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And A Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve is almost here! Where does the time go? It feels like it was just last week that we were picking out our turkeys and planning our holiday shopping lists! Now here we are not even completely ready for Christmas and we’re already talking about New Years! Where has 2014 gone?! Is it just us or does it feel like this year has gone by really quickly?

Either way, New Years Eve is fast approaching and with everyone so busy with Christmas, many are left without any New Years Eve plans! Being Jacksonville natives, we felt like it was our duty to figure out the best our city has to offer for ringing in the New Year!

Given that we’ve been in the Jacksonville area since our inception roughly sixty years ago, we know where to go to have a good time! So what are a few of our favorite New Years events to check out this year?

1. Jacksonville Landing

When in doubt and needing last minute holiday plans, it’s always safe to assume that The Landing has something going on. Nothing beats the awesome city atmosphere and view you can find at The Landing. This year the city is kicking the New Year festivities off starting at noon on Dec. 31st . Join your fellow neighbors in listening to live music and watching Christmas tree light shows galore! Finally, start your 2015 off with a bang when fireworks erupt at midnight! Nothing beats watching the fireworks over the water on a truly special night!

2. Mad Hatter’s Ball MOCA

Curiouser and Curiouser! Attend the Mad Hatter’s Ball at MOCA this year and feel like you’re in Wonderland! No, no need to lose your head or paint any roses red, this year at MOCA come dressed for a mad tea party, a queen’s courtyard, or in your Sunday best for a night of dancing and gambling at Jacksonville’s own MOCA museum!

3. Jacksonville Zoo

The Jacksonville Zoo is notorious for always having fun family filled events all throughout the year and 2014 has been no different! From their exciting Land of the Tiger opening, to their scare-friendly Halloween activities and ZOOLights fun filled nights reaching into January. Considering this New Year’s Event is family friendly, the celebration starts at 10 am on New Year’s Eve and goes until 1 pm. Have a wild New Year with some of Jacksonville’s most exotic faces and have fun with contests, live music, and giveaways!

So whether you’re planning a night out on your own, with friends, or with your entire family, there’s plenty of New Years events going on in Jacksonville to celebrate the arrival of 2015! Here at Holmes Stamp & Sign, we wish nothing but the best for our customers and hope each and every one of our friends, fans, followers, and their families a happy, healthy and safe New Years Eve celebration!

Happy Holidays from us here at Holmes Stamp & Sign! We’ll see you in 2015! Need more New Years Eve celebration events? News4jax has a few more New Years Eve suggestions!

Bring On The Holiday Season!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Jacksonville! Slowly but surely, the weather is beginning to turn; and in the mornings as we walk briskly to our cars, the cool air nips at the back of our necks, fingers, and noses. While no, we don’t need to scrape ice off of our windshield (most days), and we have no need for snow plows or shovels, our bodies are specially attuned to the Florida weather, therefore the cold hits our delicate bodies hard as well.

But just because things are cooling down outside, doesn’t mean that our fair city of Jacksonville is in hibernation mode! With the arrival of the holiday season, things are heating up downtown. All across the city, tons of family friendly holiday activities are blowing into town!

So with all this activity going on around town, what are a few our of favorite holiday activities that we can’t wait to check out!

1. Trans Siberian Orchestra
Not quite ready to start singing Silent Night or Little Drummer Boy? The city of Jacksonville has got just the thing to help you kick off your holiday season this year! Coming to perform a never before seen live show, Trans Siberian Orchestra has become a holiday favorite and you only need to see them once to understand why. Fusing classical orchestral music with strands of rock, gives classic Christmas carols a jolt of electric flair! This event takes place this Thursday at 7:30pm at the Veterans Memorial Arena, so get your tickets now!

2. Nights of Lights
Every year our friendly neighbor St. Augustine lights up their streets for Nights of Lights! The city decks itself out in thousands of small white lights and various tours are offered for locals and out of town-er’s alike. A great time for the whole family, especially if you’re having one of those nights where you just need to get out and go for a walk. Take a boat ride, or get on one of Ripley’s trolley rides and see the lights throughout the city. Schedule packed? Don’t work about it, this isn’t a one night only event! Nights of Lights will continue until January 31st!

3. A Christmas Carol
A holiday classic if there ever was one! This year the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts is putting on A Christmas Carol to celebrate the holiday season and all things merry and bright! In this rendition of the classic story of Scrooge and his ghosts, this troupe of talented individuals are set to weave the story in and out between classic holiday carols, for a fabulous winter night you won’t soon be able to forget! Get ready because this show is coming to you on December 23rd at 7:30 pm!

