Not to scare you, but Halloween is hours away. If you haven’t found an outfit (gulp), it’s do-or-die time.
We can help, but let’s keep it simple. Start with our better together (part 1) and better together (part 2) T-shirts. Collectively, they’re a springboard to infinite self expression (and possibly poor taste?).
If you have a partner in crime: With a little imagination and a few household items (who doesn’t have a 1930’s machine gun sitting around?), the two of you can go as Bonnie & Clyde, Bill & Hillary, John & Yoko, Kanye & Taylor, Captain Kirk & Spock … you name it. Or think outside the box: Peanut Butter & Jelly, Gin & Vermouth, Leather & Lace or Smoke & Mirrors. The possibilities are endless. 
If you’re flying solo, but have an inflatable doll: See notes above, only dress-up and carry the doll. (However, be prepared for questions on why you own an inflatable doll. Not recommended for church parties, grandma’s house, etc.).
If you’re single, but ready to mingle: Wear one T-shirt (plus appropriate costume accessories), and carry the other T-shirt in your free hand. Wave it in the air occasionally, letting people know you’re looking for someone to be your better half. You can’t go wrong dressing as Annie (looking for Daddy Warbucks), Prince Charming (looking for Cinderella), Beauty (looking for the Beast), or Guns (looking for Roses).
 This month, CafePress turns 10. Woo-hoo! What started as a garage-based start-up in San Leandro, California has grown into a global corporation with locations in San Mateo, California, Louisville, Kentucky and has international websites in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. (After all, unleashing the power of human expression can only go so far in a garage.)
A few words from Fred, our CEO and Co-founder:
“Ten years ago we launched CafePress, and while our most-popular designs may change from day-to-day (depending on the latest talk around water coolers), one thing remains the same: CafePress is a where people come to express their unique personalities. I can’t begin to thank everyone enough for making CafePress such a fun destination for self-expression.”
How about a few fun stats to put it all in perspective?
- We’ve amassed over nine million registered users who make and sell unique T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, mugs and more – as a matter of fact they created an online catalog of over 250 million different products.
- On average, the CafePress community adds over 250,000 new products to CafePress everyday. That’s over 10,000 an hour, almost 200 a minute – three new products every second! That’s a whole lot of self-expression!
- Next stop, Paris? If you were to line up all of the T-shirts CafePress has sold, they would stretch from San Francisco to London.
- Wow, talk about sticker shock! With all the bumper stickers CafePress has sold, you could wallpaper the Washington Monument. Six times.
- No laundry until Friday? If you bought one of each available CafePress kid’s garments, you’d have four outfits for every 10-year old in America.
How did we celebrate here in the office? In our own way of course!
We celebrated ’round these parts with a choice of three fun activities: baking class, Go Kart racing, and sailing. All smiles and in our special 10 birthday T-shirts, we boarded our respective buses to take us to our destinations where we spent a few hours enjoying our event. The we all came back together at the Steelhead Brewery for lunch, games, and more fun.
Check out the photos below.
Kitchen on Fire baking class:
“Drinking champagne for breakfast is not generally a workplace activity, but what better way to ring in 10 years with fellow CP’ers? Baking focaccia with the CFO calls for bubbles – especially when she brings the bubbles.” Leslie, CafePress Blogger – 6 years
 
   
Go Kart racing:
“We work fast and we play fast but unlike the track, in the office I don’t have co-workers slamming me into the wall. Well not unless it’s bagel day. Can’t wait to see what the next 10 laps brings here at CafePress.” Randy, Customer Service Director – 3 1/2 years
 
   
Sailing on the Bay:
“Our morning sailing adventure started off on a foggy note, and we were stuck at the dock for an hour waiting for the morning fog to clear. But once we left, we were treated to a great trip on the bay. Looking out over San Francisco, it was fun to think about how far we’ve come and all the opportunity ahead of us. It continues to be a great journey.” Maheesh, founder – 10 years, since the beginning!
 
   
Celebrating 10 years – the CafePress team!
Thanks so much to the CafePress Community that’s made it all possible! Happy Anniversary to you, too.
 This week we’re thinking of groovy costumes one can assemble from the CafePress catalogue, and given the interest our design community has had in the H1N1 scare it seemed remiss to leave out such an easy costume.
Swine Flu has garnered more designs than Bird Flu and Anthrax together, and brought to us the brand-new term “Hamthrax.”
