When a Giftee Throws Away Your Homemade Gift

More "ask Adam" videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq44ZEe_zMI&list=PLJtitKU0CAeijYFoPJQ9eUcxDZUrpST4n

In quilting, we ask ourselves if the recipients are quilt worthy

Gen X here... In first grade we had an assignment to make ashtrays out of air hardening clay. I gave it to my uncle and 42 years later just after he passed away I was going through his things and found it. He had kept it all those years never used it just kept it. That discovery gave me a profound feeling of happiness that I cannot put into words.

Beautifully said. Many years ago in our poorer day I made a potholder for my MIL for Christmas. I was trying to learn to quilt so it was very basic but made with love. Imagine the sweet surprise when, after she had passed, I found the potholder among her kitchen things...stained, little burn marks on it, but it had been USED. I felt loved and appreciated in that moment. ❤

Several years ago I knitted a blanket for my mom for her birthday. Upon her death a few years later, I found out that she had instructed another family member that upon her passing to be sure the blanket was placed in her casket with her. The blanket covered her bottom half. I can't explain how valued and validated I felt by my mom because of this.

My granddaughter asked me to crochet her a king size blanket. We went to the store and she picked out the color and then we looked up patterns. ( Stitches ). She found one she liked. I'm on disability so I don't have extra money. I spent 140$ on yarn and it took me 6 months to make. She threw it away because she said she didn't like the way it looked on her bed and it took me long to make. She had changed her mind and didn't want it. I was mad because she could have given it back. That was 10 years ago and I'm not over it yet.

Very relatable. My family treats anything I make as "You can't afford to buy me something?" while my friends love the things I make. Sometimes family members are the worst critics.

In my early adulthood I had money trouble. Not terrible but Christmas was always hard for me to come up with good gifts. I fabricate and build things a lot, and I am good at it. My shtick (correct word?) has always been the ability to "make something out of nothing." I made several custom gifts that I thought were great, and took a lot of time for a family member. One was given back to me, completely forgotten that I was the one that made it and gave it to them. One I found buried in storage like a week later. Found a few in the dumpster. Found one on the side of the road for sale. Etc, etc. To me these were very well thought out, individualized, time consuming gifts. I switched to gift cards after that. I was told gift cards are pointless and there is no thought or care put into that crap. Now we don't exchange anything. Or see each other. For other reasons. Even though you won't see this buried in the comments, I appreciate the video. Makes me feel like I'm not the only one feeling things like this.

Simple response: NEVER give that individual another gift.

I make things for people. I can spend a lot of time and effort doing it. However, the recipient is not obligated to like it just because I made it. I always put a note inside a box or on the item, " I made this with my own two hands. If your eyes do not like it, it is perfectly OK. We are all unique and have different tastes. All I ask is that you either return it back to the hands who made it or pass it along to someone special who will love it, as that will fill my heart too! Just please don't throw me out. No matter what, it was given because I care about you!"

A man I really didn't know well did woodwork, and presented me with a small, simple, but lovely bowl that he had made. When he recieved my Thank you note, he sent ME a Thank you and told me that in all the years he had given these, no one had ever written him a Thank you note before. He was over 60.

As an artist, I want to say thank you for making this video, and thank you to the folks writing great comments here.

A happy story about gift giving.... My Aunt worked in libraries, had a masters degree, very high up in the state library system she worked for. She had no kids, and all her life she took care of her mother, until she (my grandmother passed on.) She sent presents every birthday, and Christmas, and cards every holiday, Halloween, Easter, all of them, to each and every niece and nephew she had, always writing that the gift was from Grandma and Aunt Barbara. She lived out of state, but would come to family reunions, all that. I'd never had any lengthy conversation with her until when I was in my mid thirties. Barb had come to out town for a family reunion but her car had broke down and had to be fixed. I was asked to take her with me for the day and she would drop her car off at the mechanics and then come to my house for a visit while the car was being fixed. She was always kind of a quiet person, very gentle and always kind. As we talked, I realized I had an unexpected moment to tell her a little story. I mentioned to her that when I was 15 she send me a book for Christmas about a little girl in an orphanage. Months later I found it on my shelf and decided to read it. And I loved it. Really loved it. I told her that I read it so often that the paperback had disintegrated (but I could still read it!) So when I moved into my first apartment and got my first real paycheck, I went down to local bookstore and asked if they had the book. No. Out of print. But... they did a search and found a copy in a used bookstore in another state that they could order for me. I said yes. Then I showed Aunt Barbara the hardback book I had ordered when I was 19.... pages bent, spine creased, as I still would read either parts or the whole book once every couple of years. Tears feel down Barbara's cheeks. Holding the hardback book, she whispered, "That's,. oh my. You send the gifts and no one really says if it was the right fit for them, you just never know. This.... you reading it into a mess of pages with tape and string, then getting a hardback copy of the book and then still keeping that for years...." Her face was flushed and more tears slide down her cheeks, "That means so very much to me." Sometimes even years later, you find out how much it means to someone that you kept their gift. Or like me, kept the spirit of the gift, a gift I got years of enjoyment out of and which I still, at 63 tears old, have the hardback book and yes, still read it again every couple of years. Now my reading of it is because of her tears. Seeing how much it meant to her that a gift was so treasured. We became actual real friends that day, not just and Aunt and Niece. We called each other once a week at least, just to chat, to have rambling conversations. When she'd call and I'd pick up the phone, she would say, "Hello,. my friend." And that was a present to me to hear that's how she thought of me. I was her friend. And she mine. She passed away just 8 years ago now, but still, I look to the sky a few times a year and I whisper, "Hello, my friend," If you have a gift that was given to you even years ago, It is a thought to mention it to the person, hey, you know that necklace you made me, I still wear it so often, its one of my very favorite peices..... or ..... that huge blanket you crocheted for my son Stone? yea, he's taking it to college with him. He still loves that blanket. If interested, the book I've read and re-read for years was Mandy, by Julie Edwards. Julie Edwards was her maiden name, it was actually Julie Andrews, who is the movie star from the 1960s (?) movie "The Sound of Music". The book was really more suitable for girl around 11 or 12.... but at 15 it was still a magical journey of a little girl finding parents all her own.

