Throwback Thursday

While baking up a large batch of cookies last night, I was reminded of the cookie trays I made up for all my co-workers shortly after my son was born.

Camden came 2 weeks early and I ended up missing my last week of work and the baby shower that was planned for me. I ended up going in a couple days after his birth to clean up a few items, and I was given a beautiful gift basket and a Babies’R’Us gift card that helped buy us some of the larger baby items we needed.

Since my co-workers were so incredibly generous with my baby gift I wanted to find a nice way to try and thank everyone that contributed. I never got to say a proper goodbye to most of them and I felt a bit guilty that they also had to miss out on yummy baby shower treats. When thinking of what I could do for a thank you, I remembered that we sometimes got boxes of Cookies by George to the office at Christmas and they were always very well received. Unfortunately I had just gone on maternity leave and ordering cookies wasn’t something in the budget, so I decided to DIY and bake up my own variety of cookies.

Cookie flavors I included were:

Oatmeal Raisin
Gingersnaps – get my recipe here.
White chocolate and Macadamia nut
Rolo Filled Chocolate Cookies
Mini M&M chip cookies

I worked for a large company, with staff among four different office buildings, so I ended up making a tray to drop off to each of the lunch rooms. The cookie baking was time consuming, but I stuck with basic recipes and it went faster then I expected. It also helped that I had an easy newborn that liked to nap!

The large plastic trays came from the Dollar Store and I simply lined them with a bit of parchment paper before neatly stacking the cookies on them. For the cost of the trays and a few baking supplies, I think my thank you gifts turned out great. I will admit the cookies weren’t quite as good as Cookies By George, but they were all still pretty tasty. And on my visit I am not sure what my co-workers were more excited to see – me, the new baby, or the giant platters of fresh baked cookies!

Everyday Life, Throwback Thursday, Two Legged Fun, Uncategorized

Throwback Thursday: My Little Pumpkin’s

October 23, 2014 chantelledoll

Happy Thursday! With Halloween fast approaching I thought it would be fun to share some throwback photo’s from Camden and Keira’s first Halloween’s.

I am a sucker for holiday themed clothing and got Camden this cute “Mommy’s little pumpkin” onesie.

His costume was an adorable little monkey I found at Old Navy.

To co-ordinate with Camden, I also found banana costumes for each of the dogs.

Keira was a little younger and smaller for her first Halloween so I decided to attempt the baby-in-the-pumpkin photo. This is better suited to warmer climates, but we managed okay and I was able to get a few cute shots before a complete meltdown outside.

Her first Halloween costume was an elephant. She didn’t co-ordinate with her Spiderman brother and the dogs in their Hulk and Captain America costumes, but she still looked darn cute.

This Halloween we will celebrate a couple more first’s. It will be our first Halloween in our new house and Keira’s is now big enough to go Trick-or-Treating for the first time! It is hard to believe that she had just barely begun walking at this point last year. She did do some Trick-or-Treating at the mall, but this will be the first time I will actually take her out around the neighbourhood.

What are you looking forward to this Halloween?

Celebrations, Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized

Around the Year in 100 Posts!

August 7, 2014 chantelledoll

Today marks one year since I decided to start sharing my ideas with the world through Dolled Up Design and what better way to share then in my 100th post!

I started this blog as an outlet for my creative ideas. I love reading other blogs and seeing their great parties, interior decorating and creative food ideas. I waste way too much time on Pinterest and decided I needed to start sharing back some of my own ideas rather then just creating board upon board of other people’s ideas.

This is a creative outlet for me. I enjoyed my previous job as a graphic designer, but when I made the switch to being at home with the kids I felt my skills starting to fall to the wayside. I began this blog as a way to try and establish myself as more then just “Camden and Keira’s mom” and am hoping in the process I might inspire other people to bring out their creative side.

I am surprised to see my post count as high as it is because it honestly doesn’t feel like I am able to spend as much time on my blog as I would like. Between keeping up with the kids and moving this past year, this is definitely an accomplishment for me. I am also proud and excited to have been chosen to join Moms & Munchkins as a Party Tip contributor so hopefully that gives me the push to come up with even more great ideas in the year ahead. I have tons of projects floating around in my head, but it is always a matter of finding the time to execute and document these great ideas!

Like a lot of my projects, my blog is a work in progress. The overall look of the blog still leaves something to be desired and the linking up to all the different avenues of social media makes my head spin! There is definite room for improvement and I hope as I move forward and my blog continues to grow that it only continues to become better.

So, in celebration of One year and 100 posts, here are my top 10 favorite Dolled Up projects from the past year. Click on the links to view the full posts!

And, because it is Thursday, it only seems fitting that I throwback and link to my very first blog post – my Love is Sweet personal candy buffet.

I would like to finish this post with a big thank you to all my readers old and new!

You are the main motivation for this blog and I can’t wait to share more projects and ideas with you in the year ahead.

Celebrations, Parties, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday – Jones Soda Baby Shower Favors

May 29, 2014 chantelledoll

My old coworker and friend is expecting a baby any day now and recently posted facebook pictures of the adorable Jones Soda bottle favors her sister made for her baby shower. It reminded me of the Jones Soda favors I had created for my own shower and prompted me to have my own Throwback Thursdays on Dolled Up Design to feature some of my older projects.

My baby shower was less of a shower and more of a meet-and-greet, taking place a month or so after Camden was born. My sister was kind enough to come up to my house to host it, but I wanted to be involved so I ended up making the cupcakes, cookies and favors for it. I think this was the first glimpse into my insane party planning that was to come!

The theme was a Boy Shower, playing off the classic poem “What are little boys made of? Snips, and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails”. It was co-ed and my sister served up boy-friendly foods such as chicken wings and sliders. There was also plenty of beer for the male (and female) guests!

For the favor bottles, I incorporated the rhyme as the ingredients portion of the Soda bottle labels and used the nutritional information section to include my little guys birth stats. Once the template was done, it was pretty quick to edit so I ended up doing 3 versions for the 3 different flavors of Soda I had.

To create the labels I simply printed them onto photo paper using my home printer, and then attached them to the bottles with strong double sided tape.

This is such a fun and versatile idea! I have seen it used for everything from weddings to first birthday parties. Since her baby isn’t here yet, my co-worker’s featured pictures of her husband and herself as babies. Really, the sky is the limit when it comes to picking images and changing label information and even choosing a soda type that color coordinates with your event!