blog has sort of been tasked to me this summer and I am leaving to go back to school (as this was a summer internship). I hope that someone takes over the blog, but I do fear a little for the post consistency. This fear though probably does not warrant staying here and not finishing up school - it is my last semester after all and then I will have earned my masters in architecture! This is something that I am really excited about too. While working here is different than working on building design, it has made me think a lot about architecture and the final product - and how so many people go into creating the feel of a space.

Just remember though, Gold Leaf does have a Facebook, and readers, this is probably a sound way to pester them to share their many stories.

At Gold Leaf we love cupcakes

Keiana Gooden, our Inventory Operations Specialist,  makes amazing cupcakes, that is a fact here at Gold Leaf that we love, but our waist lines may resent. With a passion for baking she is always looking to try a new recipe. She does not eat the cupcakes herself, so we become the ever-so-willing taste testers.

This morning I sit here having a stare-down with my cupcake which I hope to save until after lunch. Molly, who has more restraint than me, is currently making sure everyone who passes by tries a cupcake (this is a hard task).

Today's Flavor, Cookies n' Cream:

And here are some past ones:

And because cupcakes are more than just delicious, but aesthetically pleasing, these arrangements were inspired by their small stature and whimsical qualities.

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.

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.

Annual Holiday Party

It's hard to believe that the year is almost over.

Although we love creating new ideas and pushing the envelope, every so often it is nice to fall back on tradition. On Friday, we headed out after work for our annual holiday party. As we have done for the past 4 years, we celebrated at Diversey River Bowl. And it truly was a celebration. It is a great time for staff and spouses to let loose, have a cocktail (or 2 or 3...), bowl a few games, exchange gifts, receive a "Goldie" and enjoy each other's company. We look forward to this event all year. None of us are bowlers, some don't even like bowling. But that doesn't matter. The opportunity to all be together for a raucous good time, is what the night is about. We have one of the hardest working teams that I have ever seen. It is such a pleasure to spend time outside of work, and our bowling party is the perfect setting!

Thanks for an amazing year, filled with huge ups and huge downs. Here's to 2011!

Are you RUNNING out of ideas...

...because Gold Leaf Design Group never does. Gold Leaf is always exercising our creative side and last week a couple Gold Leafers exercised their brawn for the annual Chicago Marathon. A congratulations are due to Darren and Jose for running and finishing the marathon yet again. Pictured to the right is Darren on mile 23 closing in on the race, and Jose's picture... well we couldn't show you Jose's picture because after the first mile Jose had nearly ripped off all his clothing competing against his own personal record and the 80 degree heat.

Fall is here, soon Halloween and then the winter. If you need new ideas for the holidays who are you going to run to? Give Gold Leaf Design Group a call at the office (877.738.1790) and see what we can do for you. We are always creating and thinking of new ways of designing and arranging for our customers.

Happy Fall!
Todd

Music in the Park

The seasons are changing quickly and Fall will soon be upon us, so the folks at Gold Leaf decided to indulge in some good Chicago fun by having their annual company outing at Millennium Park on August 26th.

Chicago provides free concerts all summer long and this night's performance featured Latin Jazz. It was a beautiful night on the lakefront. Todd and I took some photos that really capture the great atmosphere of this event.

Fun in Atlanta

Our fearless leader utilizing our new Rattan Vine Slices in Atlanta. You gotta make those long trade show hours fun!

Biking the Drive

Darren, Allan and I participated in Chicago's Bike the Drive event on Sunday. It was the first time any of us participated in the event, which is in its ninth year.

The weather was perfect. We started at 6am and the whole 30-mile round trip, from Bryn Mawr to 57th Street and back, took about 2 hours and 45 minutes. The time just flew by. We definitely want to do it again next year.

We're biking the drive this weekend!

Darren, Allan and myself are officially registered for the 2010 Bike the Drive this weekend. We're very excited about this. The weather is supposed to be perfect and it's supposed to be a great experience. The only downside is that the event starts at the nightmarish hour of 5:30am, a time of day which I didn't know still existed. The plus-side of that, however, is that we will be able to watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan, something that I've really not done in my 3 and a half years of living in Chicago. And I'm surprised I haven't heard about any of my friends doing the event. Come on, people!!

International Food Day!

What do Sudan, Poland, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Mississippi, Mexico, Italy and Japan have in common? Today at Gold Leaf Design Group headquarters we held an International Food Day and demolished several plates of some of our favorite foods from around the globe. We had traditional African dishes, Polish pierogies, Thai curry, greens from Mississippi, French desserts and many more items that are too numerous to mention. We also learned that Jose has the best flan in the city.


Lets make this post short and sweet like Molly's Bon Bons because Memorial Day weekend is nipping at our heels and half of us will probably be by the beach with friends and family, riding bikes, barbecuing and taking in the beautiful sights and smells of Lake Michigan. Take care, enjoy yourselves and cheers to you and yours!

Mississippi Sausage Social!!!

Last week Allan's mother down south sent us some sausage, well a whole lot of sausage. We had no choice but to dim the lights, turn the computers off and make big decisions like sport peppers or jalapenos. I was surprised how much ketchup was used, being Chicagoans and all, but we did demolish that bottle of mustard. Go Bears!

Every now and then us Gold Leafers plan a social as a way to let loose and enjoy each others company. We join forces at lunch and each person adds to the meal. Sometimes contributions aren't food but Neil reading aloud the missed connections section of the Chicago Reader and Michelle telling us about Nintendo Wii battle stories. Jason from shipping contributed with lightning the load in the refrigerator. The poppy seed bun and sausage was so good that I actually saw him sneaking some more later in the afternoon, plain, nothing on it, like he just unwrapped it in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. Just a bun and sausage.

We have been so busy with show orders, new products and a new catalog that this was a good exercise for the mind, body and soul. A nice little way for us to bond as friends as the new season and year for Gold Leaf starts to make some waves. I can feel the spring slowly arriving here, and we can't wait. This was a nice little taste of summer. Thanks everyone!