We are super excited to announce that from Wednesday, July 7th through Thursday, July 8th we will be offering three dollars off all t-shirts in our shops! That means every t-shirt, every size, every design!

In order to receive your discount, you need to order directly from our shops and use the coupon code TMINUS3 at checkout.

Links to our shops can be found in the little gray bar running along the very top of this page! ;-)

As with all coupons, here’s the fine print: Save $3 off all T-shirts from CafePress shops, excluding shipping charges, gift wrap charges and applicable sales tax. Coupon code TMINUS3 must be entered at check out. Promotion starts on July 7, 2010, at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on July 8, 2010, at 11:59 p.m. (PST). All orders must be from CafePress shops. Excludes CafePress marketplace purchases (e.g. all products added to cart from URLs beginning with the following (i) http://shop.cafepress.com, (ii) http://t-shirts.cafepress.com and/or (iii) http://www.cafepress.com/sk/), CafePress Groups and bulk orders. Offer cannot be combined with any other coupons or promotions and may change, be modified or canceled at anytime without notice.

I was just listening to NPR and heard a list of suggested summer reading. Two of the books in particular caught my interest: Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry’s Greatest Generation by Daisy Hay, and 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman.

From the Publisher: Young Romantics tells the story of the interlinked lives of the young English Romantic poets from an entirely fresh perspective–celebrating their extreme youth and outsize yearning for friendship as well as their individuality and political radicalism.

The book focuses on the network of writers and readers who gathered around Percy Bysshe Shelley and the campaigning journalist Leigh Hunt. They included Lord Byron, John Keats, and Mary Shelley, as well as a host of fascinating lesser-known figures: Mary Shelley’s stepsister and Byron’s mistress, Claire Clairmont; Hunt’s botanist sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kent; the musician Vincent Novello; the painters Benjamin Haydon and Joseph Severn; and writers such as Charles and Mary Lamb, Thomas Love Peacock, and William Hazlitt. They were characterized by talent, idealism, and youthful ardor, and these qualities shaped and informed their politically oppositional stances–as did their chaotic family arrangements, which often left the young women, despite their talents, facing the consequences of the men’s philosophies.

In Young Romantics, Daisy Hay follows the group’s exploits, from its inception in Hunt’s prison cell in 1813 to its disintegration after Shelley’s premature death in 1822. It is an enthralling tale of love, betrayal, sacrifice, and friendship, all of which were played out against a background of political turbulence and intense literary creativity.

From the Publisher: In 97 Orchard, Jane Ziegelman explores the culinary life that was the heart and soul of New York’s Lower East Side around the turn of the twentieth century–a city within a city, where Germans, Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews attempted to forge a new life. Through the experiences of five families, all of them residents of 97 Orchard Street, she takes readers on a vivid and unforgettable tour, from impossibly cramped tenement apartments down dimly lit stairwells where children played and neighbors socialized, beyond the front stoops where immigrant housewives found respite and company, and out into the hubbub of the dirty, teeming streets.

Ziegelman shows how immigrant cooks brought their ingenuity to the daily task of feeding their families, preserving traditions from home but always ready to improvise. While health officials worried that pushcarts were unsanitary and that pickles made immigrants too excitable to be good citizens, a culinary revolution was taking place in the streets of what had been culturally an English city. Along the East River, German immigrants founded breweries, dispensing their beloved lager in the dozens of beer gardens that opened along the Bowery. Russian Jews opened tea parlors serving blintzes and strudel next door to Romanian nightclubs that specialized in goose pastrami. On the streets, Italian peddlers hawked the cheese-and-tomato pies known as pizzarelli, while Jews sold knishes and squares of halvah. Gradually, as Americans began to explore the immigrant ghetto, they uncovered the array of comestible enticements of their foreign-born neighbors. 97 Orchard charts this exciting process of discovery as it lays bare the roots of our collective culinary heritage.

The segment also got me to thinking…and designing. So in honor of lazy summer days in the shade, we’re releasing: Summertime and the Reading is Easy…

Our product offering is changing up a bit and we’re super excited that there will be even more colors for you to choose from! Of course, we’re adding some, and removing others, but we think you’ll be pleased with the new line-up.

You say goodbye…

• Junior’s Fitted T-Shirt Mint
• Junior’s Fitted T-Shirt Creme
• American Apparel Women’s Fitted Organic T-Shirt Cinder

…and I say hello! Hello! Hello!

• American Apparel Men’s Fitted T-Shirt Asphalt
• American Apparel Men’s Fitted T-Shirt Army
• American Apparel Men’s Fitted T-Shirt Heather Gray
• American Apparel Men’s Fitted T-Shirt Navy
• American Apparel Women’s Fitted Organic T-Shirt Pomegranate

Here’s to a more colorful (and friendly) shopping experience!

We’re lifting up the latest design in BiblioGifts to Support Literacy! Here are few disturbing facts, and some very good reasons for you to encourage reading among everyone you know…

44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.
- National Adult Literacy Survey (1992) NCED, U.S. Department of Education

More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage.
- National Institute for Literacy, Fast Facts on Literacy, 2001

Students who reported having all four types of reading materials (books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias) in their home scored, on average, higher than those who reporter having fewer reading materials.
- The Nation’s Report Card: Fourth-Grade Reading 2000, April 2001, The National Center for Education Statistics

In 1999, only 53 percent of children aged 3 to 5 were read to daily by a family member. Children in families with incomes below the poverty line are less likely to be read aloud to everyday than are children in families with incomes at or above the poverty line.
- The National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Fast Facts, Family Reading

So strong is the link between literacy and being a useful member of society that some states use grade-level reading statistics as a factor in projecting future prison construction.
- Bob Chase, President, National Education Association

Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.
- A Nation Still at Risk, U.S. Department of Education, 1999

Source: Get Caught Reading

There is a wealth of information regarding literacy trends worldwide at UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

A few other sites you may find interesting:

• First Book
• Reading is Fundamental
• National Institute for Literacy (US)

The transition will take some time, but it’ll be well worth the effort. We feel that our t-shirts should do more than promote our ethics – they should be made of ‘em!

Update: The make-over is complete. Enjoy!

I’ve just stumbled upon Whose Dollar? by Natalie Jost and my heart is all aflutter. Not only are the illustrations and text marvelous, but the moral of the story is simple and touching – perfect for this time of year.

Anyone looking for a quality book to give a young child this holiday season needn’t look any further.

We were wandering the web and came across the most superb pillow we’ve ever laid eyes on! Bibliophiles, meet “Book Pillow” from Pillowphyte at Etsy!

The ultimate book lovers pillow, stunning book silhouettes are paired with old school “Dick and Jane” primer fabric to create a look that’s popular with adults and kids alike. Slate grey book background provides a nice contrast to the pumpkin-colored European-made linen backing. This pillows most unique feature, however, is on the back. Two back pockets provide a place to tuck away your – or your child’s – current favorite read. Pillow also acts as a lap pillow to support a book while you’re curled up in a favorite reading spot.

If you’ve got some extra holiday cash tucked away, add this to your sofa or bed!