Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful keeps on keeping on

The popular design now graces a 14-ounce stoneware mug.

It’s not uncommon for a customer to approach us with a, “So what’s new?” in terms of our graphic T-shirt designs.

We like having new products to talk about. But as tempting as that is, we’ve realized over the years that it’s a select number of designs that make up most of our sales.

Therefore, a home run of a design is to be savored and extended to other products. Our best example: Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.

It has been one of our most successful designs since debuting (along with Stay) in 2017. The hand-drawn design (evergreen tree with text) started out on a heather indigo poly-cotton blend shirt.

That led to a couple of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful totes bags, a patch, a patched ball cap, a patched knit hat, a sticker, a long-sleeve shirt, a child’s tee, another short-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, a wooden magnet.

Dishwasher, microwave and oven safe

This year, we put the design on our first stoneware mug, made for us by Sunset Hill Stoneware and available in-store only. (Go figure: The first sale of the Wisconsin-made Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful mug was to a customer from Maryland!)

I first heard about Sunset Hill via Instagram. I liked the look and obvious high quality of the company’s mugs and really appreciated the ease of online ordering. We went through a couple of proofs via email, and several weeks later the mugs were in our hands.

Sunset Hill, which began in 1998, describes itself as, “America’s greenest, cleanest pottery.”

The mugs are 100 percent lead free. Stoneware, I learned, is fired at temperatures between 2,000 and 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit to make it impermeable to liquids. As a result, stoneware can be microwaved, washed in a dishwasher, and put in an oven without shattering or exploding.

We think it’s a beautiful mug that perfectly complements the rest of our line of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful products.

This summer, we also brought back the original heather indigo Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful tee after a couple years’ hiatus.

So right now in answer to, “So what’s new?,” I can point to more products based on a tried-and-true design that keeps on giving.