If you’re planning a trip to your local trophy store near Santa Clara , you may be wondering what to expect when choosing and designing a custom award. Trophy stores offer personalized corporate awards, sports awards, trophy engraving, and more. Keep reading to learn what to expect when you visit a trophy store:

To Consider the Occasion

As you begin the design process, you’ll need to consider the type of event or ceremony for which you are selecting a trophy. Your personalized award should reflect the casual or formal nature of the occasion, the age of the awardees, and how you would like the trophy to reflect your sentiments. Trophies can be customized to convey a variety of thoughts or feelings, such as gratitude, pride, encouragement, remembrance, and recognition.

To See Plenty of Styles and Materials

Once at the trophy store, you’ll find that you have an extensive inventory of trophy and award styles from which to choose. These awards can be in the form of athletic trophies, cup or bowl trophies, and plaques. Each of these items can be engraved with the message of your choice, as well as the recipient’s name and the achievement that it reflects. Trophies are typically available in bronze and resin, and plaques can be made from crystal, glass, or acrylic.

To Factor in the Award’s Purpose

To decide on the particular trophy that you’d like to design, you should consider the reason for the award, the way in which it will be presented, and how you’d like the item to be displayed by the recipient. Personalized trophies and awards can double as office décor or desk accessories and recognitions of achievement.

To Have a Range of Price Options

The material cost will be a significant factor in your trophy or award choice. Bronze trophies and crystal plaques are ideal for large or formal events, but will be more expensive than other options. Resin can have a similar appearance to bronze metal is a popular and more cost-effective alternative. To achieve a formal appearance without the cost of crystal, glass and acrylic are excellent replacements.

Are you looking for a framing store near San Jose? Professional framing is an excellent way to preserve your art, but with the right materials, you can create your own custom frame pieces to decorate your home or to use as personalized gifts. Watch this video for tips on framing artwork.

First, you will need to acquire conservation framing materials, also known as museum-grade. This includes adhesives, archival mounting boards, and mat boards. It’s vital to use museum-grade materials because they won’t degrade over time or cause damage to your art. Instead of spray or dry-mounting, hinge original works onto mat boards using non-permanent, acid-free adhesives.

Are you struggling to think of the right gift for a friend or loved one? Personalized gifts in San Jose are an excellent choice for a variety of celebrations and events. Custom-framed art, personalized awards, and engraved goods all offer several benefits.

Efficient

When it comes to the gift selection process, many people spend a significant amount of time guessing what the person might want, researching options online, and searching the mall for something that seems appropriate. Many people repeat this process at least once before settling on something that seems good enough, or giving up and buying a gift card. Personalized gifts circumvent the time-consuming process of deciding on and tracking down the perfect present.

Memorable

When you have trouble thinking of the right gift for someone, it can be frustrating for both you and the gift receiver. When settling on an impersonal item or a gift card, you can feel disheartened when presenting it, and the individual may assume that you didn’t put much thought into the present. Personalized gifts avoid this issue altogether because few things can be more thoughtful than a gift that is customized to honor the person individually. Compared to gift certificates and generic goods, personalized gifts are memorable and can remind the individual of your thoughtfulness each time that they see it in the future.

Personal

Perhaps an obvious benefit, the personal nature of these gifts can celebrate your relationship and history with the person. People tend to keep personalized gifts longer than others, and they are unlikely to break over time and won’t disappear after use as a gift card would.

Customizable

The customizable nature of a personalized gift is perhaps the biggest benefit you can enjoy. Choosing the item that is personalized, the materials used, any logos or images included, and the message or words that you add give you significant control over the impact of the gift. Personalizing the present to suit the person’s characteristics, personality, hobbies, or achievements shows that you understand and care about them, and put thought into their gift.

Whether you’ve painted a beautiful watercolor painting or have come across a museum-level artist, you should consider taking pride in your painting with a custom frame in San Jose and Santa Clara. An elegant frame can protect a painting and make it much more presentable. Here are a few brief tips on how to custom frame your painting.

Match the Style and Color

Watercolor paintings tend to look best in a wooden frame. That said, the style of your painting, as well as its subject, might affect the color and style of the frame you choose. For example, if your subject is a Japanese cherry blossom with a pagoda house behind it, you might choose a frame made from bamboo or a lighter-colored wood. Think about how your painting will come across in relation to the picture frame.

Mat Your Painting

To make your watercolor stand out as a professional piece or one that could hang in a museum, you will want it matted. Most paintings are surrounded by a neutral-colored mat made of acid-free material. This will protect your painting in the years to come. If you desire some color to match the colors in your painting, you can have a colored mat, but keep in mind that any colors present should complement each other.

Consider the Proportions of the Frame

You must also consider where in the frame your painting will set. Many paintings are matted before they are framed, and you’ll need to decide how much the matting should show between the painting and the frame. If you have a smaller piece, you may want a larger mat surrounding it. This size difference will help make your painting the focal point. Also, think about how thick the sides of your custom frame are in comparison to your painting and matting. For larger pieces, you will want a small frame, typically one to two inches wide.

