With just a few days left until Mother’s Day, we’ve put together a short list of things you can do to make it extra special for the women who’ve made a difference in your life:

1. Call her regularly. Maybe it’s trivial, but making an effort to connect is huge.

2. Send her cupcakes, just because. But especially this Sunday.

3. Send an email every time you have a memory from your childhood. “Hey, Mom – remember when we’d go get ice cream after the Memorial Day parade?” She’ll love that you acknowledge the little efforts she made to make your childhood memorable.

4. Take her to lunch or dinnner. Nothing beats face time.

Get in on the Foiled Cupcakes Mother’s Day special and you can get in on #2 like that {snap!}. Time’s a-tickin’, so get clickin’!

Application deadline: Thursday, 5/9/13

What we’re offering:
- A PT position with our delivery cupcake service in Chicago
- Flexible hours
- Steady location (work out of our packaging space in West Town/Ukrainian Village)
- Independent work culture

Requirements:
- Laptop with wireless internet connection
- Phone with unlimited texting
- Car — preferred

Availability required:
- For now, evening hours between 5-8 p.m. — set your own schedule
- In the future, can switch to late morning hours
- 7 days a week preferred, with flexible time off as long as it’s scheduled

Things we’re looking for:
- Detail oriented individual with a flexible schedule
- Ability to commute to our Ukrainian Village/West Town kitchen location easily
- Independent worker
- Good with written and verbal communication
- Organized, effective worker who can roll with the punches
- An interest in logistics and order fulfillment

Job requirements:
- Assemble orders with speed and accuracy
- Hand write gift notes for recipients
- Help prepare for the pastry team’s shift the following day
- Inventory and supply management

Please respond with your cover letter and resume with contact information:
hey@foiledcupcakes.com
Attention: Mari and Kelly
The subject of your correspondence should read, “HEY, FOILED! I’M DETAIL ORIENTED!”

No phone calls, please.

Enter: Foiled Cupcakes with custom Quippies.

Many of our clients have asked for custom Quippies on our cupcakes, which adds a super memorable, yet cost-effective touch to our cupcake deliveries.

This service is free for our Silver Elite clients, and generally is $35 for all other one-time clients (unlimited number of production prints). Lead time is around one week for proof and production.

Check out some examples of logo Quippies on cupcakes:

We’d love to help you setup your own branding package for a super memorable gift – just let us know how we can help.

Application deadline: Monday, 3/18/13

What we’re offering:
-A PT, work from home job with our delivery-only cupcake service in Chicago
-Set your own consistent schedule (morning hours preferred)
-Interact with our clients over the phone and via email and make them SUPER HAPPY

We’re looking for someone who is:
-Organized, detail oriented, and can think on their feet
-Capable of making decisions on the fly and working under pressure
-Able to dedicate 2-3 hours per day to making phone calls free from any distractions/disruptive noises during -regular business hours (M-F, 9am to 6pm)
-Not afraid to be on the phone, send emails, text, use a cell phone, and over-communicate with the team and clients
-A really great typist and very web-savvy
-Happy to serve the customer and put their needs first
-Interested in helping in the kitchen during peak and holidays

Please respond with your cover letter and resume with contact information:
hey@foiledcupcakes.com
Attention: Mari and Kelly
The subject of your correspondence should read, “I WANT TO BE A CUPCAKE ORDER COORDINATOR!”

No phone calls, please.

She asked me what it was like to run a cupcake bakery on a high-volume day like Valentine’s Day. “It’s CRAZY,” is what I told her. And then I started rattling off a list of everything that goes on:

We get our ingredients scaled.
We get our batters made.
We let our batters rest.
We get our buttercreams beaten.
We get our foils separated.
We set up our sheet pans and heat up our ovens.
We scoop batter into the foils.
We bake cupcakes.
We make fillings (caramel, ganache, pecan, etc.) from scratch.
We carve out cupcakes to make room for filling.
We fill pastry bags.
We pipe cupcakes.
We label them with Quippies.
We give the cupcakes time to set.
We fold boxes.
We fold inserts.
We call to follow up with all inbound orders.
We print out orders.
We hand write all of your gift notes.
We fold more boxes.
We get more flour.
We get more butter.
We laugh a lot.
We fight over whose music is best.
We wrap up your box.
We assign delivery drivers.
We confirm deliveries with our drivers.
We deliver your cupcakes.
We follow up with you.

All this over a 24 hour period leading up to the 14th of February.

And then we sleep for a bit, then get up and do it all over again for the orders the following day.

We love Valentine’s Day. Thank you for making it a true labor of love for us, and for giving us the chance to deliver shiny happy goodness to your loved ones. And thanks for continuing to order throughout the year! You give us a reason to do the entire list over and over, and we love it.

On Valentine’s Day, 2/14/13, twenty Hailo drivers will receive one dozen individually wrapped Foiled Cupcakes to pass out throughout the day to lucky riders.

If you’re a lucky cupcake winner, tweet a picture of you and your cupcake using hashtag #HailoFC, and you’ll be entered to win a free Dozen of our Favorites cupcakes that can be redeemed anytime!

Don’t have the Hailo app yet? Download for iPhone or Android here, then hail away!

An overwhelming number of you asked for something to complement cupcakes for this sweet holiday. What better than a modern take of nostalgic Rice Krispie Treats, red and pink and white to celebrate your love?

The first 100 people to place an order will automatically get a trio of these lovelies for free (a $12 value).

Place any order for Valentine’s Day delivery and you’ll automatically get free custom Valentine’s Day Quippies, too.

Happy Valentine’s, everyone!

1 – We’re working with a packaging company in NJ who’s designing a custom cupcake packaging solution for us – which means that we’ll be able to ship our cupcakes to you very soon – starting with the Midwest, expanding to the East Coast, and onward!

2 – We’re contracting out developers to design and code a brand new website – one that can accommodate these national deliveries, as well as have a little more modern feel that focuses on user experience.

3 – We’re working with our logistics team to figure out the most efficient way to get product to you, nationally, faster. This means less transit time, which means less time on ice, which means lower costs for you and better end product.

4 – We’ve redesigned our current packaging to incorporate Foiled’s bold personality and gift appeal.

5 – We’ve rolled out a hearty start to our Silver Elite program – a subscription program for companies that send a lot of gifts and never want to miss an important day ever again. We’ll soon roll this out to any customer who would find this service valuable.

6 – We’ve improved our baking processes so we can accommodate high volume orders – as many as 10,000, all the way down to 12 cupcakes.

7 – We’ve been so fortunate to work with several different charitable causes that we believe in and support, including the Bill and Chelsea Clinton Millennium Foundation, The Piven Theater Workshop, Bright Pink, and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events for the City of Chicago.

Thank you for your continued support as we grow, expand, and strive to bring you even more shiny happy goodness!

Example: I was going through some old pictures at my grandparents’ house and found pictures of my mom in junior high. WHAT? My mom was 13 once in her lifetime?

My mom and her older sister (in the green shirt) don’t get together often, but when they do, they reminisce about their parents, catching fireflies in the Japanese countryside, helping their mom “ton-ton” the futons, and yes, even walking uphill both ways to school (which, for the record, was way farther than any school to which my dad ever had to walk uphill both ways.)

Despite living in tech-advanced Japan, my relatives over there don’t really hang out online, so they probably won’t see this blog post. But if they do, Aunt Hiromi, you make the BEST shabu-shabu I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to go back and enjoy some of your fresh sushi. Nom!