Handmade Does Not Mean Cheap!

I had so much fun on Wednesday when Amber, Christen, and I talked about all the handmade gifts we’ve given and received over the years. While some people may think handmade is the cheap way out, most of us who do a lot of crafting know that handmade items are anything but cheap, as there is a lot of time and effort that goes into making a handmade gift, and often the supplies to make them are anything but cheap. Skill, too, is a consideration, since a person can’t just simply decide to take up crochet and then whip out an afghan in a couple of days. And since handmade gifts are often specifically tailored to the recipient, there is a lot of thought and planning that goes into each gift.

One such example is the t-shirt quilts I’ve made for members of my family. I’ve done two so far, and have a good start on a couple more that I’ve shelved for the time being. Each of these projects took months of my limited craft time to cut and stabilize the t-shirts before I could even lay them out into something that looked like a planned and cohesive design. Then I had to find and purchase suitable fabric to use for the sashing, binding, and backing. The hours of sewing the blocks (called piecing) made for hours and hours of mindless sewing in front of the TV. Then the quilts had to be quilted, which is the process of sewing through multiple layers of the pieced quilt top (the t-shirts), batting (the inner layer that provides weight and warmth), and the backing (usually a solid piece or large blocks of coordinating fabric). For my husband’s rock bands quilt, I paid a quilter to sew it on her long-arm quilting machine, which cost almost $200. I chose to quilt my son’s school quilt myself on my used Brother sewing machine that I bought at an estate sale for $25. Let’s just say, you get what you pay for – the professionally sewn quilt has a beautiful design in a contrasting color of thread and is elegantly detailed.  The quilt I did at home took untold hours of work, has a lot of mistakes, and is not nearly as detailed since I just used an organic, wavy lines technique. Once the quilting was done, I was able to cut strips of binding (yet another coordinating fabric) and sew it around the edge of the quilt first by machine to attach it to the quilt, then by hand to finish it off. 

Don’t get me wrong, I do not regret spending the time, money, and effort on these quilts. I love the way they turned out, and I have plans to make several more, but this is why I get hot under the collar when people insinuate that a handmade gift is either cheap, easy, or a cop-out. The people who say that are the people who spend their time browsing Target or Kohl's or Amazon until they find something that will work, and then complain about handmade gifts because they have no idea how much time, thought, and effort goes into each one. It’s also the exact reason why I will NEVER make a quilt for hire. I get asked all the time how much I would charge to make a t-shirt quilt, and the answer is, “No! You can’t afford it, but I will teach you how to do it for yourself.” I feel the same about my hand-crocheted afghans like the NASCAR-themed ones I made for my Dad and my husband, Mark.

Along those lines, if you are interested in crocheting some handmade goodies for Christmas, I have a few free patterns available on my crochet website Cindy’s Crochet Pages. I have several patterns for easy/beginner items like neckwarmers (scarves), trivets, and washcloths plus more challenging patterns for a few NASCAR and sports-themed logos, as well as tutorials on some of the techniques I used.

I’d like to hear from you. Have you ever made handmade items as gifts? Were they received well? Has anyone ever insinuated that your handmade gifts were cheap or a cop-out? Leave your comments below, or join us in a discussion on our MMC Chat Facebook group. And don’t forget to listen to this week’s podcast!

TikTok Made Me Do it

It’s 2022. I hear this phrase all the time: “TikTok made me do it.” As I made my annual work gift sacks this year, I thought about that over and over. Last week, I was randomly scrolling on TikTok and I ran across this video “Gingerbread Latte” pour-overs by OneSweetMama and thought those would be the perfect gift to give my coworkers this year. Boy, I was wrong.

On the podcast this week, we are talking about handmade Christmas gifts. Every year, I make gift sacks for my coworkers. I put a lot of thought into making them, catering to each coworker. Last year, I bought a bunch of mini Christmas mugs from the store and filled them with different things such as snacks, mini lotion, and hand sanitizer. This year, I thought I’d take a step up and make the latte pour-overs for everyone and pair them with my annual pumpkin spice cake cookies. 

We mentioned on the podcast that sometimes handmade gifts can be more inexpensive to make than buying something. Generally, baked goods are not too expensive to make. The most expensive part of the pumpkin spice cookies that I make is the Lily’s® less sugar pumpkin spice chips that I use. However, I didn’t take into account everything it took to make these TikTok latte pour-overs. 

For starters, I had to buy a gingerbread silicone mold. While at Michael’s™, I also bought Sweet Tooth Fairy® vanilla candy melts. The recipe also called for a gingerbread spice blend and recommended one to buy online. However, I decided it might be cheaper to make my own (it wasn’t). The recipe also called for cinnamon (which I had) and instant dark roast coffee. I had only ever worked with candy melts a handful of times and every time I had, I usually burned them. So, I was very careful to get the melts to the right consistency before adding the rest of my ingredients to them. Working with a rack of silicone molds was difficult and I ended up making a mess getting the mixture into them. 

