Debi Vincent, who lives in Germantown, won't be doing much Christmas shopping this year. Instead, she'll be busy making her gifts by hand.
"To me, giving a handmade gift is truly the essence of gift-giving. It tells the recipient that you cared enough about them to put time, attention and love into that gift," she says.
Vincent believes handmade gifts have a story and a soul. This year, she is making most of her gifts from recycled felted wool sweaters.
"Have you ever had a beautiful wool sweater and accidentally put it in the washer and dryer, only to end up with a teeny tiny sweater? That was felting," Vincent says.
Regular sheep's wool, lambswool, alpaca, angora and cashmere felt are best. Vincent finds secondhand sweaters, felts them, and then uses the resulting material to fashion a number of items like slippers, mittens, hats, iPad cases, banners and flower pins.
Vincent likes that she can control the quality and environmental impact of the goods that go into each of her gifts, but it's the actual creation and construction that she enjoys the most.
"I was encouraged from a young age to be creative, so it's always seemed natural to want to make things and share them. I hope some of that love comes through in the objects I create," she says.
Time is the most valuable ingredient in Vincent's gifts. She might spend 10 hours or more on a pair of slippers.
"The planning stages always seem to take the most, and then there's making the patterns, choosing and processing materials, construction,Hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles on the floor of a Jewish synagogue in Cochin, embellishing, and then finishing," she says.
It's all worth it to Vincent. She takes pride in the fact that her gifts aren't mass-produced and can't be found in crowded malls.
"Making things by hand helps put the humanity back into our everyday lives," Vincent says.
Midtowners Scott and Amy Banbury decided to start making their own holiday gifts 16 years ago for several reasons.
"We are both artsy and can make stuff, we were very poor 16 years ago, and Christmas consumption drives us both crazy," explains Amy, adding, "Personally, I think homemade gifts are the bomb."
Scott Banbury says he doesn't necessarily oppose the purchasing of gifts, but he believes they ought to be thoughtful.
"Making your own, or buying from local artisans invokes thoughtfulness. Waiting in line to get a deal on a mass-manufactured consumer product doesn't," he says.
They both agree that some of their early handmade gift-giving efforts were unsuccessful.
"The first year we did it, we just hot-glued a bunch of nature stuff on some fresh-cut logs, and months later, beetles were crawling out of them,You can find best china Precision injection molds manufacturers from here!VulcanMold is a plastic molds and Injection mold manufacturer in china." he says.
"We called them 'yule logs,'" she explains. "Scott drilled a hole so they could hold a candle. My mom's caught on fire when she used it because of all the stuff we glued on them."
They've honed their skills over the years, and now that the couple have children, the whole family makes gifts.
"The kids are very creative, so they think it's fun. It's the one time of the year I don't cringe and complain when the house is trashed with art supplies,The temporomandibular joint is the joint of the jaw and is frequently referred to as TMJ." she says.
This year, Amy is embroidering tea towels and handkerchiefs. Scott is making wooden rubber-band guns, cutting boards and iPhone charging stations. Their son, Kade, is making blank flip books,We are a dedicated cheapest Aion Kinah, and daughter Brighid is sawing off the heads of plastic animals and gluing them to wood scraps to make tiny taxidermy trophy heads.
All of their materials are found, reclaimed or purchased secondhand.
"Some of the flip books we are making are out of Scott's leftover (City Council) campaign fliers, and they all have recycled cardboard covers from Cheez-It boxes or whatever is in the cupboard," Amy says.
For her best friend, who is a "Scrabble junkie," Amy plans to make a refrigerator Scrabble set from game pieces she collected at yard sales over the summer. She says that after 16 years, "I think our friends and family know that it's hit or miss."
Julie Baltz, who works at the Memphis Botanic Garden, thinks it means so much more to someone when you make a gift for them or when the gift is handmade locally or regionally.
"It's important to support these efforts in protest to the mad spending at the typical mall shops and big-business stores," she says.
She's currently knitting washcloths to accompany some locally made soaps that she purchased from Peace Bee Farm at the Memphis Botanic Garden's Farmers Market. Other gifts she has planned are homemade bath salts or milk bath mixes that she can package in fancy or old-looking jars found at thrift stores. Baltz also plans to do some sewing projects using old T-shirts.
