Handmade Holidays

As autumn gives way to winter, and Halloween makes way for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's time once again to start thinking about gift giving...And in light of the recent economic craziness, it's also time to start thinking about where we'll spend our hard earned dollars this year...

If you look to the right, you'll see a little green link, which says "I took the handmade pledge". And I did - just last year, online, but actually many years ago. Christmas has been handmade here for a very long while. In fact, we go with handmade items whenever possible all year round; a set of dishes from a local pottery artist, a checkbook cover purchased from an Etsy shop, hand spun yarn from online fiber artists, biscotti from an Etsy baker and so on. Handmade items are better quality, often one of a kind, connected to the community, and most important, are created from the heart. :)

I'll be knitting a few gifts again this year, as well as doing a little painting and a lot of cooking and baking; tins of homemade cookies and fudge, bottles of homemade kahlua, jars of instant chai tea, etc etc...And what's not handmade will be purchased from other artists - one of a kind treasures that support the individual instead of the corporation - how cool is that?!

I'm also playing around with a few handmade giftie things on eBay and Etsy this season - still doing Halloween and witchy stuff, but adding a limited number of holiday items too. Here are a couple listed on eBay now

...
Do you think I went too crazy with the vintage glass glitter?


Naaaaaawwwww....there's no such thing as too much glitter!

Another "Peace Cat" sign (this one a tuxedo) will list soon too (just have to add a bit of sparkle, hehe!)

In the meantime, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone out there buying handmade this year - by supporting creativity instead of mass production, you're making a big difference in the world - and bringing smiles to an artist as well as the gift's recipient! Doesn't get much better than that. ;)

Until next time,
~ Carolee