CafePress celebrated Halloween with lots of baked goodies and a slew of fun festivities for both CafePressers and their kids. Competitions help keep things interesting… and this party was no exception! Check out the photos below for the winners and other fun photos.
Bake-off: All the treats were spooktacular but the prize (special stein trophy) goes to Joe for the best tasting treat - pumpkin bars. Yum! Unfortunately the pumpkin bars were gone (they were that good!) before we got a chance to take a photo. Other fun treats include a CafePress Rice Krispy Pumpkin and a Weepy Ghost Cake (ghouls included).
Trick or Treat competition: CafePressers brought candy to hand out to the kids with the kids selecting the winner for the best candy. And the winner is Karen (pictured below) – she gave out mini cauldrons of candy and treats.
Costume competition: What’s a Halloween party without a costume competition? The costumes were creative and funny – we’ll let the pictures do the talking…
For the winners: Best group costume goes to the ladies of the Team Cullen baseball team (for all you Twihards out there). Allison the robot took the prize for best individual costume as it was a big hit with the kids.
Costumes worth mentioing: the CafePress 10th birthday design, bits of bytes, ear of corn, Alan from The Hangover, and sumo wrestler.
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.
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!
People ask me a lot what it’s like to work at CafePress, and when I saw buzzcowboy walk into the building today with the Pocket full of Bacon t-shirt, I just had to take a picture to show you. Yes, we really do wear CafePress t-shirts around the office (especially buzz, who will wear pretty much anything that makes her laugh).
I asked her to pose for a picture and then another employee told her to go get a frying pan. But since we don’t have a stove at the office all she could find was a spatula. Then I found the green piggy bank to go with her awesome shirt. She decided the “Feed your passion” poster was the perfect backdrop, and here’s the result.
It really seems like everyone loves bacon – a simple search for bacon on the Marketplace gives you a result of 50,700 bacon themed products. So I asked buzzcowboy whether her shirt or real bacon was better and she chose her shirt. Here’s why (from the desk of buzzcowboy):
It’s organic!
It’s cruelty-free
It’s more seasonally-appropriate autumn-wear than real bacon
It has far less fat and far more fiber than real bacon
Alas, it’s once again time for the annual brew-happy gathering where over 7 million liters of beer (20 million 12 oz. cans) are consumed. Not to mention the roasting of 520,000 chickens, 140,000 pairs of pork sausages, 60,000 pork knuckles and 100 oxen (yes oxen).
No, we’re not talking about Sunday’s Minnesota Vikings/Green Bay Packers football game (although their tailgate numbers may approach those?).
We’re talking about Munich’s famed Oktoberfest. For those of you who want a little history to help wash down your beer, the Oktoberfest has been going strong since 1810. It originated in Germany’s famed Bavaria as a celebration commemorating the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig (who went on to bigger-and-better things, becoming King Ludwig I) and his lovely bride Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Hey, who doesn’t knock-back a couple brewskies at a wedding?
But it isn’t just Germany that taps into the fun and festivities of Oktoberfest. Never one to shy away from a good party, America has embraced the celebration as whole-heartedly as Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day, and other foreign-inspired festivities that involves copious portions of beer and high-caloric foods. In fact, across America – in cities large and small – Oktoberfest celebrations are going strong. There’s undoubtedly one near you.
Judging from our high number of fun Oktoberfest T-shirt designs, it appears that folks like to dress for the occasion. While we don’t offer St. Pauli Girl dresses and the likes, you will find T-shirts and hoodies and steins and such. Many of which will have you laughing so hard that you wet your lederhosen. (speaking of which, at Munich’s Oktoberfest there are nearly 1,000 seated toilets and some 300 feet of urinals).
But we digress. The point is, Oktoberfest is a great and fun tradition. So get out and enjoy the Autumn weather and find a brew tent near you.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October, and with it coming up we’re seeing a lot of great new breast cancer designs come through on the subject. Everything from funny to serious to hip and edgy would indicate that breast cancer is, most definitely, something that affects women (and men!) from all walks of life.
We’re accustomed to the edgy when it comes to breast cancer. In fact, cancer in general spawns a lot of edgy content; the trend with cancer T-shirts has a lot less to do about being a “victim” and a lot more to do with kicking cancer’s a$$. That being the case, it’s pretty hard to surprise us with breast cancer awareness art – but it would seem that some television viewers (and CNN anchors) aren’t so initiated:
We have our own video on the subject, and while there’s a lot less… er, focus… on the actual subject at hand (the boobs, not the cancer), we find this story of one woman’s cure campaign to be inspired, inspiring and just downright nice to hear.
