I love handmade, I buy handmade, I make handmade and I sell handmade. Yet often when I’m asked why handmade is so special, why each piece costs more than a similar item in the high street shops or why I bother making in the first place, in the face of such hostility I am often stumped as to what to answer. So I decided to do my research, get myself prepared for the next negative comment and be ready to stand up for what I believe in.

So what really is so special about handmade?

Well, firstly it’s a mistake to compare handmade with the large corporations – there really there is no comparison. We don’t sell it in the same way. We don’t buy it in the same way or even receive it in the same way. How do you compare a jar of mass-produced jam with a homemade preserve using locally grown fruit presented in a beautiful recycled jar with a cheerful label? It’s impossible.

1. It’s Human Nature to Value the Creative Spirit

When you make something, you leave a part of yourself in it. When you are finished creating, you take pride in the work partly because you see yourself in it. When you buy something someone else made, you yourself are reflected in that purchase. Whether it’s the color, the texture, the shape, or just the mood you happen to be in, an item that has been crafted as an expression of the creative spirit person who made it is treasured and valued far beyond an item that was made for worldly mass consumption.

2. Handmade Items are Crafted in an Environment of Joy, Honor, and Respect

Have you ever studied the work space of a person who creates for a living? Their creations are almost always made in a space of joy, honor, and respect. Those same values somehow find their way into the very fiber of a handmade item. For example, consider that every inch of the yarn that forms a hand knit garment once flowed through the fingers of the Maker who knit the garment with intention and purpose. Who wouldn’t take extra special care of such an item.

3. A Handmade Item Cannot be Duplicated

No two handmade items are exactly alike. Variations in color, shading, texture, shape and grain are inherent in a handmade item. No two items are alike, so that every single one is one-of-a-kind. This means that every handmade item you purchase is also one-of-a-kind. What’s not to like about that?

4. Everything is More Beautiful When it’s Made with a Heart

You can serve your guests a frozen, mass produced pound cake or you can treat them to the one your mom made. The frozen one will do in a pinch, but only the one your mom made will touch the very heart of every one of your guests.

A consumer shift is happening. A movement if you will. More and more, people are willing to be educated about the value of a item that is made by hand.