The people who buy them see them as display pieces and something more like "huggable art" than like toys. The word toy devalues them a lot, I think, because a toy is something you give to a child to rip apart and play with in the tub and kick around outside. Art is something you value highly and display proudly and are willing to pay a lot of money for, especially since they can't be produced exactly the same way twice. And as far as I'm concerned, money is money. It's there to spend and if you keep it all hoarded up waiting for something truly worthy to come along then in the end you're going to have a lot of money and not a whole lot to show for it. It could be said that a trip isn't worth the money either, because after the trip's over, you don't have money or a trip. If hand made plushies make people happy enough to buy them, then people should buy them. If a trip is worth it to you, then you should buy it. Honestly, people paid hundreds of dollars for TWINKIES when it looked like there wouldn't be any more, and that's just a nasty snack cake, but if it makes them happy, more power to them.



I want to clarify that I'm not attacking you or anything, I just firmly believe we should be paying out artists what their time is worth. (By USA standards, at least $7.50 an hour (minimum wage) plus materials or more for skilled work) In many instances, artists get paid grossly less than what they deserve because people qualify what they do as a "hobby" or qualify what they make as a "toy" or think that they deserve less money because "they get to have fun while they do it" and that just doesn't make sense.



Anyway, I don't think the other plush makers were being rude by not responding to you, honestly I get so many comments half the time I get freaked out by the sheer volume and take weeks to answer any that are by people I haven't spoken to before, sometimes I take weeks to answer any at all. It's kind of difficult to think of unique things to say so people don't feel like I'm copy-pasting the same message over and over, so I definitely get where other plush makers are coming from with only answering a few comments.