So, costume #4:
Swine Flu (potential) victim
What you’ll need:
See? Easy. A blue surgical mask is so much more comfortable and practical than that plastic Transformers mask you were thinking about anyway.
If you’re really feeling it, adding tourism-style accessories (camera around the neck, fanny pack, hat, tropical shirt over your swine flu T-shirt) will give you extra bonus points and a perfect excuse to carry around frosty beverages bedecked by umbrellas and fruit. Optional: portable blender to make one’s own frosty beverages throughout the evening. Bonus: carrying a portable blender is a really good way to make a lot of new friends.
 With the Balloon Boy hoax having taken over the airwaves for a week, inspiring our design community to get busy making Balloon Boy T-shirts and such, it seems only fitting that The Great Balloon Boy Saga Hoax be our third Halloween costume suggestion this week.
There are a few variations of this costume, and all can involve a groovy T-shirt.
Costume 1: Balloon Boy
What you need:
If you’re an overachiever and you have friends that want to be part of a group costume, you can easily outfit the Heene parents with some relevant T-shirts and have your other friends dress as the paparazzi. Or reporters. Or Wolf Blitzer.
Extra bonus points: build a cardboard TV screen frame and carry it around, posing with reporters behind it at random.
Extra extra bonus points: actually go out on the town with Wolf Blitzer.
Costume 2: The Balloon Boy Saga
Carrying around a mylar balloon and an empty box all night can be so cumbersome, and it takes away your drinking hand. With 6 simple T-shirts, you (or you and 5 friends) can be the balloon boy saga. Either line up together, or if you’re solo just layer them (it’s chilly on Halloween anyway – layers are good!) and then, at random, blow a whistle* to let people know that you’re about to dramatically re-enact the balloon boy hoax.
What you’ll need:
- A collection of T-shirts (below is a suggested narrative, but you have lots to choose from)
- *a whistle (but only if you want to call attention to periodic, dramatic re-enactments)
- friends (but only if you want to share the glory)
     
 Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who stepped down from her post in July, signed a $1M+ book deal with HarperCollins. The book, entitled “Going Rogue: an American Life,” is slated to release November 17th.
Sarah Palin inspired T-shirt designers like no other Vice Presidential candidate ever has, with Sarah Palin T-shirts and other groovy gifts numbering over 1 million.
Perhaps our fondest memory of Sarah Palin is the Great Moose Bag Sighting, which led some folks to design rebuttal bags on behalf of the moose and moved us to recommend a Sarah Palin costume for Halloween. Since we’re recommending random Halloween costumes this week (yesterday’s suggestion: be the “Saw” franchise), today we’ll revisit last year’s Palin plan with some slight alterations.
How to be Sarah Palin for Halloween this year:
 Swap out the business suit for a snow-machine suit (easily obtainable on the cheap at larger thrift shops) and stuff your pockets full of dollar bills. Don’t forget your moose bag and your glasses, though.- Mock up a few fake copies of “Going Rogue” to hand out to screaming fans, and bring a pen to sign them. (Yep, we make books. No, we are not advocating trademark infringement. Call the book whatever you’d like, or just carry Dr. Seuss’s “My Book About Me” for kicks.)
- Engage friends to be your screaming literary fans. It’s an easy costume for them; we have tons of flair that they can wear to express their love for all things Palin (read: you).
Just don’t forget your lipstick. Extra bonus points to anyone who brings their pit bull and lipstick – but unless the lipstick is bacon-flavored, please do keep it off your dog. (And if you find bacon-flavored lipstick, please let us know. That would be a find.)
 “Saw VI” hit theaters this weekend, just in time to freak you out for Halloween. For you “Saw” fans, we have some appropriately creepy Saw T-shirts for ya.
This week on the blog, we’ll be suggesting interesting costumes that you might fashion from CafePress products. Today we’ll note that we think that wearing a spooooky T-shirt should count as holiday-appropriate Halloween gear, and let’s face it: not everyone is down with silly costumes. So if you’re not feeling the commitment you made to your friends to be the cast of Scooby Doo (getting stuck being Scrappy Doo is, admittedly, the worst lot of the bunch – poor you), consider talking your other 5 friends into representing the Saw franchise. They can always save their Scooby Doo outfits for the next 70’s party.
After all, a T-shirt is a lot more comfortable than a big fuzzy costume head. Don’t worry – painting your van like the Mystery Machine was still a good idea. Really.