4. White Christmas

Want some more theater in your life? The Alhambra Dinner Theatre is ready and open for the holiday season. With multiple showings, this show brings Irving Berlin’s classic show to the stage and is also a great place to relax and dine as a couple or as a family. Going on all December long, visit the Alhambra Dinner Theatre website and check for dates and reserve you tickets!

5. Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra: First Coast Nutcracker

Care to get a bit classier this holiday season? Check out our resident symphony orchestra this season as they put on The First Coast Nutcracker! With the same stunning professionalism, and experience that we have all come to know and expect from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, this show will include not just Tchaikovsky’s iconic music but also world renowned dancers, awesome set designs, and beautiful costumes. With four shows spanning over the period of three days, you’ll be sure to have a chance to see the Nutcracker! Check out jaxsymphony.org for more details!

The Holiday season is a great time for family to spend together. And as you can see, there are no shortages of local events going on in Jacksonville to help you get into the holiday spirit this year! Not in Jacksonville? There are tons of holiday-centered events going on in towns all across the country! Don’t let the frigid weather stop you from enjoying the most wonderful time of the year!

Watch Your Pumpkin Patch Business Grow With A Custom Banner!

pumpkin patch sign jacksonville florida — Photo property of Stephie Joy Photography

It seems like just yesterday we were knee deep in our swimming pools or visiting the beach with our families, but suddenly it’s October! Where did the time go? Summer just flew by this year! Then again, maybe that’s because we were just having so much fun! But no matter how quickly the Summer months flew by, October is already here and before you know it, it’ll be Halloween and then Thanksgiving! Here in Florida, we’re all ready for it to cool off – it’s been a hot summer and the cooler temperatures will give us the opportunity to open up our windows and give our air conditioning units a break!

We know our version of Fall is probably a lot different than what it must be like in the northern parts of the country. No the leaves on our trees don’t seem to change color, but at least we can safely say that it has never snowed on Halloween! Either way, we know we’re excited for Autumn’s arrival and we’re willing to bet you are too!

And what comes along with Fall? Pumpkins! Yes, it seems that no matter what, pumpkins have become the symbol universally acknowledged as Fall. From pumpkin decorations, to pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, there is no denying that it’s everywhere! October has only just begun and already there are a handful of pumpkin patches popping up around our beautiful city of Jacksonville and our surrounding areas.

Since our inception, we have done our very best to be a friend to business owners big and small. Did you happen to read our last week’s blog about our friendly letters to our fellow local business owners? If you have, you’d know that being a small business ourselves, we know just how important it is to connect with and support our fellow small business owners. So what can we do for our seasonal Pumpkin Patch friends in business? We can do what we do best! Stamps and signs! While stamps may not come in handy for the owners and operators of a pumpkin patch, the presence of a sign could be extremely beneficial! For a predominantly roadside business like this, a custom banner would be the smartest purchase to make. Depending on the size of the banner, it could be easily seen by those driving by or just on a walk in the neighborhood.

Here at Holmes Stamp & Sign, we have a multitude of banner sizes for you to choose from. All of our custom banners are created using high quality vinyl and are capable of producing a multitude of vibrant colors of your choosing! We pride ourselves on our excellent customer service and fast turnaround times so you can be sure to get in on the Fall pumpkin rush as quickly as you can!

Words cannot express how proud we are to belong to such an awesome city as Jacksonville. October has only JUST begun and already we have over four different pumpkin patches set up for families and individuals all over the city. We knew our city was big, but that’s a lot of pumpkins! Are you a local looking for a pumpkin patch to visit? Visit this site dedicated to giving northern Florida the best Autumn season possible and scroll down to your county and find your own local pumpkin patch today! Are you as excited for Fall as we are? Do you have a favorite Fall tradition? We would love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments below!

Holmes Stamp & Sign Lives and Loves Local Jacksonville!

From humble beginnings come great thing. While we’re no stranger to this age old phrase, we can certainly attest to its truthfulness. Our company of Holmes Stamp & Sign started all the way back in 1954 when one Florida man took to his garage and began making stamps. Sure enough, what started out as an exceedingly small one man business out of a tiny garage space, grew and expanded into a multiple building corporation with well over 60 employees.

Now here we are, all these years later, managing multiple brands and shipping out orders all over the country! With the sudden rise of technology and the age of instant gratification, we’ve proven that we can consistently keep up with the times. Our efforts continue to provide our customers with the excellent level of customer service that they’ve come to expect, as well as new and innovative ways to manufacture our products faster without sacrificing any of our high quality standards that we’ve become famous for. As technology evolved and became available, we upgraded our lasers and techniques as well as brought in an awesome staff to help us get our orders out the door as quickly as possible.

