Does anyone appreciate handmade/homemade anymore?

I'm sitting here typing this as I look out the window and at the neighbor's Halloween decorations.  She has numerous items up and did a pretty darn good job decorating, but three of the things caught my attention.  The other day I had a discussion with J,, and then a second with my mom about the cost of making things yourself.  I.e. furniture, blankets, clothes, etc.  J and I have been very much into doing our own thing lately rather than having to continue to buy from stores like Walmart and Target and we've really been enjoying creating these items, but there's a hitch.  It's EXPENSIVE!  So the two conversations revolved around the why of this.  Why is it so expensive to make your own stuff these days?  J's perspective is supply and demand on the part of items necessary to do it yourself.  Wood for instance is incredibly costly.  He thinks the cost is so high because there are so many people buying wood for do it yourself or craft projects that suppliers can demand a higher cost and they get it.  My mom and I however, believe that it is all strictly due to mass production.  Why would you spend $15 on yarn to knit or crochet yourself a scarf when you can go to the store and buy it, already made, for that cost or lower?  Is convenience the catalyst here?  After all, convenience has made us fatter, lazier and more demanding/expecting of everything, so why wouldn't it make us unappreciative of goods that good old fashioned hard work went into?

The neighbor across the street has in her yard a little ghost sign on a stake as well as Lucy and Linus cutouts.  These are the types of decorations that are made on thin sheets of plywood, cut out to the shape of the character and then painted to look like them.  Something that I've only ever seen sold at craft fairs.  I thought to myself, "I love buying stuff, especially holiday decorations, at craft fairs.  Sure, it's more expensive, but it's so much cooler to have something that was handmade rather than mass produced."  But given the vastly large numbers of mass produced items today, it really made me wonder, does anyone appreciate handmade/homemade anymore?  While walking around our neighborhood it's obvious that most people (probably 99%) have only decorations that have come from a store.  Hardly ever do you see anything that came from a craft fair.  To me, there is nothing better than handmade/homemade goods because you know they were crafted with love and passion. 

Whether it be a piece of furniture or a loaf of homemade bread, I'll take the handmade/homemade any day.