I’m not talking about about personal taste, like wood vs pottery or country vs frilly. I’m talking about the the end product itself.
Like, I absolutely don’t get “Time-out Babies” - the 2-3 foot tall stuffed dolls posed facing into corners, like a toddler being punished. I kinda sorta understand the covers for upright vacuum cleaners that look like ladies in long dresses - I guess if you don’t have a closet to store your vacuum, the covers could be preferable. But Time-out Babies?? Just this week, I saw a Time-out Bunny. Left me shaking my head.
Maybe I’m just boringly practical. I don’t like knick-knacky stuff. Little figurines or crocheted toilet roll covers or padded, lace trimmed photo albums don’t appeal to me. Most craft shows leave me perplexed - I appreciate the work people put into the stuff they’re trying to sell. But why would they think the decorated straw hat is the sort of item that someone would want hanging on their wall. I must be missing something.
I don’t want this to devolve into a rant. But I don’t think I’m alone in this. Share your stories of hand-crafted items that stunned you in a sorta way. And stuff that kids make in camp don’t count here, unless it’s a really funny story.
I never understood the “dress” for a bottle of dish detergent that goes on the counter by the sink. You know, a bottle of Dawn or Joy for handwashing dishes? They make little dresses for them, like a scaled-down version of the vacuum cleaner dress, but for the dish detergent.
I also don’t get the Time-Out Baby. It’s just stupid-looking to me, but I haven’t seen them lately. Maybe (hopefully?) that fad is dying out.
When my husband and I got married, someone gave us a photo album with the cover all lace-trimmed and peacock-feathered and hand-beaded beyond belief, with our wedding invitation centered and decoupaged within an inch of its life on the cover. It was pretty, I guess, but just not my style at all. Not something I’d have out on the coffee table, to be sure, but I can certainly appreciate the work that went into it.
It was one of those albums with the “magnetic” pages, like a loose-leaf binder, where you peel up the clear piece and lay the photos down and cover it with the clear sheet. I’ve heard that they’re bad for photos, so I never put anything in it.
[hijack]I was visiting my uncle’s-in-law house about a year ago. I’d been sitting on the sofa in his living room for about twenty minutes when I spot something odd out of the corner of my eye.
“What the hell is that?” I think to myself. That thought was followed immediately by, “OH MY GOD THERE’S A LITTLE KID IN THE CORNER AND HE’S BEEN THERE THE ENTIRE TIME I’VE BEEN SITTING HERE!!!”
Needless to say, I eventually figured out it was a doll. That was the first time I’d ever seen one, though.[/hijack]
What I don’t get are those country wall shelves that usually have a heart cut-out. I guess people stain them, hang them and place sundry knick-knacks on them. But why? They’re so ugly!
I’ll third the notion that fake punished kids in the house makes no sense to me!
On the same subject as time out babies… I don’t grasp the little lawn kids/animals that look like they are peeing.
And I agree that the dress for the dish soap is silly too. Do we really need to be ashamed of the fact that we wash our dishes with gasp soap?
I also don’t get the straw broom on the wall or the straw anything on the wall. Yum something to shed pieces of flowers for my cats to eat and vomit up on my carpet… Yay me
I just went to a local classic car show about two weeks ago and the time-out babies were all over the place. Especially sick was what I guess was supposed to be a time-out dog. The people had it arranged so that it’s head was under the car tire, looking like it had been run over. Buncha freaks.
Wooden cutouts of fat people bending over in the yard. They were mildly clever the first couple times I saw them but now they’re just tacky.
Also, the little outfits for concrete geese. Now, concrete geese are strange enough (although lately I’ve been seeing a lot of pigs, cats, and even a gorilla–I must admit, I dig the gorilla) but why would they need to be clothed? Are concrete animals modest? My mother has taken this idea and applied it to the horribly kitschy pink flamingos in her flower bed. At Christmas time they get Santa hats, and at Halloween, they’re covered with ghost sheets. ::groan::
Another one who doesn’t get the Time-Out Kids. Nor do I understand crocheted covers for toilet paper rolls, dish soap, toilet SEATS, or vacuum cleaners. I also don’t get lawn ornaments (particularly the “knickers up” figures and the fake white deer) or candle shades (lamp shades for jar candles.)
