Homemade Gifts. AIBU or is he?

[WonderLime]

This evening, whilst stuck under a sleeping baby, I’ve spend the evening browsing Pinterest. I’ve seen some great home made gift ideas and I was feeling really inspired.

DP comes home and I tell him about my idea to make a homemade gift for my Secret Santa present this year, as I think I can do something really cool with a limited budget (I’d been thinking bath bombs and sugar scrubs as they look easy).

DP says that ‘no one appreciates home made gifts unless they are really, really good - and anyway, it will end up costing you more’.

I’d told him just today how I’d been feeling quite low and fed up being on maternity leave, so it was nice to feel excited about something. However now I feel disheartened and don’t see the point anymore.

AIBU thinking about making home made gifts, or was his response unreasonable?

Most people do not appreciate homemade gifts.

I love them

Do some for yourself - and all of she presents this year!

Give it a go OP.

I make and sell craft stuff.

In the past 12 months I have made £50K profit.
It can be done.

For me, homemade cake, biscuits, cookies etc., from someone I know would be a welcome gift. So long as the person was a talented baker of course!

Things like coffee syrup (I can’t bear sweetened drinks), homemade alcohol, jars of oil with stuff floating in it etc., - no. They would sit in the kitchen cupboard for a while & then be binned.

Smellies would be an automatic no-no as I have very sensitive skin so wouldn’t risk it.

I also can’t abide crochet or hand knitted stuff.

Basically, nice food - yes. Art - no!

I’d never bother with homemade gifts now.
I painstakingly made a patchwork quilt for a very close friend’s new baby, and it was never seen or mentioned again after I gave it to them. It was well put together and a really nice piece, not amateurish and I purchased the loveliest fabric.

In the past 12 months I have made £50K profit. It can be done.
Blimey how did you do that? Are you actually a famous artist? Banksy maybe?

No it's craft stuff- not art.

There are people who like “stuff” and people who don’t. One group will never understand the other.

@Chrys2017, please don’t sneer at people with “germ issues”. I wish I didn’t have OCD, but I do. Luckily, mine doesn’t manifest in hand washing or compulsive checking, but I still wouldn’t eat something home-made if I didn’t know where it was from. I’ve spent a lot of my career in restaurant kitchens and I’m fairly confident in a 5 star hygiene rating if I wish to eat out.

How is it “rude” to throw something away? I wouldn’t say to the giver “ewww that’s fucking gross, I’m going to bin that”, I would say “thanks that’s lovely” and then more than likely feed it to my family who will eat anything. All the people who are convinced that the recipients loved their home-made gifts? No, most of them are probably just equally polite.

Ultimately, I don’t want Boots gift-sets or home-made stuff from a random colleague. Present giving is out of hand these days, and Christmas would be much easier and cheaper if everyone just gave gifts to their immediate family.

Wow that is brilliant!

OP just give it a go. I learnt to sew, knit and crochet with my first. I 'm not brilliant but I managed to make some nighties for baby, pram blankets and cardis and jumpers later on. By baby two I was more ambitious and made a whole pram set in blackberry stitch ( the jacket and hat) it was much admired (1980) and I have a cowl I am about to make.i don't knit a lot but evey now and then I pick up the needles. I knitted all my nieces and nephews scarves one year. Everyone was different. Random colours, muted colours, black, grey and white. It was a very cold winter so appreciated. I'm hoping to make some felt journals this year and needle felted blue tits for two little girls. Brooches are good. Small and simple.
I would love it if I received homemade bath bombs.I bet some people on here would buy them at a craft fair.in fact why don't you wrap baby up and go to a couple of craft fairs to see what is selling well, packaging and ask advice. Most crafters are happy to encourage others to give it a go.
You really don't know what you can do till you give a try. Make them while he is a work and prove him wrong. Give them to your family at the very least. You might be really talented but you won't know until you try. Good luck with it. Look out for a group near you for New Year and think about joining craft people are usually very friendly.

You don’t have to lose that inspiration for making things, perhaps use it to make something for the baby instead. DH has very fond memories of the toys his mother made her children, and now everyone enjoys seeing the next generation playing with them.