As we grew out of the garage and into an actual manufacturing plant, we’ve never tried to distance ourselves from our roots, nor would we ever. In all the time that we’ve been in business we’ve remained loyal to our strong Jacksonville, FL base of customers and supporters. Being a small business is tough in any decade, especially in today’s world with more websites than a single person could ever imagine. Competition is fierce! We know how hard it can be to get your name out there and to build a following today, that’s why we thought we would put together a special Holmes Stamp & Sign care package for some of our more prominent small business neighbors.

Jacksonville neighborhood favorites like Aardwolf Brewery, Bold Bean Coffee, Maple Street Biscuit Company, Sun Ray Cinema, and Black Hog Farms are just a few of the local businesses that we reached out to. After raving reviews from friends, neighbors, and even our employees, how could we not decide to introduce ourselves? So we shipped out a bag of goodies! Stamps, stickers, and buttons galore, all featuring their own unique logo, made up the contents of the package as well as a friendly letter saying hi and welcoming them into the small business fold!

We got plenty of responses from our recipients who thought it was really great for us to reach out to them. So when all was said and done, what did we learn? What most businesses learn after a certain number of years! Small businesses often make up the backbone of a community. They learn their neighbor’s names and get to know them over time, they become aware of new business and/or social trends and if successful, they manage to cement themselves into the lives of their customers by creating a community within a community and building those relationships. The same thing applies when small businesses get into contact with each other. Valuable business relationships are formed and you always know that you’ve got friends when and where it counts.

As for us, under no circumstances do we plan on lessening our involvement in the wonderful Jacksonville community that we’ve all come to know and love. Here’s to another 60 years of building lasting relationships in our town!

Jacksonville Beach Elementary Visits Holmes Stamp & Sign 2014 Edition!

Another year, another field trip to Holmes Stamp & Sign for the first graders of Jacksonville Beach Elementary! We know the old saying that time flies, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been a whole year since our factory was last overrun with first graders. When the kids go back to school every fall, we all know what’s coming – or should we say who is coming.

Just like clockwork, around September Jacksonville Beach Elementary gets in contact with us. We work our schedules around and make sure we are able to fit in some time to give back to our awesome community as well as educate some youngsters while we’re at it. Summer vacation is always so much fun for kids, so when the new school year starts, things can get pretty monotonous very fast. By the end of August, the morning classroom routines have nearly all been set and established and the normal hum-drum of everyday life is settling in. It’s times like these where a little excitement never hurt anyone – and that goes for us too!

Prior to the kids arrival, we make it a point to thoroughly clean up our areas! Surfaces are scrubbed down, potentially dangerous materials and chemicals are shelved and kept out of reach. All little pieces of plastic and trash are quickly and efficiently deposited in the trash cans. When the moment of truth arrived, one by one the first graders all piled on their school buses and prepared themselves for a fun filled day of stamp, sign, name tag, button production and manufacturing.

Early Tuesday morning, the bright yellow school buses pulled in single file into our parking lot. The students were welcomed into our showroom and greeted by the Holmes Stamp & Sign CEO Bryan Croft himself. They were given a quick rundown of what it is exactly that we do here, and what kinds of fun they could expect throughout the day. Once the kids had the general idea, they were taken to the old machine used way back in the day for clocking in, and were then separated into smaller groups. The kids were taken around to the different stations we had set up for them in advance. By the end of the day, they had their little grab bags full of goodies. From all six stations we set up for the kids to visit and learn from, they received something special to take home with them. Each student had made their own custom stamps, buttons, stickers, and even received a handful of tootsie rolls – the first graders had their hands full for sure!

While we admit, we may not get much work done on these field trip days, not only did they give the students a welcome break from everyday routine, but us too! On a normal day here at Holmes Stamp & Sign, we’re busy little bees buzzing from area to area, working hard to process and produce thousands of orders a day – so the kids aren’t the only ones who could use a break from time to time. Once a year, we welcome this day of distraction because it gives us an opportunity to give back to our community and help give our teachers a break for a day as well. So what do we do now that they’re gone? We get back to being the well oiled manufacturing machine that our customers have come to know and love over the course of the past sixty years!

So long Jax Beach Elementary! We’re already counting down the days until your visit next year!

It’s Back To School For Duval County!

The 2014 Fall semester is back and in full swing again! The kids are back from visiting relatives, going to their summer camps, and also out of the Holmes Stamp & Sign break room (at least until our annual school field trip happens in a few weeks)! A few weeks ago, all of us parents put in a little more time before leaving for work in the morning just to make sure the lunches are packed, and no folder, backpack or anything else was forgotten before the kids headed off on their first day of school. And we know that we weren’t alone.

