Custom Bobblehead Blog

Let us explain first what a wedding caketopper is: it is usually a figurine or set of figurines which are placed on top of the wedding cake and which may be given away as keepsakes to the wedding party guests. However, there are now new types of wedding caketopper designs available because some people want their wedding to be a bit more unique than others.

For instance, the wedding caketopper could be a glass paperweight engraved with the wedding couple’s first names or nicknames. Or it could be a ceramic fantasy castle, for those inclined for such things. You might even have your wedding caketopper made to resemble two elegant swans in a loving embrace to represent the relationship of the couple to be wedded. There is literally no limit to what your wedding caketopper can be made to look like – and if people find your choice of design odd, well, you don’t get married everyday so go for it anyway. At least your wedding caketopper will be unique.

Though most people would still want the traditional bride-and-groom wedding caketopper set, you can depart from the ordinary and create mix-and-match pieces that will bring a smile to the faces of those receiving these as keepsakes. For example, you can have a traditional bride figurine made but the groom could be dressed in a sports uniform such as maybe a football uniform (to reflect his passion for sports.) This means people will definitely give your wedding cake a second look during the wedding reception and maybe even take pictures of the cake and wedding caketopper to remember the event by. It also tells people more about you as a couple.

The more original and unique your wedding caketopper is, the higher the price set for it will probably be because the manufacturer has to either get an artist who can express what you want in your 3-D figurine; use special manufacturing processes and materials to custom-produce your special wedding caketopper; and because it is not very likely your wedding party who will receive the mass produced items will be of sufficient numbers to drive down costs. Think about it: how many weddings do you know that have even 1,000 guests in the wedding party? Not very many right? Yet the more people who will receive the wedding caketopper keepsakes are around, the more the manufacturer can afford to lower or spread around the costs of making the wedding caketopper series you ordered.

You should have a wedding caketopper designed that is in good taste, as much as possible, especially if you will be giving out such keepsakes to a lot of people. This is to avoid any particular guest being offended by your wedding caketopper or feeling puzzled as to why such a design was chosen. For instance, some people like toilet humor for their wedding caketopper theme but for some guests that might be too crude for their taste. It is generally diplomatic to use a wedding caketopper theme that you know fits the values of most if not all of your guests. It helps to avoid issues and hurt feelings from developing.

A bobblehead is basically a toy or collectible image that has an oversized head which wobbles on a spring connected to the torso of the toy or collectible image. Since the head wobbles or “bobbles”, the term used to describe such a toy or collectible image became bobblehead.

Your collectible bobblehead may come in a variety of types – and the world of bobblehead collecting becomes more interesting as new and more unique types of bobblehead collectibles get created every day. For instance, if you are into sports, you might choose a bobblehead collectible representing someone from the NBA player pool, a bobblehead patterned after a US baseball player, and another bobblehead that was designed to look like an NFL football player. On the other hand, if you like TV shows, then you might be amused to get a bobblehead likeness of top businessman Donald Trump who stars in the reality TV show “The Apprentice.”

Star Wars fans will be happy to know that there is now the Darth Vader bobblehead and a host of other bobbleheads which were designed after characters in that same movie series. If you are a religious type, surprise surprise! There are now bobbleheads made to represent key religious figures like Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Pope John Paul II, the current Pope who is Benedict XVI, and the Protestant preacher Billy Graham too. On a more irreverent note, you can also look for companies that will supply you a bobblehead of Homer Simpson, and bobbleheads of Beavis and Butthead.

Politically-inclined people may enjoy collecting a bobblehead of President Dwight Eisenhower, President Harry S. Truman, the Republican Party mascot (which is an Elephant), the Democratic Party mascot (which is a Donkey), Crown Prince William of the UK, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, ex-Mayor Rudy Guliani, President Theodore Roosevelt, and the first President George Bush of the US.

Because a bobblehead is often considered a novelty item, it is not surprising that cartoon and comic-strip characters are made into bobbleheads or that bobblehead collections are often composed of cartoon and comic-strip characters. Futurama fans might want to snatch up their own Doctor Zoidberg bobblehead, Fry bobblehead, or Leela bobblehead so that their Bender bobblehead will not get lonely. Snoopy of the Peanuts comic strip has a loyal following, and so do the other Peanuts characters such as Woodstock, Lucy, and Charlie Brown. If you like the Looney Tunes characters a lot, then you could try collecting a bobblehead of Marvin the Martian, Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, Elmer Fudd, and of course the biggest cartoon hero there is – Bugs Bunny.

Celebrities have a special place in the hearts of both bobblehead makers and bobblehead collectors. You can aim to have the biggest collection of bobbleheads in your neighborhood simply by setting aside $15 per month for your next bobblehead purchase. Now, the choice of which celebrity bobblehead to buy depends on which celebrity you like. Some might aim to get a Marilyn Monroe bobblehead while others might want a James Dean bobblehead instead.

So long as there are creative bobblehead designers and manufacturers, and so long as people still like collecting bobbleheads, there will probably still be a market for new and unique bobbleheads in the near future.

Ron Edwards invites you to visit his website for Custom Bobblehead, Unique Wedding Gifts and more. For more details visit the website http://www.custombobble.com

Let us explain first what a wedding caketopper is: it is usually a figurine or set of figurines which are placed on top of the wedding cake and which may be given away as keepsakes to the wedding party guests. However, there are now new types of wedding caketopper designs available because some people want their wedding to be a bit more unique than others.

For instance, the wedding caketopper could be a glass paperweight engraved with the wedding couple’s first names or nicknames. Or it could be a ceramic fantasy castle, for those inclined for such things. You might even have your wedding caketopper made to resemble two elegant swans in a loving embrace to represent the relationship of the couple to be wedded. There is literally no limit to what your wedding caketopper can be made to look like – and if people find your choice of design odd, well, you don’t get married everyday so go for it anyway. At least your wedding caketopper will be unique.

Though most people would still want the traditional bride-and-groom wedding caketopper set, you can depart from the ordinary and create mix-and-match pieces that will bring a smile to the faces of those receiving these as keepsakes. For example, you can have a traditional bride figurine made but the groom could be dressed in a sports uniform such as maybe a football uniform (to reflect his passion for sports.) This means people will definitely give your wedding cake a second look during the wedding reception and maybe even take pictures of the cake and wedding caketopper to remember the event by. It also tells people more about you as a couple.

The more original and unique your wedding caketopper is, the higher the price set for it will probably be because the manufacturer has to either get an artist who can express what you want in your 3-D figurine; use special manufacturing processes and materials to custom-produce your special wedding caketopper; and because it is not very likely your wedding party who will receive the mass produced items will be of sufficient numbers to drive down costs. Think about it: how many weddings do you know that have even 1,000 guests in the wedding party? Not very many right? Yet the more people who will receive the wedding caketopper keepsakes are around, the more the manufacturer can afford to lower or spread around the costs of making the wedding caketopper series you ordered.

You should have a wedding caketopper designed that is in good taste, as much as possible, especially if you will be giving out such keepsakes to a lot of people. This is to avoid any particular guest being offended by your wedding caketopper or feeling puzzled as to why such a design was chosen. For instance, some people like toilet humor for their wedding caketopper theme but for some guests that might be too crude for their taste. It is generally diplomatic to use a wedding caketopper theme that you know fits the values of most if not all of your guests. It helps to avoid issues and hurt feelings from developing.

First of all, let us define what a wedding caketopper is – a wedding caketopper can be a figurine or something that is used as a keepsake of the wedding that has been or will be culminated. You may need to be specific as to how big you want your wedding caketopper to be – meaning, you should not expect that all wedding caketopper figurines are like all the others in the market. One source says her wedding caketopper products are approximately six inches to 7.5 inches high, so that should give you an idea how big your own wedding caketopper ought to be.

Some wedding caketopper manufacturers have pre-established models of the types of wedding caketopper they are known to make and all you have to do is specify which model you want to use. Others may allow you to specify your own design, but you should insist on seeing a prototype before you have mass production of that design done for you.

One thing is for sure, wedding caketopper figurines come in a wide variety of categories now. You may have culture sensitive wedding caketopper figurines where you can specify if the figurines are of some ethnic culture (like maybe African American, or Caucasian.) Pricing may depend on how many figures are in the final version, the size of the entire figurine, and how much shipping of the product may be for your area.

For instance, one source says a two-figure wedding caketopper (such as that which commonly features a bride and groom in various poses) may be priced at least $2500 (exlusive of shipping costs.) If you ask for more figures to be added to those basic two figures on the same wedding caketopper, you may have to pay $1250 per additional figure. If, on the other hand, you just want a single-figure wedding caketopper, it may cost you $1250 only. A small animal wedding caketopper could be priced $500 each. Bigger animal figures would probably cost much more.