"To me, giving a handmade gift is truly the essence of gift-giving. It tells the recipient that you cared enough about them to put time, attention and love into that gift," she says.
Vincent believes handmade gifts have a story and a soul. This year, she is making most of her gifts from recycled felted wool sweaters.
"Have you ever had a beautiful wool sweater and accidentally put it in the washer and dryer, only to end up with a teeny tiny sweater? That was felting," Vincent says.
Regular sheep's wool, lambswool, alpaca, angora and cashmere felt are best. Vincent finds secondhand sweaters, felts them, and then uses the resulting material to fashion a number of items like slippers, mittens, hats, iPad cases, banners and flower pins.
Vincent likes that she can control the quality and environmental impact of the goods that go into each of her gifts, but it's the actual creation and construction that she enjoys the most.
"I was encouraged from a young age to be creative, so it's always seemed natural to want to make things and share them. I hope some of that love comes through in the objects I create," she says.
Time is the most valuable ingredient in Vincent's gifts. She might spend 10 hours or more on a pair of slippers.
"The planning stages always seem to take the most, and then there's making the patterns, choosing and processing materials, construction,Hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles on the floor of a Jewish synagogue in Cochin, embellishing, and then finishing," she says.
It's all worth it to Vincent. She takes pride in the fact that her gifts aren't mass-produced and can't be found in crowded malls.
"Making things by hand helps put the humanity back into our everyday lives," Vincent says.
Midtowners Scott and Amy Banbury decided to start making their own holiday gifts 16 years ago for several reasons.
"We are both artsy and can make stuff, we were very poor 16 years ago, and Christmas consumption drives us both crazy," explains Amy, adding, "Personally, I think homemade gifts are the bomb."
Scott Banbury says he doesn't necessarily oppose the purchasing of gifts, but he believes they ought to be thoughtful.
"Making your own, or buying from local artisans invokes thoughtfulness. Waiting in line to get a deal on a mass-manufactured consumer product doesn't," he says.
They both agree that some of their early handmade gift-giving efforts were unsuccessful.
"The first year we did it, we just hot-glued a bunch of nature stuff on some fresh-cut logs, and months later, beetles were crawling out of them,You can find best china Precision injection molds manufacturers from here!VulcanMold is a plastic molds and Injection mold manufacturer in china." he says.
"We called them 'yule logs,'" she explains. "Scott drilled a hole so they could hold a candle. My mom's caught on fire when she used it because of all the stuff we glued on them."
They've honed their skills over the years, and now that the couple have children, the whole family makes gifts.
"The kids are very creative, so they think it's fun. It's the one time of the year I don't cringe and complain when the house is trashed with art supplies,The temporomandibular joint is the joint of the jaw and is frequently referred to as TMJ." she says.
This year, Amy is embroidering tea towels and handkerchiefs. Scott is making wooden rubber-band guns, cutting boards and iPhone charging stations. Their son, Kade, is making blank flip books,We are a dedicated cheapest Aion Kinah, and daughter Brighid is sawing off the heads of plastic animals and gluing them to wood scraps to make tiny taxidermy trophy heads.
All of their materials are found, reclaimed or purchased secondhand.
"Some of the flip books we are making are out of Scott's leftover (City Council) campaign fliers, and they all have recycled cardboard covers from Cheez-It boxes or whatever is in the cupboard," Amy says.
For her best friend, who is a "Scrabble junkie," Amy plans to make a refrigerator Scrabble set from game pieces she collected at yard sales over the summer. She says that after 16 years, "I think our friends and family know that it's hit or miss."
Julie Baltz, who works at the Memphis Botanic Garden, thinks it means so much more to someone when you make a gift for them or when the gift is handmade locally or regionally.
"It's important to support these efforts in protest to the mad spending at the typical mall shops and big-business stores," she says.
She's currently knitting washcloths to accompany some locally made soaps that she purchased from Peace Bee Farm at the Memphis Botanic Garden's Farmers Market. Other gifts she has planned are homemade bath salts or milk bath mixes that she can package in fancy or old-looking jars found at thrift stores. Baltz also plans to do some sewing projects using old T-shirts.
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