Why You Should Appreciate Handmade Gifts

I hope everyone’s weeks are going splendidly. Lately I’ve been thinking about handmade gifts. A lot of people keep saying that this year they will be aiming to give handmade gifts whenever possible, that’s what I tried to do in 2009 but I found that my experience wasn’t particularly positive. I found that people didn’t really appreciate what a handmade gift meant. That’s why I’ve started this three part series. So if you’re sending off handmade gifts, maybe send them these links first so that you’re not dissapointed!

In this series we’ll have a look at WHY you should appreciate handmade gifts, HOW you can appreciate handmade gifts, and also what to do if you don’t really LIKE the handmade gift!!

You should appreciate handmade gifts because…

1) They take time to make.

People spend approximately 1/2 hour choosing and buying a gift for someone at birthdays and Christmas. On average, a handmade gift takes about 2 to 3 hours to choose, buy supplies and make. That’s 5 times longer! I don’t know anyone who has tons of time to spare, so making a gift yourself is a bit of a sacrifice.

2) They thought about what they thought you would like.

In my experience of both giving and receiving, handmade gifts are far more personal. I can buy an iTunes giftcard for anyone, but in making you something I’ve thought about the colours you like, what would look good in your house, and what I know about you as a person!

3) At the end of the day it was probably more expensive then just buying something.

We like to think that making things ourself is cheap and thrifty. It CAN be those things, but a lot of the time, it’s not. You can get mass produced items so cheaply now-a-days that handmade items are really quite expensive. Remember above how I said it could take over 2 hours to make? Well if somone’s time is worth $25 an hour, your gift already costs $50, and that’s without the cost of the supplies, or their expertise!

Even if you take time cost out of consideration, lots of crafters can’t help but add extra embelishments, buttons, and special fabrics to gifts for friends and family. All those little bits add up!

4) It’s personal.

I started to touch on this in point 2, but let me re-iterate it again. This gift is made expecially for YOU. The person who made it was thinking of you wearing/looking/loving/using this particular item when they made it! That’s a pretty special thing in today’s world!

5) It’s the thought the counts.

Everyone shows their love in different ways. Spending time making something special is this person’s way of saying “I LOVE YOU!”. It might not be the way you receive love, but when it comes to relationships, we’ve got to be flexible and appreciate the person for who they are!

Gary Chappman’s 5 Love Languages are a good place to start if you’re interested in such things.

BONUS

6) They didn’t just do it ‘because they had to’.

Have you ever felt that becuase you bought Alice a gift, you really should buy Lucy one too? Well handmade gifts are too precious and time consuming for this to be the case (or at the very least it doesn’t spread very far down the friendship line!). Remember that this gift has been given to you because you truely are a special friend or family member. It’s not just something someone picked up from the impulse isle and thought “This’ll do!”.

Thanks for visiting my site again! keep checking back for more updates!

Tags: handmade, handmade gifts, series

Christmas 2010

Well, a belated Merry Christmas to you all! I hope everyone’s had a beautiful Christmas day full of love and smiles! This Christmas was quite lovely. I do enjoy theming everything from wrapping paper to food, and all that’s in between!

Luke and I spoil each other rotten at Christmas, and this year I wondered if that would change when we had kids…? I guess budgets always come into it, but this little (okay, big!) part of me hopes it doesn’t change. I’m just gunna say it. I love presents.

This year I decided to make a Panattone for Boxing Day. Usually someone in Luke’s family gives us a bought one for Christmas, but you know me, I like things home made! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out- though I do need to find a proper tin. This one wasn’t quite as high as it should be, but it was a lot rounder!

Christmas was special this year because my Uncle David, Aunty Judy, and cousins, Leon and Joel came over! It’s been quite a few years since we’ve seen them for Christmas, and it was pretty special to have Nana with her three children there (Uncle David, Aunty Kris and Dad). One year it would be nice to have all the grandkids (and as of yesterday a great grandchild!) as well. I can only hope! I was pretty proud of my quick off the mark idea to take a family snap. Uncle David seems to escape most family photos (including Luke and my wedding photos … grrr!), but I got this one taken! Huzzah!

The presents were opened, and there was lots of great things. I loved giving people extra special gifts this year that we’d picked up on our holiday abroad. We got to repeat this sentence a lot of times: “You can only buy this from this one shop/museum in Paris/Germany/Amsterdam…” etc. you get the drift.

Also, below is our Christmas lunch FEAST. Turkey, and a range of salads (all relatively awesome for my diet, too!). Of course, it is not Christmas without and avo and mango salad! Anyone else have this salad every year?!

Above is my brothers. They’re a crazy bunch. All so unique, but similar as well. We spent the majority of the time we weren’t eating looking at old photos (Mum had got one of those digital photo frames from Dad for Christmas), and it was fun for my aunties and uncles to see old pictures of themselves, and for everyone to exclaim about how much each of thier children looked like either themselves or their parents…

I of course get people staring at me gasping, “Talia, you look SO much like your mother”. This is the story of my life. In fact, I have just now decided that that will be what my memoirs are called.

Above is my Nana and her brother, Martin. It was quite a pleasant suprise for him, his son and family to drop in Christmas afternoon. I took the opportunity again to take a big group photo, cause this stuff doesn’t happen every year, let along every day like the saying goes!

Boxing day was the Panettone I mentioned earlier, with my family, and then a delicious Christmas spread with Luke’s mum and siblings. It was shorter then both Luke and I anticipated, which was annoying, conisdering how difficult and stressful I had found it trying to ‘organise’ the event, but we did it! I use the term ‘organise’ very loosly. It’s more along the lines of getting everyone at the same place at the same time…

Boxing Day night was the most hilarious Christmas time EVER. The two cousins that were there (and their partners) brought their dogs, and so we all had lots of fun laughing at them chasing said dogs around the room, and checking on them and what not. We were quite glad that we left Pepper and Misty at home, or I think we would have had three bloody black dogs, and one white spotty grumpy dog (Misty). Anyway, the two dogs that were there were funny, as were their parents trying to control them!

Marcus suprised us all by being able to figure out the cloth nappy Nana and my aunty were struggling with. Apparently they were doing it inside out… (the pretext to this is that my aunty bought them for my cousin, who, on Boxing Day, was pregnant. I assume they couldn’t figure this one out…). FYI- I say she WAS pregnant, because she’s not anymore. Her son was born yesterday (28th), 4 weeks early and only 5LB! He’s healthy and whatnot, just beautifuly small!

*sigh* so that was my Christmas! We went down to the Gold Coast to see Luke’s extended family on Monday and Tuesday, which technically wasn’t Christmas, but public holidays are a good excuse to go down and see the family!

A Sneak Peak… Merry Christmas!

I don’t know if you’re anticipating the little present I promised as highly as I am. But in case you are, here’s a little sneak preview of the FRONT COVER!

Merry Christmas!