It may be hard to imagine, but coming in at 885 sq miles Jacksonville is the largest city in America (by size). How else could we have so many awesome events going on all the time as we do? With our population coming in at over 830,000 people is it really any wonder that within our county of Duval, there are 285 schools, that’s not even counting the amount of colleges and universities for the business men and woman of the future. Yes, every year Jacksonville consistently churns out some inspiring graduates with awesome potential to find work. In fact, recent numbers show that despite a country that is having difficulty recovering from financial crisis and so many losing their jobs, Jacksonville has a remarkably low unemployment rate, which has lead to many recent grads feeling optimistic.

While some of us here at Holmes Stamp & Sign have older kids in college or graduated, many of us have kids still in grade school and what a handful they can be – not to mention expensive! That’s why we’re all so happy to get to live in a city that helps take care of its own. Every year for the past seven years, Duval County Public Schools partner up with other groups to put together their annual Back To School Fest at the Fairgrounds. This year there was everything from doctors’ visits to haircuts and everything in between. After seven years, this Back To School Fest is truly becoming the can’t miss back to school event of the season. On top of having entertainment and a back to school fashion show lined up for the kids, they were even offering free backpacks and other school supplies. As any other parent can tell you, not all school supplies come cheap!

When it comes to families, Jacksonville does its best to support and take care of each other the very best we can. Being a family based company, we look forward to the annual field trip we host every year and can hardly believe that it’s right around the corner again! We love getting the opportunity to brighten the kids days by showing them around the plant and letting them make their own custom button, name tags and more! We can’t just send them away without giving them something! And on top of lightening our room with their giggles and smiling faces, our conference room usually gets some really awesome artwork for our massive dry erase wall! Who could say no to that?

Want to hear how it goes? Check back with us soon for all the pictures and stories that we will undoubtedly have to share!

The Perfect Gift For Your Graduate

With a new graduation ceremony listed seemingly every day in our papers and online events category here in Jacksonville, we’ve all got graduations on the brain! Being a family friendly business, we’re used to seeing our employee’s kids around the office from time to time, or drawing masterpieces on our massive whiteboard in the break room. We’ve watched these kids grow up! And we know that we’re not the only ones who can’t believe how fast time flies when we see or hear that they’ve reached a new milestone in their life. These day’s it seems like there’s a graduation for everything but at the same time, maybe it’s for the best that we find more things in life to celebrate.
So with the end of winter and the beginning of summer (because let’s face it, there wasn’t really a spring this year here in Jacksonville), graduation season is officially upon us and we’ve got more last minute graduation gift orders than we know what to do with! And unlike in years passed, now regardless of where you or your student is in their academic careers, a graduation of some sort won’t be far off. Now they may not all feature the traditional cap and gown, but nonetheless they are still very important. But of all the graduations, few are more important or more momentous than high school and college graduations. Finally considered a legal adult and ready to enter the job force and start making money- it’s an exciting time for recent high school and college grads. Well, college grads may find themselves every bit as terrified as they are excited but they’ll just have to take one day at a time, and have faith that all of their hard work will pay off soon enough.
Once they’ve successfully landed a job, it’s important that they receive positive reinforcement and feedback just like when they were in school. For young kids and grown adults, positive reinforcement and recognition for a job well done is crucial success and we here at Holmes Stamp & Sign couldn’t agree more.
But as is the case with most major graduations it’s normal for families to throw celebratory parties and give gifts. And while both you and recent grad knows (or is soon to find out), money is always a most welcome gift. But that can’t be it right? There’s got to be something else that you can give that will help them start their new life!
What you really want is to give them something that you know they’ll be able to use for years to come. Maybe even something small that they can carry with- something they’ll actually use. We know that these major graduation ceremonies are a once in a lifetime experience for your graduates and that they deserve something special for all the hard work that they’ve put in over the years. So what can you get them that say congrats on a job well done?
Holmes Stamp & Sign is here to help! By far one of our most popular products is our signature stamp! Great for signing and cashing checks on the go, or signing quick cards when you can’t find a pen, a signature stamp will get tons and tons of use whether it’s just with everyday use or to help out at a new job.
All of our stamps are made with the best quality parts and will last for years and years to come! Sign up with our site today and receive a coupon via email!

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Tigers Visit Holmes Stamp & Sign

Lion, and tiger’s, and bear’s! There’s no place like home for us here at Holmes Stamp & Sign in Jacksonville, FL. We’ve got the sun, the sand, the surf, an eclectic downtown and beach atmosphere- not to mention a seriously amazing Zoo!

So when that same Zoo comes to us and asks us to deliver them a quality one-of-a-kind engraved wooden sign for their new Land of the Tigers exhibit, how could we possibly refuse?! We couldn’t wait!

See the city’s latest furry residents now at the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens!