Why Having a Handmade Gift Plan Is Important

The holidays are over and you are so glad. You’re exhausted, in debt, and feeling determined to do things differently next year. What if you could enjoy the holiday celebrations, give better gifts, and stay within your budget so you don’t accrue holiday debt? It’s definitely possible if you start NOW.

You might be thinking, “Oh my God — it seems like we just got done with the holidays!”

You might be right. Still, it doesn’t negate the fact that your holiday season is stressful AF and every year you wish it could be different.

You are not alone.

Here’s the thing, though. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

And that’s the honest-to-God, hand-to-my-heart truth.

So what does this have to do with handmade gifts? Oh so much.

Holiday planning can be a big topic if you are one who does a lot of it. But I’m guessing you are more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of planner, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this post. So I’m talking to you. YES YOU.

Right now as I type it’s July, and I’m starting to plan my holiday gifts. For me, gifts are the bulk of what I spend my holiday thinking time on. Because I hand craft most of the gifts we give, it’s pretty important for me to start much earlier than seems reasonable.

But you are not me, so I’ll share with you three reasons you need to start making handmade gifts NOW.

You need time to plan a schedule that works for you.

Think about the tasks that go into making handmade gifts:

• planning the gift list
• planning the project list
• planning who gets what
• making the projects for each person
• wrapping and tagging each gift (don’t underestimate the time it takes to do this!)
• sending the gifts (if you have long-distance relatives your are giving to)

That’s a lot, right? No need to be overwhelmed, you just need a plan.

A plan will ensure you finish all of your gift-crafting and shopping on time.

For some reason, we think we have all the time in the world to undertake a big project like making handmade gifts. The truth is:

• Life doesn’t go the way we think it will, so we put it off repeatedly because “something suddenly came up” Every. Single. Month.
• We do all we can just to simply hang on to this crazy life ride and find ourselves scrambling to get our shit together. In November.
• We realize we can’t possibly make handmade gifts, so we come down with a case of the “fukkits” and power shop through the season, spending a lot more than we intended.

Been there? Yeah, most of us who would like to tackle making handmade gifts have!

But what if you haven’t? What if you are great at starting your gifts early in the year, but you get “scramble-brain” and forget what we are trying to do?

• You start the perfect project for so-and-so, get distracted and put it away “for now” only for the project to fall off your radar until it’s too late.
• You start more projects and end up with a thousand WIPs (works in progress) throughout the year, half of which we can’t locate (ever found them a year or two later? Yep, me too.)

So what do we do?

A schedule will keep you on task, holding your place for you so you don’t get lost.

• No more putting projects away indefinitely due to “life happening”.
• No more looking at your gift list and saying, “Welp, I don’t have enough time for THAT.” You’ll have those early projects done already, and hum along, right on time.
• No more wasting time wondering what’s next to work on. You’ll just know!

Your plan will enable you to follow through, stress-free.

• Following a schedule ensures that we will always know where we are in our gift-making plan, eliminating stress and helping you avoid those “fukkits”.
• Your schedule will also enable you to know when you are making each project. This will ensure that ALL of your gifts are ready on time, even if there is curing or extracting time involved.
• You will be able to save yourself enough time to make and decorate cookies with the kids (or grandkids), or make fresh, delicious cookie tins for the mailman or other service person in your life.

“So how do I make a plan?” You ask.

I got you. I’m planning on writing a post on that topic within the next week, so stay tuned to this blog to be notified. Subscribing (top left of this page) will ensure you get notification when the post is published.

Until then, set aside some time to make a holiday gift making plan. Make your gift list, browse this Pinterest board (and others) for inspiration, and psych yourself out! You will LOVE starting this early — or at least the fruit you reap for doing so!