Rebecca, of West Virginia-based Magic Garden Designs, is the Grand Prize Winner of CafePress’ hugely successful “Most Pressed” Contest. Despite tough competition, Rebecca’s design took off – boldly going where no designer had gone before—to the top of Most-Pressed product board. Congrats Rebecca!

Tea.Earl.Grey

What’s Rebecca’s secret to topping the CafePress Pressboard™ page charts with her out-of-this-world Star Trek™ TNG mug? CafePress got details on her inspiration for the cleverly nuanced design that rewarded her with a brand new iPad!

Rebecca says her boyfriend, a self-proclaimed Trekkie, was her muse for the design. She says he “really wanted a Captain Picard mug.” To embody the essence of the revered character, Rebecca strategically wrapped the mug’s white background in a design inspired by Picard’s uniform then accented it with Captain’s-rank gold buttons and badge. Because Picard is admired for his quotable moments, such as “Engage,” “You have the bridge Number One,” and of course, his well-known beverage machine order, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot”, Rebecca says it seemed fitting to include it on her Star Trek-inspired mug.

Rebecca is “thrilled” to have won the Press It contest Grand Prize. She says to secure this win, she rallied everyone she knew to “Press” her captain’s mug to the CafePress Pressboards— tweeting, posting to Facebook, emailing…you name it. “I LOVE my new iPad and I’m excited about the marketing suite for Magic Garden Designs,” which will help her continue to build on the success of her CafePress store.

The CafePress Pressboards are “forward-thinking,” says Rebecca. “It gives me the ability to see which of my designs people want to Press, and I find inspiration from other designers’ Pressed products. It helps me track what’s trending (and what’s not) so it keeps me current.”

Captain’s Log: Will Rebecca rally her friends and fans to keep “Pressing” now that the contest is over? “LOL, absolutely!”

The GOP field is dwindling, and like in nature, its survival of the fittest – and only the strongest will survive in this race.

Earlier today, Rick Perry made the announcement that his presidential campaign is over – making him the second candidate in a week to drop out of the race (Jon Huntsman left the race on Monday). Perry also made a point to endorse Newt Gingrich, one of the four remaining candidates in the race.

That leaves Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to duke it out on Saturday in the South Carolina primary. By Sunday, there may be another candidate we see drop out of the race.

While Romney may seem like the frontrunner, new news from Iowa shows that Santorum – and not Romney – was the actual winner of the caucus of their state by less than 40 votes. This may throw a wrench into what Romney saw as an initial victory, and may in fact boost Santorum moving into this Saturday.

Out of the remaining candidates, whom do you foresee winning? And who are rooting for to go against Obama in November? Keep up with our Cultural Barometer elections Meter graph for all the latest info in politics.

Back in September we hosted a DWTS t-shirt design contest where the winning t-shirt’s creator would win a trip for two to LA for the finale.

Our winner, Tanya Pedersen, shared her experience with us – and what an experience it turned out to be. Here’s a photo of Tanya with Season 13 DWTS winner JR Martinez – holding up her winning t-shirt with a design of that was about none other than JR himself! And he signed it, too. Congrats to Tanya on a job well done…we’re kind of jealous you got to hold the mirror ball trophy.

We understand that the holidays are a stressful time in a lot of ways – working long hours, crazy in-laws to entertain, too many cookies. We don’t want you to eat your feelings this holiday season. But the wonderful thing about the season – in our opinion – is being able to spend quality time with your loved ones. They can live across the country, around the world – but holidays give us all a reason to come together in one (or many) places to just…be.

Maybe this isn’t always possible – especially if finances are tight.

That’s why we’re pleased to launch our CafePress Holiday Sweepstakes – which features a grand prize of $2,000 in FREE airfare (in the form of gift cards), as well as a $250 gift certificate to use on CafePress.com. This basically means a free flight for you or a loved one…and you can come bearing custom gifts from CafePress (Score. Winning.).

All you have to do to enter for a chance to win is visit our Facebook page, like our page, submit an entry form, and you’re entered. Another great tip to remember: the more people you refer who also enter, the more additional entries you get in the sweepstakes!

In the meantime, we hope you’re taking it easy on this Black Friday. Maybe laying around on the couch, or making Thanksgiving leftovers sandwiches. Jingle bells is already stuck in my head.

We ran a fun Sweepstakes for two weeks on our Facebook page that ended on Monday.  We were giving away FREE Flip Mino HD Cameras – 6 to be exact – to each winner. One Flip Mino to keep, and 5 to give away to friends and family. We have our winners! And after thousands of entries, the drumroll…

Congratulations to Susan Macdonald and Ashley Alward who were our lucky winners of 6 Flip Mino HD cameras each.

If you weren’t one of our winners, don’t fret just yet – because you should stay on the lookout for more exciting sweepstakes and contests like these on our Facebook page very soon – not to mention very special, exclusive offers we’ll be posting as well. To stay up to date on all the fun and games to come, Like us on Facebook and stay tuned for more!

Life is about capturing memories. The good times and experiences you make with family and friends. And photos and videos definitely come to the rescue in the capturing memories department.

With that in mind, CafePress is hosting a fun sweepstakes on our Facebook page – Like us on Facebook and submit an entry form, and you’re automatically in the running to win 6 Flip Mino HD cameras.* Yes, you read that right – SIX.

While that number may seem a bit excessive, we like to think of it as paying it forward – you’re helping spread the love far and wide to your friends and family, prompting them to snap those pictures and videos so you can all look back on them in 20 years and laugh at how ridiculous everyone looked from their hairstyles to their fashion. Just kidding.

But really, check out the CafePress Facebook fan page for all of the details and information on how to enter. It’s super easy, and you could be one of two lucky winners to get 6 Flip cameras. So enter, share with your friends (making sure they’ll give you one of the Flips if they win), and keep watch for more sweepstakes on our Facebook page in the future. We hope it’ll make you flip. Bad joke, but good sweepstakes.

* NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Open only to persons, who as of Entry, have “Liked” CafePress’ page and filled and submitted the entry form, and who are 18 years of age or older, and legal residents of, and physically located within, the 50 U.S. or DC. Sweepstakes starts at 12:00AM PST on September 19, 2011 and ends at 12:59PM PST on October 3, 2011. Click here for Official Rules.
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

Well, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Again. The rock being the Talking Dog pajamas you really really want to get mom for her birthday, and the hard place being that you don’t know if you can order them.

And this is where CafePress swoops in, with the help of your family and friends.

We have a new, unique feature called Split the Cost – which may sound self-explanatory – but it’s a lot more fun than you think! For any product that costs more than $35.00 on our site, you’ll see this little gift icon on the page:

Once you click on it, another page will pop up for you to fill out the details of why having these pajamas are dire to your existence:

Simply reach out to friends or family via e-mail (Gmail and Yahoo) or Facebook, asking them to help contribute. You can invite as many people as you’d like and split the cost evenly between everyone included, or suggest specific amounts. On the bottom of the window, feel free to include the name of the recipient, select an occasion and enter a personal message to everyone sharing the gift. And once everyone you invite contributes, you’ll receive a gift code to redeem for your “purchase!”

This feature is perfect for sharing costs with your siblings for mom and dad’s anniversary, getting your friend an awesome custom iPad case for their birthday, or getting the hubby a funny sweatshirt from the kids “just because.”

With your awesome new pajamas on, you can thank each of your friends who helped you get warm and comfy during the cold nights that will ensue. A sleepover party may be in order. Then everyone will have to get their own PJs.

While east coast earthquakes and high-profile reality TV weddings may be a blip on the brains of some, the 2012 election season is certainly coming to a head – well, many heads – in the form of potential candidates planning their campaigns to run against President Obama. And CafePress users are following and creating the trends.

Take Rick Perry, the Texas governor who made his intentions of presidential proportions official this month – and soon after his announcement, Rick Perry gifts were as popular and plentiful as his state’s beloved longhorn.

And also making a splash on Cultural Barometer scene: enter Ron Paul. No stranger to the Republican race to the White House, the House representative has a strong following with Ron Paul Revolution gifts after formally announcing his candidacy back in May of this year.

Politics is already heating up for 2012 – and its only August. I wonder if all those politicians wearing suits in the summer heat has anything to do with it…

Surf’s up, critters. Animals are riding high on our Cultural Barometer wave of popular products this week.

We know how much dogs love food, but they rarely talk about it. But one poor dog speaks his mind as his owner taunts him with delicious food in the ultimate talking dog video. And almost overnight, a canine star was born – and now he could even wear one of his own talking dog t-shirts…or if he feels like sharing, get one for his owner. As long as he shares the maple bacon.

Normally penguins are cute and cuddly, but don’t piss them off…like the bad penguin, which topped our seller charts this week. He’s got a gripe about something – don’t let it be you. And he’s not the only evil penguin on CafePress – he has company in the form of a penguin demotivational poster.

Assuming Darwin was correct about survival of the fittest – this trending T-Rex t-shirt may explain why the deadly dino is now extinct. After all, if you can’t pass the pushups portion of your physical fitness test, you may be out of luck.

With the maddening billionaire NFL team owners reaching an 11th-hour (4^th and long?) agreement with the infuriating Prima Dona multi-millionaire players, it looks like the professional football season is set to kick-off as scheduled. Now that the ink is dry on the lock-out (or lack thereof), designers and buyers are sprinting towards the goal of a grid-iron celebration.

It looks like the American public is in a forgive & forget mood, as we’re seeing a huge up-swing in football-themed merchandise in the CafePress marketplace. Chances are fantasy football gear will be hot on its tail.

Not to be overshadowed by such a fall-and-winter-centric activity as football, the summer season is still sizzling just like your grill. With the mercury soaring across the nation, sun worshippers are temporarily chilling in their air-conditioned homes and offices, making, sharing and buying Summer-themed products. You’ll see them on the streets again soon, sporting fun white t-shirts celebrating El Sol.