You need to insist on seeing a prototype because the real thing may differ very much from what you expected, based on proportions used by the artist, the way it was interpreted by the artist, and the actual size of the wedding caketopper. This helps eliminate any possible misunderstandings about what the final product should really wind up being and looking like. Some couples may want to have the wedding caketopper look exactly like them (being the bride and groom of that wedding) then get disappointed that the wedding caketopper figures do not look much like them, particularly with regards to the faces. The reason for this is that it is very hard to copy faces of clients accurately using the manufacturing process for making the wedding caketopper and the raw materials for that manufacturing process. A working prototype is helpful for explaining this distinction to a puzzled client.

You might also want copyrighted characters of some organizations used for your wedding caketopper, but you have to be cautious lest you violate some intellectual property laws this way. The real owner of the copyright might ruin the mood of the occasion by insisting on compensation for use of his logo, symbol or character whose copyright or trademark he owns.

Looking for something to celebrate their special day in a special way?  Custom-made lookalike Bobbleheads are a unique gift that a newlywed couple will treasure forever.  You can duplicate the bride and groom for placement on the top of their wedding cake or for use as table toppers.  When the husband and wife take the Bobbleheads home, they can always see each other nodding “Yes, I do.”

The company’s team of expert artists can customize the Bobbleheads to remind the newlyweds where they first met, for example, or to conjure up images of their first date or to never let them forget any other memontous occasion.

Bobbleheads make a great present for any special occasion.  They’re ideal for Monther’s Day, as a gift to the university graduate in your family, or for congratulating the victorious athlete in the househod.

For more information visit www.custombobble.com

News can be see on this link: http://www.custombobble.com/bobblehead/2008.03.26.Bridal.Guide.Featured.jpg

Wednesday, March 26, 2008  ~ BRIDAL GUIDE

Some people only get married once in a lifetime (and hope that that will be the only wedding they will ever have) so they want their wedding gifts to be equally special. That is why the wedding gifts industry keeps trying to come up with unique ideas for ideal wedding gifts that would make that wedding special enough for all attending to remember.

Wedding gifts could be as simple as a set of bowls and plates featuring emblazoned pictures of the happy couple with a special message, or as lavish as trips on cruise ships for couples in the wedding party. It all depends on the budget of the bride and groom set aside specifically for wedding gifts, and the capacity of the wedding gifts provider to meet the specifications of the couple.

Some choices of wedding gifts could be custom-made wedding keepsake containers, display bowls meant to be set on living room or dining room tables, memory books, photo albums, replicas of the wedding cake slicer and serving utensils, gourmet baskets filled with goodies, miniature bar cabinets, keepsake clocks, pillowcases, graceful candlesticks, comfortable bathrobes, bottles of fine wine, wine coolers, classy bookends, throw pillows, cute blankets, customized bath towels, photo frames of varying sizes, a certificate entitling the bearer to hire a chef for a day, a certificate giving free trial membership to a Wine of the Month club, unusual coffee table or party games, Oriental culinary sets (like Japanese tea ceremony sets), wine or ice buckets, specially-designed wine racks, commemorative wine stoppers, cookbooks for the budding chefs in the wedding party, and even monogrammed wine glasses.

Some bride and groom couples set about hunting for wedding gifts by having a specific wedding gift in mind then looking for suppliers. Other couples look around though for what is available around them before settling for one type of wedding gift. It really depends on you and your partner which style of search process works best for you. One good way of narrowing down your short list of choices for wedding gifts is to examine the members of your wedding party and what types of wedding gifts they most likely would like to receive. Some couples might choose wedding gifts they would like to receive themselves (which isn’t bad in itself, unless their potential recipients have very different tastes from the wedding couple, in which case the actual wedding gifts would probably be politely received but not with much enthusiasm.) You and your partner need to discuss this problem between yourselves because the mood of the occasion might be ruined when you do not get the response you thought you would get when the recipients finds out what wedding gifts are being given out.

As wedding gifts providers try to get more business from couples, they now try to come up with more unique options as wedding gifts that you can choose from. One new category you might encounter are the Experiential wedding gifts category. This means offering wedding gifts that allow the recipients to try something daring and new to their field of experience. For instance, who do you know who has never been on a hot air balloon even once in their life? Probably a lot of people right? Well, then maybe they would like the chance to do that then, as your special wedding gift to them. And who wouldn’t love the chance to go to a spa for a relaxing weekend? There are now certificates that allow your recipient to indulge in this highly valuable service as part of the Experiential wedding gifts category. Such wedding gifts may not be tangible things but will leave a mark on the memory of your wedding party for the long term anyway.

