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What Are You Doing to Support Handmade?
While working on a quilt layout today, I was musing about handmade. I’m one of the fortunate ones who is busy with handmade. I’ve been waiting for time to work on this very quilt, and every time I think I’ve found it, a customer wants something special. Now is no different, and I’ll be juggling multiple projects for the next few weeks. This is not a bad dilemma to have.
So I started wondering… what is it that I do to support handmade? Not promote my shop or your shop or this site, in particular… just overall. How am I getting the message out that handmade or handcrafted is worth the extra money? Certainly nothing specific that I can think of, but I must be doing something. Hmmmm……
I think perhaps the most obvious thing I do is personally support handmade; whether it’s something I made or something someone else made for me, I’ve always got something handmade on, usually in the way of earrings or a pendant or a sweater… but something’s handmade. When I do shows, I have a sign in my booth about the impact of supporting handmade and small business in general. It starts out with, “When you buy from a Mom & Pop business, you are not helping a CEO buy a third vacation home.” That very sentence is what caught my eye to begin with. When I shop, I’m partial to big box stores, as we’re not wealthy. But I’ll end up talking to another customer – a complete stranger – and we’ll have a nice discussion about the poor quality of mass-produced compared to that same item that an artist cared about while making it. Ultimately, neither one of us buys anything. All of these little things, and so many more, all support handmade without the attachment of a sales pitch that turns people off.
So I guess the answer is that I am living handmade. And perhaps that is far more of a sales pitch than anything I could post on Twitter!
Tags: artist, Handmade, promotion, sell handmade, small business, support handmade, working artist
Posted in Handmade
6 Responses to “What Are You Doing to Support Handmade?”
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Sandi, how true these words are spoken, I truly second them….♥Monika
Great post Sandi, Kimberly and I have banned the big box stores for probably the last 5 years. We end up there from time to time if we are rushed. But we really try to promote handmade and the local businesses in our community. The big box stores swallow up all the small businesses, especially and lower population areas, where we live the small guys can make it most of the time as the population is dense. Middle America though, the small guys struggle to compete with the big boys
Nicely written, Sandi, kudos to you for living handmade – I do my best to do the same!
Although handmade does cost more than mass produced, it is better quality and can last a lot longer. As makers we know the care and skill that each item takes to make, so tend appreciate it more. My budget hasn’t allowed for completely avoiding the big box stores but I do try to support local as much as possible.
Great words Sandi for all of us to live by. Yes, I do visit the big box stores on occasion, however I have stopped going to many of them for awhile now and refuse to go back. I like handmade and like you, I try to always wear something handmade and talk to people about the benefits of handmade. Thank you for this blog, it is a great reminder to keep doing this.
Awesome post Sandi! Sharing………