What do peace, love, math, Pilates and coffee have in common?
Apparently all are on the Reese Witherspoon Like List, as the actress was seen leaving Pilates class with the custom SIGG bottle (seen here at left) in her bag, a coffee cup in hand. It’s always good to rehydrate after a workout, after all.
Her choice of bottle raises some interesting questions, and so we shall present them here in a quiz so that you, the readers, might lead us to the best answer:
There’s been a lot of media attention around the healthcare town hall meetings and the contentious debate that surround them, but one thing that hasn’t gotten a whole lot of airplay is the accessorizing of some of its protesters.
Times have changed a lot since the Bush years, during which simply showing up to Presidential speech in a homemade anti-Bush T-shirt might get you arrested (and later mollified to the tune of 800 Franklins). While First Amendment Rights were those at the heart of the Bush-era public assembly fashion debate, in the Obama administration it would seem that firearms are the new black.
Indeed, the Second Amendment seems to be rearing its nickel-plated head at a variety of healthcare town hall meetings, including one in Arizona where a guy showed up with an AR-15 strapped to his back. (No word on whether this trend is courtesy a new Max Motors “Guns for Clunkers” promotion.)
It turns out that the Arizona assualt rifle incident was staged by a Libertarian talk show, but other folks who showed up in New Hampshire and Arizona with smaller, more fashionable and versatile handguns were apparently there to exercise their Second Amendment Rights. Or maybe they just attended the Plaxico Burress Institute of Fashion.
Pumping fists is the American way, but the implied threat of pumping lead has activated some conservative organizations to speak out and recommend that folks leave the firearms at home. (The NRA has been silent on the matter.) The meetings are already heated and contentious – due in part to the Right’s scripted disruption strategy, which is well-outlined in a detailed Town Hall Playbook – and with a town hall meeting in Washington State canceled due to threats of violence and one in Tampa disrupted by it, throwing guns into the mix may not create the best environment to productively discuss the future of American healthcare.
What the Second Amendment has to do with the healthcare debate is fodder for another debate, though some would argue that it’s entirely relevant given the $100 billion spent in the healthcare system annually treating gunshot wounds. But perhaps protesters might consider a Bush/Obama hybrid model, and shelve the firearms for T-shirt cannons instead. There are certainly plenty of anti-Obama T-shirts to go ’round.
Ted Kennedy passed away this week after a 15-month battle with a malignant brain tumor. The Lion of the Senate and its second most senior member, Kennedy served 9 terms since 1962. He’ll be remembered for his thundering, eloquent speeches, his commitment to his ideals, and his service to the American people.
One of Kennedy’s more relevant and lifelong positions: affordable healthcare for all Americans. His bipartisan appeal is a loss for the healthcare debate, but the memory of his legacy on the issue won’t soon fade. There’s already talk of the healthcare bill being named after him, with one op ed piece pointing out that, if we’re to do this, “it better not suck.”
And so we pay tribute to Ted Kennedy today, and to his nearly 50 years of public service.
UPDATE 8.27:
We’ve seen some great new designs come through since news broke, so we figured we’d share some more:
Supreme Court nominees aren’t usually T-shirt fodder – heck, either are Supreme Court Justices – but Sonia Sotomayor can chalk up another win for breaking the norms.
Her much-debated “wise Latina” remark has become an empowerment slogan for other like-minded ladies, and when folks feel empowered by a catch phrase it’s only a matter of time (very little time, usually) before it makes its way to the ever-flexible canvas of a cotton T-shirt.
The AP covered the pop culture trend today, noting that the appeal of “Wise Latina” T-shirts is partially cultural. Said one interviewee: “In Hispanic culture, there is such a veneration of the older Latina figure. She represents that.”
So if you’re looking for that perfect gift for your own wise Latina, hey – look no further. Even if you don’t want to go political, we gotcha covered.
CafePress celebrated Halloween with lots of baked goodies and a slew of fun festivities for both CafePressers and their kids. Competitions help keep things interesting… and this party was no exception! Check out the photos below for the winners and other fun photos.
People ask me a lot what it’s like to work at CafePress, and when I saw buzzcowboy walk into the building today with the 
