Handmade – The Story

Yesterday I read Wendren’s blog on the ‘value’ of handmade and I felt a surge of emotions on the subject and felt compelled to add to the subject.

While the handmade life is not for everyone at some point in our lives we have bought something that was made by hand. Luxury goods that are made by hand such as Rolls Royce cars (extreme example) are highly sort after goods, but somehow inbetween, most of us fell into the ‘consume-consume-consume’ mode.

After the second world war the Industrial Revolution kicked into overdrive and mass production became the norm. ‘Cheap and nasty’ ‘made in China’ goods flooded the shelves and small independent retailers that valued each customer and knew everyone by name were replaced by franchised stores who only care about the bottom line.

More, more, faster, faster, brighter, louder… STOP!

I have personally reached a point in my life, where I just can’t take this ‘consumer mentallity’ anymore. It was literally affecting my health. I made a personal decision not to buy ready-made food anymore. I cook almost everything from scratch now and everyday I am learning better ways to to cook and bake. I am also learning how to sew and create things for myself, so that I will not have to buy from expensive retailers anymore.  But if I do need to buy something, as far as possible I try to buy handmade or secondhand. It is sometimes quite difficult as I live in a newer area where old and treasured handmade goods are not easy to find. As long as I keep trying, I suppose places that I long for will eventually crop up.

I believe that there are quite a few people that feel as I do and feel that mass produced goods for profit, and profit alone, will soon be a thing of the past. Not only are there environmental pressures to change the way we do business, I suspect that in the near future, the growing “I’ve had enough” population will start to demand sustainable business practices and things will change dramatically.

I have taken the Handmade pledge, have you?