National Handmade Day is celebrated on the first Saturday in April. At Artcraft, we celebrate and encourage the handmade movement every day.

For products like technology devices or homes appliances, it's obviously important to have standardized quality. Factory-produced goods can also be  affordable and convenient. However, handmade furniture, homeware and clothing can bring other values to your life.

Here are four ways that items made by hand differ from factory-made goods and why they're a better choice in many situations.

Character

Factories are set up to mass produce identical items, and computer programmed machines help ensure this is the case. Handmade goods are unique. While the maker might produce a line of very similar products, no two items will be exactly identical. Many handmade goods are actually one-of-a-kind.

Process

Factories are modelled on maximizing efficiencies, and have multiple specialized machines for every aspect of production. Handmade items usually take more time and care to produce, since one person is doing all the work from a small-scale studio or home based business. 

Environmental Impact

People making handmade objects are working at a smaller scale by necessity, and are using less resources than bigger producers. Their products are probably not travelling far if they are going to a retail shelf and tend to have less packaging overall, which means less waste and less energy for recycling/disposal. 

Cost

Because of their time invested, creative input and different access to resources, individual artisans and makers must often charge more per item than factory made goods are sold for  -- although the profit they receive in return may be far less. Mass producers can achieve economies of scale that allow them to charge less for items. The largest producers often locate production in countries with low wage rates for even larger cost savings. But the higher cost of handmade goods is a positive for some consumers, because it encourages more thoughtful consumption. Buying fewer items that have more meaning and personal value is good for everyone.