 When you run a company that’s been unleashing the power of human expression for 10 years, you expect the occasionally offbeat letter. Sometimes we get suggestions for creative merchandise – everything from rubber bracelets to Jesus track pants (the latter being what you think they are – track pants emblazoned with Jesus on them, the concept pitch accompanied by a handmade illustration). Sometimes we get returns that have been… tampered with. Sometimes we get plain old love letters, and sometimes we get edible yummies. But never before have we received a troll. Until now…
A CafePress fan from Norway sent us one of the most intriguing boxes we’ve ever received. In it was: a letter thanking us for our reliability and customer service, a silver Viking ship, multiple Norwegian calendars (including a troll one most awesomely titled “TROLLKALENDER,” which I of course promptly “borrowed” until 1/1/11), and a groovy little troll. That groovy little troll is seen here at left.
The package was regrettably addressed to our CFO, making it very difficult for this blogger to make any quality troll recipient jokes without serious fear of reprisal.
In any case, we’re all really enjoying our wee but mighty troll. According to the accompanying letter, “According to tradition here in Norway these trolls are supposed to [be] living in the deepest and darkest forest. The T-shirts I ordered him didn’t fit so I sent him over to be measured!”
Thank you, funny Norwegian fan. Your little troll has emerged from the dark woods of Norway to sunnier, milder California climates and is currently enjoying the company of a potted plant (we don’t want him to miss the woods), a Rubik’s cube (we don’t want him to get bored), and a stuffed platypus (we don’t want him to be lonely).
And don’t worry – we have 30,000 Troll T-shirts to make him feel relevant and appreciated. Takket være!
 Obama gave a speech back in February wherein he laid out plans to cap the pay and bonuses of executives working for companies who received taxpayer-funded federal bailout money, noting that such executives could still receive compensation (like options) tied to the long-term health of the company. The move was in response to events like the AIG fiasco that occurred after the first round of Bush bailout money.
This week, the Federal Reserve “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg – hired to oversee the companies who took the bailout money – issued a set of guidelines (The White House likes the term “formula” and “guidelines” better than “pay cap”) aimed to limit the pay at 7 firms who received the most bailout money. The White House ordered what’s being described as “drastic” pay cuts for 175 top executives at these companies, which are: AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler, and the financing departments of the two automakers. However, it’s worth noting that the guidelines don’t specifically prohibit multi-million dollar paychecks or substantial deferred compensation.
 Said Obama in a speech, “I’ve always believed that our system of free enterprise works best when it rewards hard work. But it does offend our values when executives of big financial firms — firms that are struggling — pay themselves huge bonuses even as they continue to rely on taxpayer assistance to stay afloat.”
The Fed also noted that it would begin reviewing compensation practices at some our largest largest financial firms. In its guidelines the Fed stated, “Banking organizations too often rewarded employees for increasing the firm’s revenue or short-term profit without adequate recognition of the risks the employees’ activities posed to the firm.”
The Fed also noted that the hope is for other banking institutions to adopt the “pay cut model” in an effort to focus on long-term profitability and stability, rather than short-term cash.
And so we award a Fantasy T-Wearer Award today to Kenneth Feinberg, with what we’ll call the People’s Republic Executive Salary Cap, above.
 The Astro Boy movie opens in theaters this Friday – and if you enjoy animated features, space stories or classic good vs. evil tales, this is a good weekend movie for ya.
If you’re wondering what one wears to the opening weekend of a futuristic animated feature, look no further: official Astro Boy T-shirts and other groovy gear is available in the Astro Boy shop.
Remember, it’s always cold in movie theaters and it’s flu season. So bundle up in a hip Astro Boy sweatshirt, stuff yourself full of popcorn and enjoy!
 In the latest installment of “shirts that make you go hmm…”
You are a gay Scandinavian penguin lover, devastated at the memory of gay penguins Roy and Silo breaking up when that harlot Scrappy decided to lure Silo away forever. You knew she was trouble from the beginning, but nobody would listen. Not even Roy.
Feeling that Roy might have been better off staying in the closet and avoiding the painful tabloid breakups so common to celebrities, you designed this shirt to warn any future penguins from having such a public same-sex relationship.
Or maybe you designed it to make Silo feel guilty, since you suspect that he’s just putting on appearances to please the naysayers and the media.
Or maybe you don’t like tuxedos.
Hmm.
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