.....on giving hand made things.

 The photos are not of anything special, just a couple of jam jar lanterns that I made for a friend.

Girls drinks night in the garden and I felt I wanted to take a little something, not anything to keep, but a little something.

 It set me thinking.

Why do I make things for people?

I enjoy doing it, of that there is no doubt. That's why I am here after all

better warn you now, i am not quite sure where all this is going!

Last week saw me making bunnies for babies and a raffle prize, a needle case/pincushion for a birthday, some lavender bags and jam jar lanterns all to be given away.

I can't describe how wonderful it is to make something. It make me happy that I can see opportunities to make things from scraps and oddments.

To be honest the results are almost irrelevant, I want to make a lovely thing but really it is to keep me busy, make me happy.

So how does it feel to receive the results of what is essentially someones therapy?!

I don't get given many handmade things.

A few people do and I love to receive them but its often with half an eye to how I would make it myself. That is not meant to sound ungrateful. I am always trying to work out how something is made and when I have worked it out I want to try it.

It makes me wonder what people really think of the things that I make for them.

I like to think they see them as something that I have made just for them, something I have thought and pondered over, something that cannot be bought and something that has given me pleasure to make for them.

I think that maybe sometimes they turn the item over in her hand and wonder if I will ever be not so tight with money to actually spend some on them.

I think that maybe sometimes they turn the item over and think she is not quite so good as she thinks she is.

I think that maybe I shouldn't be thinking about it quite so deeply and just get on enjoying making things.

I really love handmade things, if someone tells me it is handmade then they have already got me. If it has been handmade by them then its a done deal.

I am pretty wise to "handmade in india" but that is another post altogether.

I  have a friend who loves handmade things but she does not make things. I know that she loves to receive my things and treasures them. She gets the same buzz from knowing who made it and that it has come from their hands, their ideas, their creativity.

But I also have friends who would not be bothered either way whether something is made or bought. I still give them hand made things but I wonder what they think.

Can I twist it round to another way?

If someone  gave me a gift voucher to a high street shop I don't normally use I am thankful for the gift but I would wonder what I was going to do with it.

So am I saying that friends like my stuff because I have taken the time to make it?

It wouldn't matter what it was? or the quality I produced?

The trouble is that anyone reading this likes handmade things ( or really bored/avoiding work) and so you are all the wrong people to ask. 

Never mind, it was just a set of rambling thoughts.

I'll just go and make something else.