Gingerbread Spice Mix

My molds were also too small for what my recipe needed. The recipe told me to let them sit and harden in the refrigerator for 10 minutes (I waited for 20) and because the molds were smaller, they were also deeper, so, my test gingerbread bomb fell apart. The second one, I let sit overnight and I tried it the next morning. Man, was it strong!

My takeaway: working with candy melts is hard but practice makes perfect. The latte pour-overs in the small gingerbread molds came out sugary and strong. Next time, I will get larger molds. However, the flavors were amazing. If you use the small molds, I suggest eight ounces of hot water instead of six. The process was not as time-consuming as I thought it would be; however, it is a bit costly if you make your gingerbread spice from scratch. If you are looking for something inexpensive to make for your coworkers, I do not recommend this. If you are looking for a gift to give someone who loves coffee, I recommend this.

Finished Product

I want to hear from our readers. What handmade gifts do you like to give for the holidays? Have you ever tried making latte bombs before? How did it go? Let’s continue the conversation below!

Recipes linked below:

Gingerbread Latte Pour-overs

Gingerbread Spice Mix

Please check out our Downloads For Our Readers page for a PDF of these recipes.

Homemade Christmas Cards: An Easy Craft for the Holidays

Hi there! It’s Cindy again, and after all the serious discussions about goal setting and grief, I thought it might be time for something light-hearted and fun. So this week on the podcast we’ll be talking about Christmas cards, and we set up a poll on the Modern Musings Facebook Group. We want to know whether you send cards or letters at Christmas, or is this a tradition you have long since abandoned? And for those of you who still send cards, or would like to start, I’ve put together a little post about some simple cards you can make yourself.

Making your own cards can be a fun way to spend a fall afternoon, and it doesn’t require a lot of experience or supplies. The two cards I have for you today are super easy and require very few supplies, so they are perfect for a beginner card maker. And, of course, an experienced card maker can dress them up any number of ways if they want something a bit more challenging. 

Tip: If you are a beginner, start small. Choose to make only one or two of each design and once you’ve done those you can decide whether to make more.

To get started, you will need:

• 2 card bases, any color (you can make two from one piece of 8.5”x11” cardstock)
• 1-3 pieces of Christmas themed patterned paper (1 piece for Card “A” and 3 different pieces for Card “B”)
• Coordinating green cardstock, approx. 2”x4”
• Brown cardstock or ribbon ¼” or ½” wide by 3½”
• Coordinating ribbon to match patterned paper
• Sequins, rhinestones, enamel dots, stickers, or tiny buttons 
• Star shaped sequins, rhinestones, enamel dots or stickers
• Scissors
• Adhesive or glue

Christmas Tree Card

This first card is a modified version of one I sent out to my friends and family 10-12 years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites.

To begin, fold your card base in half and burnish the folded edge with something hard like a bone folder or the back edge of your scissors. If you are using 8 ½” x 11” cardstock to make your card base, cut it in half to make two 8 ½” x 5 ½” pieces; this will be your two card bases. Fold the long edge to make a standard A2 card. Set one aside for the second card.

Cut one piece of patterned paper to 4” x 5¼”. If you like a wider card border, you can cut it to 3 ¾” x 5”. Adhere the patterned paper to the center of the card front with glue or adhesive tape runner, leaving an even border around the outside edge. Adhere the brown strip of cardstock to the center of the card about ½” from the bottom of the patterned paper.

Cut the green cardstock on the diagonal from one corner to make two triangles. Set one aside for a second card. Cut one triangle into four chunky blocks. Adhere these to the brown trunk starting with the largest block about ¾” from the bottom of the trunk, moving upwards with successively smaller pieces and leaving about ¼” or less between the blocks.

Tip: Lay the four blocks out to see what they look like and get the proper spacing, then glue each one down when you are satisfied with how they look

Decorate your tree with sequins, rhinestones, enamel dots, stickers, or tiny buttons as desired. 

That’s it! You did it! You made a Christmas card!

Packages Card

For the second card, you will take the second card base and burnish the folded edge just like you did on the first one. Using the three coordinating patterned papers, cut three rectangles measuring 1 ¾” x 3”, 1 ½” x 2”, 1 ½” x 1 ½”,

To stack the packages, place a line of glue or adhesive on the bottom edge of the smallest piece and lay the middle piece on top of it, overlapping by up to ¼”. Then place a line of glue or adhesive on the bottom edge of the middle piece and adhere the largest piece in the same way. 

Once your three pieces are stacked and your glue is dry, you can add the ribbon. Adhere one end of the ribbon to the back side of the patterned paper so that the ribbon is right side up when you fold it over the front of the packages. Wrap it around the packages and adhere the other end to the back of the packages. 

Adhere the packages to the card base. If you’re good at tying bows, you can add one to the top of the packages for a little extra flair.

Tip: This card works great as a birthday card, too! Just change up the patterned paper!

That’s it for the cards. I hope you enjoyed making them, and if you want to see more of my cards and projects, you can check out my Crafty Neighbor blog and Instagram pages. But if you like the look of homemade cards but don’t want to make them yourself, check out my Etsy shop! And don’t forget to tune in to our podcast starting Wednesday when we talk about this tradition.