First of all, let us define what a wedding caketopper is – a wedding caketopper can be a figurine or something that is used as a keepsake of the wedding that has been or will be culminated.  You may need to be specific as to how big you want your wedding caketopper to be – meaning, you should not expect that all wedding caketopper figurines are like all the others in the market. One source says her wedding caketopper products are approximately six inches to 7.5 inches high, so that should give you an idea how big your own wedding caketopper ought to be.

Some wedding caketopper manufacturers have pre-established models of the types of wedding caketopper they are known to make and all you have to do is specify which model you want to use. Others may allow you to specify your own design, but you should insist on seeing a prototype before you have mass production of that design done for you.

One thing is for sure, wedding caketopper figurines come in a wide variety of categories now. You may have culture sensitive wedding caketopper figurines where you can specify if the figurines are of some ethnic culture (like maybe African American, or Caucasian.) Pricing may depend on how many figures are in the final version, the size of the entire figurine, and how much shipping of the product may be for your area.

For instance, one source says a two-figure wedding caketopper (such as that which commonly features a bride and groom in various poses) may be priced at least $2500 (exlusive of shipping costs.) If you ask for more figures to be added to those basic two figures on the same wedding caketopper, you may have to pay $1250 per additional figure. If, on the other hand, you just want a single-figure wedding caketopper, it may cost you $1250 only. A small animal wedding caketopper could be priced $500 each. Bigger animal figures would probably cost much more.

You need to insist on seeing a prototype because the real thing may differ very much from what you expected, based on proportions used by the artist, the way it was interpreted by the artist, and the actual size of the wedding caketopper. This helps eliminate any possible misunderstandings about what the final product should really wind up being and looking like. Some couples may want to have the wedding caketopper look exactly like them (being the bride and groom of that wedding) then get disappointed that the wedding caketopper figures do not look much like them, particularly with regards to the faces. The reason for this is that it is very hard to copy faces of clients accurately using the manufacturing process for making the wedding caketopper and the raw materials for that manufacturing process. A working prototype is helpful for explaining this distinction to a puzzled client.

You might also want copyrighted characters of some organizations used for your wedding caketopper, but you have to be cautious lest you violate some intellectual property laws this way. The real owner of the copyright might ruin the mood of the occasion by insisting on compensation for use of his logo, symbol or character whose copyright or trademark he owns.

You may have been sent out by a relative or a friend on a gift hunting expedition armed only with a specific budget and the admonition: “choose a unique gift.” Now what on earth does that mean, you may be wondering. How am I to know what makes a unique gift and what makes another gift common? Here are some pointers:

1.       Ask yourself what you are buying a gift for – meaning, what is the special occasion at hand? Do you need the unique gifts for a family affair, to express sympathy with someone who is ill, or for business reasons? Though you might think a gift is a gift is a gift, the occasion will have a lot of influence over your choice of unique gifts. So do a lot of research as to what makes one gift appropriate for one situation and not appropriate for another event.

2.       Ask yourself who you are buying the gift for – if you are buying a gift for your spouse, then you could consider what your spouse’s interests are. Does your spouse like whodunit books? Then maybe you could scout around for hard-to-find whodunits that your spouse has not read yet. Does your spouse enjoy wearing perfume? Then maybe you could sniff around to track down a new perfume that he/she might enjoy but which has not caught on with others in your social group yet. On the other hand, if you are buying unique gifts for a corporate colleague, then you might want to make discreet inquiries as to what unique interests that corporate colleague likes to indulge in, during his spare time. Does he enjoy solving puzzles? Then you could look for special board games or computer games that he could dabble in when he can. You might be surprised what a hit such unique gifts can be when sent to the right person.

3.       Ask yourself why you are buying these unique gifts – unique gifts basically are supposed to cement your friendship with the recipient even further and show how much you value the relationship. That is the commonality that cuts across all unique gifts categories. But there is a difference between sincere gifts and gifts that attempt to steer a relationship in a direction that might be unpleasant for the recipient. That is why some people believe that they should not accept gifts no matter how unique or well-packaged due to their position in society. Civil servants are this way – and in some places there are specific laws that prohibit civil servants from accepting gifts of any sort while they are occupying a specific position in government. Such laws help guarantee the sanctity and integrity of their position in government so that the reputation of the civil servant remains unquestioned.

4.       Do you have enough to buy brand-name custom gifts or should you stick to the more generic off-the-shelf type of gifts? – Sometimes, there is a world of difference between the quality of brand-name items and generic items; in other cases, sometimes you can barely tell them apart. Thus, the key to selecting good unique gifts lies in having an eye for quality too.

