One of my oldest friends at work, Bona, is home this week preparing for mommyhood. I wish her well as she rests up, and I’m sending her curly, happy thoughts as we wait with breath that is bated for her big day!

Simeen and I worked on a top-secret, covert operation called “Bona’s Baby Bump Surprise” at work just before the holidays. We had to be sneaky because she works right next to Simeen, and through the cloud of night and coded e-mails, we somehow cobbled together the idea to surprise her and other co-worker friends with cupcakes and favors.

We set the kitchen up by having friends distract her and with some materials from the grocery store next door, we were able to create a spread like this! We used what limited equipment we had in the office kitchen, using bowls to elevate some trays and with Simeen ingeniously using some floral leaves and buds to cover them. We even used the colored art paper we have lying around, as you’ll see, just to add a festive punch to the whole affair.

You’ll see that I had the idea to use green apples as mini balloon stands; I simply snipped the balloon sticks at an angle and stuck them into the fruit. Our cupcakes were the vanilla ones from my Magnolia bakery cookbook, made with different-tinted frosting and sprinkles of all shapes and kinds. The favors were little pots of honey from Cudge (awesome site for favors) that we made labels for. They read: “A Little Honey Is Coming Our Way” and the baby’s name. We loved the fact that they had blue plaid tops on them.

We were all sweaty and kept running into each other as we set this whole thing up, but the look on Bona’s face was priceless when she finally got to see them.

You might pick up an idea or two from our little celebration in case you’re planning one!

Bona, if you’re reading this, I’m sending you lots of curly hugs! God bless and all the luck!