I started making some coffee mugs with personal illustrations and crazy phrases in LA,  I was pregnant with my first child and wanted to make some extra cash. At the time I didn't know I was creating a small business!

 "Our first mug was a drunken cat celebrating Christmas...
"Something that you can always collect!" 
"A bad ass, great quality mug, a personal statement..."

Trece Cielos was born out of the love of art, design and global trends translated into something useful, functional, durable and accessible like a mug, something that you could always use, see, touch, drink from and collect!  

                   Then the obliged question, what does Trece Cielos means?
 Trece Cielos or Thirteen Heavens comes from the aztec vision of the vertical universe, the earth and the underworld afterlife. I am from Mexico City and in love with this lunatic, artsy and cultural cathedral where the aztecs were conquered and eradicated. They believe in these 13 levels of consciousness of the underworld that helped to have a balance between life and death. 

At the time I was thinking about my roots and my culture and came out with this business name that is part of my life and stamped in my spirit. I used to feel my culture was under appreciated but not anymore, thanks to diversity, social media and the internet people are really paying attention, noticing Mexico, traveling there and meeting its beautiful, kind, happy, artisan and optimistic people, always hardworking, always partying,  I am such a proud mexican living in the US.

My and my husband are from Mexico City and have our home studio in the heart of Pasadena, where I work as a Designer/Illustrator and my husband as an Architect, of course we are tea lovers and coffeeholics and we love to collect mugs too! We love to travel, explore the urban side of Los Angeles every weekend and have adventures with our 2 cute boys!.

We started collecting mugs from every place we visited but found out that sometimes you just want a bad ass, great quality mug with a personal statement, a funny quote or a cool naughty joke to use in your daily routine,  I started printing them out for ourselves and giving them out as gifts to friends and clients, everyone cherished them out and we embraced the idea of start selling them out. I used to buy them from a company that would sell 12 each mug and I would resell them for 15 each! So not quite a business there but it was so fun and I learned a lot. Our first mug was an illustration of a drunken cat celebrating Christmas, my fav holiday and I did another one for Hanukkah. 

Besides printing mugs, I print tshirts, business cards, I am a full time designer and a  mommy.  We are also expanding now to retail and home decor!

We believe in Self Sustaining Communities and try to buy local all the time, also to support people like us, we always try to shop small and local,  that's our little help to reduce carbon footprint, we respect others' own creativity  and work, that's a main part of our philosophy as a small local business, if you feel we can collaborate with you in any way, don't hesitate and make contact with us, a quick e-mail or message will start wheeling our heads, we are also able to negotiate and we offer different kinds of printing stuff, not only all kinds of mugs but business cards, tshirts, flyers, etc, you name it.

We try to keep every mug on the short runs to make sure the design you have always stays unique, each product is created in-house, so we are able to add more fun to the shop regularly and create as many fun designs as possible.
We ensure a great quality product and printing process.

If you have any question or would like any customization, kindly send us a message, we can try different variations or any personalization to your mug.  Additionally we work with large quantities for any event or social cause.

Feel free to express your ideas with us!