I think it's important to remember that because someone doesn't like something, doesn't mean it's bad. When my niece was 5, I was making a commission for someone where I 3D printed a fairy miniature, painted it, then cast it in a clear resin crystal. My niece fell in love with it, so I made a second one for her and she was overjoyed. Over the next few years, I made her a whole bunch of fantasy display minis. A few years later I found out that the pieces I'd spent over 100 hours each on where living in the bottom of her wardrobe, they only came out when I visited. It turned out that she loved fairies specifically, not fantasy stuff in general...but I kept making those things for her and she didn't want to hurt my feelings to tell me she didn't like them. I wasn't hurt, I wasn't offended. I just took the pieces she didn't like back and asked her if she still liked fairies...we spent the next couple hours picking out a model she liked on my minifactory and coming up with a colour scheme. The way I look at it is a machinist could spend weeks making me an absolutely perfect, top of the line golf club, the type of thing a professional golfer would kill for. Me? I have no interest in golf. I wouldn't want that as a gift... but me not wanting it isn't a reflection on the quality of the object or the skill of the maker. On the other hand, for mother's day I gave my mum a minotaur head bust that I'd printed and painted and given goth makeup. Deliberately garish and ugly, It was a pure gag gift, I gave it to her, told her how I'd hand-made it, and how much time I'd put into it, so because it was such a thoughtful hand made gift I expect it to be given pride of place on the mantle in the living room. About an hour later I let her in on the joke, told her she could get rid of it....but four years later it's still there.

I had a college friend who was a woodworker. Went on to do incredible stuff. When I got married, his gift was a cutting board he made, and I CHERISHED that thing and babied it for years because it meant so much more that he made it himself.

My grandmother grew up in early twentieth century. Always poor she hated homemade things. She would turn her nose up when her grandchildren gave her things they made. When I made my own wedding dress she commented how awful it was I couldn’t afford a new dress. She never hid her feelings about home made things. I was always proud of the things I made and wore or the things my mother made for me. You are correct it destroys creativity to have it diminished.

I made a wooden mallet for my neighbor who was born in 1935 from a tree we were cutting up together last year. I was showing it to him yesterday saying I made something from the tree and he just loved it then I told him I was glad he likes it because I made it for him. He teared up, stood up and hugged me.

When I was a kid I went with a friend to her Vacation Bible School where we dyed Cheerios multi colors and strung them on a piece of string for necklaces. I gave it to my mother and she wore it to work. She told me how everyone admired it and were surprised - Cheerios. It got me started on arts and crafts, making odd things out of odd materials. She continued wearing it til she remarried in '95 and moved when she gave it to me. I put the 60(?)-yr-old thing minus some 'beads' in her coffin along with my Dutch rag doll she kept. Mommy was the best; she loved my decorated Xmas present wrappings.

I feel this so much! My mother had an angel cabinet and one year she asked for a new angel for Christmas. I decided that not only would she get a new angel but I would sculpt it by hand. I hadn’t done anything like that before so it took me a good month to complete, although I was very satisfied with the results. Well the morning came and she opened her gift, looked at it in confusion, and set it aside without saying a word. It was soul-crushing! My pops saw how hurt I was and later told me something that I’ve kept in mind every time I’ve gifted a piece since, “She just saw the final piece son. She didn’t see the hours and hours of time and care you put into it. And unfortunately people may not place the same value on it that you do.”. You will continue to grow and get better, but don’t put it on someone else to assign value to your work!

I was a very creative child, but my mother threw everything away that I made for her, the only thing that survived, was a crocheted pan holder that my dad insisted on using. I have one child, now an adult, who constantly made things, they are my treasures. The bulk of her creations are stored safely in old suitcases in the attic, some things are in a box in my bedside cabinet, some things are in a drawer in my lounge, I have the pleasure of seeing them every time I open that drawer. Each little thing is a light that has brightened our journey through life together, it is pure love.