Lovely idea, but if you intend to make cosmetic products then you need to have the appropriate cosmetic safety assessment even to give away product.

Do people who refuse homemade food gifts also refuse to ever eat at other people's houses, let their children go to friends for tea, buy from charity bake sales??
It seems a very limited way of life - I know someone with OCD whose life is limited in this way, amongst others, and it really steals his joy.

OP I love that people have gifted thought and time. A friend of mine started this some years back - now most of my adult giving and receiving is homemade. Go for it.

I would hate to receive any type of homemade gift; they'd never be up to any sort of standard I'd ever be happy with and would go straight in the bin.

I just think homemade gifts smack of "I don't really care whether it's good or not, or even if you would like it, this is what you'll get as this is what I've decided to make and you can't say anything because I personally made it".

Oh and you ask why factory is better than homemade? Because they know what they're doing, and the majority of the time, the items are bought with a modicum of thought that the recipient might actually want and like it.

I'm a crafter and used to make lots of gifts for relatives but I eventually stopped as I found they weren't appreciated. I still get lots of pleasure out of crafting (mainly cross stitch, embroidery and crochet) but I now do it for me and it's much better.

OP, on the crochet front, as well as Youtube, try Lucy at Attic24. She has some great tutorials on her lovely blog.

www.attic24.typepad.com/weblog/

Your DH is right.

If you are new to it, don't try to make things for this Christmas. Get good all year and then make gifts for 2018.

You really have to know your audience with this one. If in doubt, buy something.

Maybe try a few items you make at local church fetes or craft fairs, and see what goes down.

If you want to make money at it, choose your product carefully.

The only homemade gift that's been a huge hit over the years is Hummingbird cafe's brownies. They're not really cheap to make, with the chocolate alone costing £4-5.

I think most home made gifts could be summed up with this image

“Just remembered that one of the nicest handmade gifts I have ever received was infused olive oil.”

Just a quick reminder to anyone thinking of doing this. Do not give anyone oil infused with garlic due to the risk of botulism.

Details here

There seems to be a fairly even split here, and I agree with Wombling that some people like home made goods and some don't. You need to know the recipient to work out whether it will be appreciated.

I would happily eat home made food items from people that I know have high hygiene standards. I don't care for crochet or knitted stuff - I have enough scarves and gloves and don't need any table mats. And coffee syrup, sorry, but bleurgh.

Given the brisk trade at craft fairs and the amount of stuff I sell some people must love hand made items.

If you have a specific talent then I think they're lovely. However when I've received them they do seem to be more about displaying the giver's talent and I think they get a lot more pleasure from making them than the receiver does.

One year I made different chocolate truffles as I was going through a chocolate making obsession but I only gave them as added extras to the main presents for family.

Yes they do @Speakout, but you are missing the point. If I go to a craft fair, I can look around and buy what I like the look of and what I’m comfortable with (or in my case, enjoy looking but not buy anything). When someone makes, say, bath bombs for every single family member, that’s totally different. It’s more about the giver and what they want to make than what the recipient might like.

I make chutney and give work colleagues a jar every Christmas.

I think if you made something with the recipients tastes/interests in mind it can be a very thoughtful gift. Eg, if you know they love cheese, make some chutney and put together a little gift set. I know I’d really appreciate something that I know thought and effort had been put into.

Given the brisk trade at craft fairs and the amount of stuff I sell some people must love hand made items. They are professional one offs. Even I buy a nice jar of marmalade from a craft fair as a stocking filler, but I certainly wouldn't put it on the breakfast table and wade through 30 jars a year at 7 quid a pop. Actually I tend to impulse buy the product then think "WTF am I doing, I could get this in Morrisons for £1.25"

I have a friend who does do this for a poor living - she makes very little profit as the cost far out weighs the retail price.

And frankly, you only have to look at the shiny shite on FB Marketplace page to see the bollox people produce in their kitchens that they think is worth resale.

splinter- but by the same token some people do make money from craft and handmade stuff.

I'd eat home-made (not weird flavours) biscuits. And I'd probably appreciate something home-made way like a bath-bomb more than a shop-bought toiletries set that shows zero imagination & effort.

speakout What the fuck do you make that can produce £2k profit every week?