Create Your Own Baseball Cards with Topps; Sports Gift Review

Looking for that goofy gift for a die hard sports fan? Or something to surprise an up and coming little league ball player? Topps has a very neat item that is perfect for gift giving, either as a joke, or as an honest gift. As a little boy playing baseball in my town's little league I always dreamed about one day being able to play professional baseball and having my baseball card worth a million dollars. It didn't take long for reality to set in as I discovered I wasn't talented enough to play baseball beyond little league. There were never baseball cards made of me, but now if I wanted to, I could make them myself thanks to Topps custom trading cards. Baseball cards are no longer just for professional athletes to be displayed. Any person, animal, or thing can be displayed on an authentic Topps baseball card. Any digital photo can be printed onto a Topps card.

Styles of Cards
Topps is really going above and beyond with their create your own baseball card option. You can choose styles from as far back as 1959, to the current new styles. They offer portrait and landscape style cards to accommodate different digital photo's. There are team style cards, individual player cards, and rookie of the year cards (great for newborns). Topps now has an option where you can make your own trading card stickers. These are sure to get everywhere if you are giving them to a child, but it is a very cool feature.

Possibly the coolest, but most expensive option is the Topps Custom Big Stix Wall Stickers. I would compare these to a create your own FatHead. The prices go from $40 for an 18 inch long sticker, to $90 for a 72 inch sticker. What child athlete wouldn't want a giant wall sticker of himself hitting a baseball or throwing a football? To check out the Big Stix create your own stickers click here.

Suggestions
-These cards would be a great 'save the date' item or a good insert in a wedding invitation.
-As a gag gift, find a funny picture of a friend/family member/spouse and make funny captions.
-As a gift to a child; Take a picture of them in their teams uniform. You could even use a picture of the entire team and give them as an end of the season gift.
-There are an endless number of possibilities. Load your digital photo's to your computer, visit Topps.mytradingcards.com, and play around. You can save the pictures without buying them and send them via e-mail.

Price
The cards are reasonable considering they are authentic Topps made baseball cards. The more you order, the increasingly less expensive each individual card is. An order of 5 cards is $10, 10 cards are $13, 30 for $23, up to 1000 cards for $420. For a full pricing schedule check here.

Personal Experience
I stumbled upon the Topps custom trading cards page while I was searching for gifts for my older brother who is newly married and has a toddler. I had wanted to do something with photo's that I had of him, his wife, and their daughter. Since we both grew up big sports fans and baseball card collectors, I decided that this would be a cheap and perfect gift. What made it more convenient is that they have an option where I could send them directly to him, saving me shipping costs and the surprise of not knowing who sent him the package. I made several cards with him and his wife in different styles, both retro and current. And created a few of his baby girl. The cards can be customized both front and back, even yearly statistics information, nickname, and so on. The cards turned out great and my brother loved them.