Sport gifts are basically memorabilia that an individual or organization may have custom-made to commemorate a sports-related event like a winning championship match. And the people most likely to appreciate sport gifts are those people who truly enjoy sports either as an occupation, as a spectator, or as a weekend warrior. In short, sports fans are your best recipients for sport gifts.
Sport gifts can be used to mark a particularly thrilling championship series in popular sports like the National Basketball Association (NBA) of the US, or the National Football League (NFL) also of the US. And just as sport gifts can vary greatly depending on the type of sport they are celebrating, the types of sport gifts available nowadays can also be of a great variety. This is good news for sports fans everywhere who really like receiving sport gifts or who would like to give them away to friends, relatives and colleagues.
Sport gifts may be customized especially for those you consider very important people like executives of your organization. Some popular choices for sport gifts of executives are golf balls (which may have the name of your organization or you emblazoned on them), golf club head covers, large golf umbrellas, golf clubs and putters, and even leather golf gloves. It may depend too as to what sport is popular among executives of your organization. What if they like more gentlemanly types of sports, like chess? Then maybe you can select unique designs for chess pieces of customized chess sets as a very special type of sport gifts. Remember, the more unique your sport gifts, the more likely the recipient will remember you.
If you cannot seem to come up with any brilliant ideas for good sport gifts, why not try to choose some safe types of sport gifts instead for now? For instance, sport watches are a nifty idea for sport gifts because everyone will probably need a good sports watch at some time. The bigger your budget for sport gifts as giveaways, the higher will be the quality of your choice of sport gifts. But this does not automatically mean that higher cost will translate to more appreciation from your intended recipients. The level of appreciation will depend a lot on the tastes of your recipients. And that is where choosing appropriate sport gifts tends to become nerve wracking.
For instance, why choose very expensive designer watches as sport gifts when your people would be satisfied just receiving practical sport umbrellas with your logo emblazoned on them? Sometimes, choosing expensive sport gifts can send the wrong message to people – your expensive sport gifts might be perceived as corporate greed rather than wholehearted advocacy of values of the organization. Thus, the giver of sport gifts has to have a hand on the pulse of the organization so that he knows if his choice of sport gifts will be perceived the same way he himself perceives them – or not, as the case may be.

It has to be emphasized first of all that a bobblehead has to represent a person or character of a certain organization. Thus, if you are looking for a sport bobblehead figure to have mass produced, that sport bobblehead has to have some kind of significance to you and to anyone who will be the recipient.

Take, for instance, a sport bobblehead modeled after Hideki Matsui (a baseball player with the New York Yankees) – the value of the official sport bobblehead is that it comes as a Limited Edition product, meaning there are only a few of them made at one time so that the uniqueness and exclusivity of the product is retained. A sport bobblehead made by the millions has less uniqueness and maybe no exclusivity compared to a sport bobblehead under a Limited Edition manufacturing license.

This is where the concept of a collectible sport bobblehead comes in. A sport bobblehead that is made in a limited volume (like, say 500 items only for that type of bobblehead) is deemed more collectible (or has a higher value as a collectible) compared to a sport bobblehead that has been made by the millions. Even if the quality of manufacture is comparable or even exactly the same, it is the uniqueness and exclusivity of the sport bobblehead that will determine if it is a true collectible or not. And the value of a collectible lies with the perception of a person doing the collecting. A person who values one sport bobblehead of Michael Jordan will pay a good price for it even if that edition was made by the millions simply because the collector thinks that sport bobblehead has a good value for him.

Does a sport bobblehead have to be highly expensive to be highly valued? Not at the start, no. For instance, if you bought your Michael Jordan sport bobblehead back in year 1990 when it was priced at $19.00 but nowadays (due to the scarcity of Michael Jordan sport bobbleheads) is priced at $100 each, you may observe that the rise in financial value of your bobblehead was due to the lower supply at present, the rise in perceived value of that bobblehead version among collectors, and the fact that Michael Jordan is no longer as active a player as he used to be. There is a saying that for memorabilia of celebrities to go up in value, it helps if the celebrity in question were to die. Though we don’t necessarily want Michael Jordan to die yet, if he does pass away soon, rest assured practically all sport bobblehead items out there made in his likeness will shoot up in value real quick.

In sports, your value as a player rests a lot on your performance per season. But there may be players who are not so scintillating yet still remain quite popular among their fans anyway. For such players, the love of their fans will keep their memory alive even when their performance has left them on the reserved players bench for the rest of the season.