One step at a time to become self suffient....what's next?

[miss_thenorth]

I agree so much with the home made Christmas gifts. My problem is I put love, sweat and tears into my gifts only to hear "oh,...um... thanks". ???
One year I made lap quilts. Those went over well.
One year I made homemade lotions, soaps, bath salts and fizzies. I got the "oh, um.... thanks"
One year I got into pottery ( SO FUN!) I gave bowls with lotions (I ended up starting a home bases business with the soaps, lotions and bath products)
and last year I made Coffee/Tea/Hot Cocoa baskets. I went over to my MIL's house and her's is still on the counter. never even opened. I think my SIL threw her's away because "she's not much into coffee"
I think this year, I'm going to go out to the burn pile and get home made coal.

Last year I got the same response. My sis and I talked and decided we weren't going to exchange gifts fo th kids anymore. (mostly my idea--my kids don't need anything (useless), and I really didn't want to feed into her kids materialistic trend du jour. But I went and made them gifts anyways. My sil and I do things like this often, and she really liked the brownie mix I gave her. I got uhhh, thanks from my sis's daughters.

No matter, I will continue to give my homemade gifts this year b/c I want to.

you could always gift wrap that coal with pretty homemade wrapping paper

 

[chicken stalker]

Wow so many great ideas and tips. I've think I narrowed down the next steps to be Dehydrating, Bee Keeping and Cheese Making. I'm going to study up this winter and hopefully make the next steps Bee purchase, and cow/goat investment in the spring. Of course there is also canning more...LOTS more .

 

[Beekissed]

To Okiegirl and Chickenstalker! So nice to have you here!

I like homemade also, but I have also gotten the Oh...thanks! routine, but mostly from co-workers. The same folks who will buy the same things from a craft store for mega bucks but consider my gift as cheesy, I'm sure.

I got around that once by making up some nice, tea-dyed tags with prices and a phony business name with a crafty sound to it. They LOVED the gifts then because they thought they were from a store somewhere.....go figure!