Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Christmas in August?

i know nobody wants to talk about Christmas in August... but i do :o) we've recently decided that this Christmas will be different for us. after a really empty-feeling gift giving season last year, i have a plan to change that this year. the Speers will only be giving handmade/homemade items as gifts. this will accomplish two goals. 1) lower the cost of buying gifts for us 2) support the little man (see below)

shortly i will be drafting a letter to our friends and family begging them to not spoil us this year. we don't need more stuff and i don't want to feel badly for making them a frame made of popsicle sticks when they give us a big screen TV (slight exaggeration on both ends). with the economy the way it is right now money is hard to come by so i will be encouraging our friends and family to use it well and to not go overboard.

if i can't make it i will purchase the handmade from vendors at craft shows or from this great website called Etsy. Etsy makes it possible for anyone to sell (some really amazing) handmade items. in fact using Etsy will probably help me nix that popsicle project and be able to hand out some really cool gifts.... on top of supporting the small time people. Walmart does not need any more of my money, but these folks could probably really benefit from some extra cash. i should mention that the prices (especially shipping costs) are really low.

5 comments:

~Beth D. said...

I love the idea, we've been toying with that too. we(meaning my mom and dad) have 6 grandkids now and we draw names, so each kid is buying for one other kid, keeping cost and "stuff" down. The kids love shopping for eachother and we can spent a little more on ONE kid rather than spread the cost out to 6 kids. Thanks for the site, i've looked around it before, pretty cool!

~Beth D. said...

I must say that I am addicted to Etsy now! i've been looking around it all weekend and have decided on gifts already. i've even found patterns to make stuff! Thanks Dia.

adiaspeer said...

yeah i'm totally addicted to Etsy too... there is such cute stuff on there!

oh and it's a great idea to draw names. once we get a few more kids in our family i think we'll do that too.

T~ said...

I LOVE Etsy! I have purchased so many great gifts for others...and my self! Love you blog too!

Tiff

~rob said...

Every night since you posted this, our home has been punctuated with gasps of "Oh, that's cute..." which are usually followed by "Rob, look at this!"

You've definately gotten Beth addicted! Thanks for the site. I love the idea of giving "home brew" gifts.