Something Important to Talk About

I've been involved with an online community called Hyenacart for almost 2 years now. It started with a moderate addiction to finding cute handmade cloth diapers for Avari, and has spiraled now to include a good percentage of my shopping. I am a huge advocate for Work At Home Moms (affectionately known in the community as WAHMS), and also for handmade items. I think it is so important for our economy and the world now to start thinking about what we are buying, and where it was made.

I used to be a huge consumer. Living in downtown Vancouver and Victoria, it's hard to get away from the constant stream of everything that is screaming at you to buy it. In Powell River, welll.... not so much! We don't have a very big shopping district, and there isn't the same type of fashion frenzy here. Even my beloved MAC makeup has fallen by the wayside. I'm still de-cluttering 4 years later from city life!!! Kevin and I now are pretty "poor" consumers - besides food, we don't purchase a heck of a lot. Kevin just buys books, I think we're at the rate of buying 4 or 5 pieces of clothing a year for ourselves, and I am a yarn and fabric hoarder. (I can justify this with the intention of creating very useful items of clothing for ourselves). Otherwise, we've learned to not need things. We're lucky to have wonderful parents that provide so much for Avari, or else she'd probably be living in the land of frugal with us!

OK- so where am I going with all of this right? We don't "need" to have all of the things that we think that we want. We don't need 4 bottles of expensive shampoo and a cabinet full of cosmetics (except the contact solution). We don't need to shop huge corporations! Trust me, we're living proof here. About the only thing we look at at Walmart are fabric sewing patterns. So why do we do it?

Have you ever sat down and thought about the carbon footprint for every piece of something that you buy? From the factories that build it, to the gas to get it to the store, to get it to your home- I'm sure it's huge! What about shopping close to home and getting back to how we used to do things?

We know that handmade items last longer, and are better for the earth. There is always the excuse that it costs more - of course it does! There are actual hands creating it for you, as opposed to a machine. Trying to be a WAHM in this day and age is pretty thankless. June of Rising Sun Earthworks (the most incredible pottery you've ever seen), estimates that she makes .25 cents an hour from doing her craft, because in order to stay mildly competitive, she has to lower her prices. Yet she does it for hours a day, because she loves her craft and loves to make things for people and the demand is there.

Think about this though. What if we got out of the habit of buying so much, and then buying just the items we need. It would be OK then, to spend more on one item - you'd still probably end up better off in the long run. The Waldorf Community has a wonderful philosophy for dolls A beautiful hand made, all natural 15" doll runs about $110 right now. (That makes your eyes want to pop out of your head right?). Think about it this way? How many cheap plastic, 20$ baby do this and thats are you buying your child in the first 3 years of their life? It probably ads up to more 6 doesn't it? Waldorf believes that a child should have a doll that they can bond to and cherish, that they don't need to have a whole closet full (which are stuffed in the closet because they can't fully appreciate them all). If we follow the Waldorf philosophy in life, things start to get a little clearer...


I'm rambling again because this is something that I'm getting really passionate about. If you're interested in making your life just a little bit more handmade and close to the heart, there is a pledge at http://www.buyhandmade.org/ . It was geared towards the Christmas Holidays, but there is a ton of information and links about the movement. There is a big discussion going on in the Hyenacart forums about a challenge that we can present to help get people moving on this issue- I'm of course running away with the idea, trying to come up with an idea to create a site and website banners and all of that...

keep you posted!