Please buy handmade this year

With all of the commercially-available made items that are surrounded by holiday blitz, it's hard to get back to values.

You can help by buying handmade. A handmade gift supports a family and eases the demand for sweatshop and/or child labor produced items. You get a unique product that no one else will have that is made with love. You get an item that is lead-free, more likely to be eco-friendly, and supports the microbusiness movement.

There are so many wonderful handmade items to be had. You can, of course, find them on Etsy, or through a host of other handmade sites. You can make them yourself. You can buy fair-trade handmade (Ten Thousand Villages in Cherry Creek is a great source of fair-trade).

Replacing even one potential mass-produced gift with a handmade gift can make a world of difference if we all pitch in. Take the handmade pledge at Buy Handmade.

Do it today. Your heart, a handmade artist, and a child in China will thank you.