Yeah - what’s wrong with ordinary gnomes and flamingos?!?
Another lawn thing that weirded me out were the wooly “sheep” - how nasty did they get after a few rain showers?? I expect their synthetic coats didn’t weather well.
Anything with geese has to go. I cannot take them anymore. Ditto on the crocheted toilet paper covers and all that crap. Give me something that resembles art, thankyouverymuch! Something truly beautiful (or at least attempting to be beautiful). All that cutsie crap has GOT to GO.
Oh and plastic canvas tissue box covers. All they seem to do is collect dust and tear my tissues!
My husband’s grandmother tried to unload a ton of crocheted bathroom “essentials” on us when we got our own place. No really bright yellow and pink will never be welcome in my bathroom and if I need TP I don’t need to be wrestling it out of some overdressed debutante’s behind!
My aunt does that plastic-netting-cross-stictch stuff. I’m doing evasive manoeuvers to avoid getting any.
You know those cloth craft bunnies with the painted on faces? My ex’s aunt gave him one of those (which I think I still have). It was all dresed up in a cutesy floral dress and hanging by its arms from a piece of what looked like barbed wire! With this great expression of patient suffering.
They immediately christened it, “Torture Rabbit”. I don’t know what his aunt was thinking.
I don’t like cutesy stuff. Especially pink cutesy stuff with bunnies and little chicks.
Bahahahahaha! Thanks for the belly-laugh. I do craft shows for a living, and now I’ll think of your comment whenever I see a booth full of those.
I concur completely with y’all on the timeout kids. They are even more disturbing when you see a vendor walking by with armloads of stiff little bodies first thing in the morning at set-up time. People are still making them around here, but I don’t think they sell well anymore. The crafters who rely on timeout kids seem to leave the shows early in the day with sour faces, complaining that the show sucks, and it’s all the promoter’s fault that they didn’t have more customers.
Last Christmas, I saw a display of “praying” angels made in this fashion. The first thing I thought was, “Timeout angels…timeout angels? Haaaahn?” I guess the customers had the same reaction, because I didn’t 'xactly see them flying out of her booth…
And now…
In honor of Easter and crocheted monstrosities eveywhere, may I present the Poopie Duck!
wow … I am so very, very glad I have never heard of Time-Out Babies, or Angels. I haven’t seen a crochet toilet-paper cover since the last time I visited an old person’s house (and that’s forgivable, since they probably don’t have much better to do than crochet dresses for their bog rolls) and the worst I’ve seen other than that are corn-husk dolls with heads made of dried apples - not my thing, but still not a stuffed baby!
How did I get to be so lucky? I guess I just don’t go to enough church bazaars.
Like others here, I don’t get the cutsie-poo stuff - it’s just not “me”. Since I hate housework, I can’t imagine having to dust all that stuff. Frilly anything leaves me cold. I guess I’m just cute-challenged.
I agree about the Timeout Kids being atrocious (Blair Witch anyone?) and shelves/cabinets with heart- or bow-shaped cutouts. Heart-shaped anything will never find its way into my house without a bloody fight. Various crocheted or quilted covers for appliances are also nightmarish. I’ve been in a house where nearly the entire toilet – tank, lid, and seat – were covered in fuschia crochet. Or how about those hyper-embellished guest towels? Sure, you can dry your fingertips on them if you can find a spot without three yards of lace and ribbon roses.
a) where does one get a mini concrete gorilla thing? God I want one.
b) I’ve always wanted an honest to goodness gnome for my back yard, but I have never seen a really really good one. I want one like from the movie Amelie. The ones I have seen are bad ripoffs and painted horribly.
c)the children in the corner. wow. Those are bad. Did you know they have holiday outfits for them too?
I hate the rut that crafts have gotten into, color-wise and theme-wise. I used to cross-stitch, but I got annoyed because there’s some unwritten rule that every cross-stitch pattern in the world must be some annoying country scene (ducks, hearts, little girls in bonnets, blech!) and must be in pastel pinks and blues.
I love embroidery, hate the ‘country’ style. Is that so wrong?
sorta way. And stuff that kids make in camp don’t count here, unless it’s a really funny story. 