When handing out personalized trophies in San Jose and Santa Clara, you might be interested to find out there are actually four different parts to a typical trophy. Typical sports awards and trophies can be separated into the bottom, middle, top, and the figurine.

The bottom, or base, of the trophy usually matches the top. As seen in the video, trophies are often made with a marble base and top to support the middle column and figurine. Any sort of trophy engraving can be found on one of these marble pieces. To keep all four pieces of these common sports awards together, a threaded rod needs to be inserted through the middle of each piece.

Looking for trophies in San Jose and Santa Clara should be a fun experience. Designing custom sports awards can be a thrill as long as you hold onto a feeling of creativity. Think about your players and how their team makes you feel. If you can communicate that pride through your awards, you can show your team just how much they mean to you. Here are a few ways you can spice up your baseball sports awards.

Have Fun

Hopefully, you and your baseball team had a fun season. Why should that stop when you are handing out sports awards? Look for creative templates for your awards, or print silly designs special to your team or league. There are a multitude of ways you can have fun and make sure your players enjoy themselves when you hand out the awards.

Be Different

There is no rule saying awards can only be given on off-white thick parchment or printed on a baseball-specific trophy. You might see if you can have your team mascot made into a trophy or etched onto a plaque. You could hand out bronzed baseball cleats, or have all the coaches and sponsors sign each player’s jersey. Design an award personal to your team, or better yet, personal to the player receiving the award. Go to your local trophy store for some helpful ideas, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. This should be a special moment for your baseball players, so you should find some special ways to celebrate them.

Be Funny

Everyone loves funny awards, so consider gearing your awards to each player’s individual triumph or snafu. “Player Most Likely to Watch Butterflies in the Outfield,” and “Player Who Improved the Most” are just a few examples of what could be very fun awards to hand out. You can even include parents in your award-giving ceremony. Awards can go to the parent “Most Likely to Yell at an Umpire,” or “Parent with the Best Cookies.” The more personalized your custom awards are, the more appreciated the players and parents will feel.

Custom frames may seem like an expensive splurge, but they don’t have to be, especially considering what you want framed. If you have a signed movie poster, or limited edition art print, you don’t want that going into any old frame. Poster frames in Santa Clara are a must-have when it comes to preserving and showing off your posters or large pictures.

Poster frames are great when you want to commemorate an especially meaningful movie, or you have an oversized family picture you want framed. If you want to showcase your mint-condition vinyl records, they can fit perfectly in a poster frame. Don’t shop at a department store for your frames, though. They might not be made with the best quality, and there is little accountability if they fall apart. Your local framing store can take the measurements of whatever you want framed and create an affordable, yet very durable custom frame for you.

When you’re looking for personalized trophies near San Jose, there are a variety of sports awards you can create for your team. From the common MVP awards to “Parent Most Likely to Tackle Someone”, there are countless kinds of awards you can give to the kids, their parents, and the coaches. Here are a few ideas to consider when looking for trophy engravings:

Skill-Specific Awards

Awarding young team players can be a little difficult at times because some players are better at certain skills than others. Try to broaden your awards past the accepted “Most Valuable Player,” and try to award based on specific skills. Awards for “Best Offensive” or “Best Defensive” are common types, but you can create awards for “Best Catcher”, “Best Fly-Ball”, “Best Goalie”, etc. You can base the awards around the positions, or a certain game or catch in which the player showed off skills. There are a variety of options when it comes to an athletic award.

Positive Attitude Awards

In addition to awarding based on skills, you can give awards to the players who gave it their all, whether they were the best player or not. You can also award the most caring or humble players, as well. These kinds of awards are great for young players’ self-esteem because they can learn that their attributes aren’t 100% tied up in athletics, but in how much kindness, respect, and positivity they show to their fellow teammates, coaches, and the game.

Humorous Awards

Giving out humorous sports awards really depends on the age of the team players and their parents’ demeanors. If you think the kids are mature enough to understand the joke—and know it’s all in good fun—then go for it. If you want to include the parents in on the awards—such as awarding “Parent Most Likely to Fall Asleep During a Game”—then feel free to rib at them a little. This can be a fun collection of awards for the end-of-season festivities, as long as everyone enjoys the joke.

One of the most iconic sports awards in the world, and certainly in the United States, is the Super Bowl trophy. If you’ve ever wondered how this and other trophies are made, check out the video and your trophy store near San Jose.

The Super Bowl trophy takes about four months to make. This famous sports award is made from the firing and shaping of several sheets of silver. Once the silver football is made, the laces and seams of the trophy are created by hand with a hammer and chisel. When the base is complete, it undergoes trophy engraving where someone engraves the NFL label and the date of the Super Bowl.