"I made this, so when you move into your cool new room you always have something to snuggle with."
It may not be perfect, but it was made with love!
— Description of the Handmade Magical Hair Usuki Plushie, Neopets
Everything is more precious when it's made with love. That goes double when it's a special toy that Mom or Dad (and it's usually Mom) made by hand just for you. (If Mom made it, it's usually a doll or stuffed animal, and if Dad made it, it's often a wooden carving of some sort, due to the association of woodcarving with masculinity and sewing with femininity.) Sure, it's not as fancy as the princess dolls in sparkly gowns or the super-cool, gadget-filled toy robots on the shelves at the grocery store, and you might get teased on the playground about how old and worn it looks. But it's the only one of its kind in the whole world, and it's yours.
In the narrative, this toy represents the bond between two characters: the one who made it (usually a parent) and the one it's being given to (usually a child). For extra pathos, the giver is likely to be missing or dead, and the toy is the only thing the receiver has to remember them by. And to stir up drama, the toy may get lost at some point, causing its owner to panic until it's safely recovered.
In another version of this trope, it's the parent who is holding on to the toy as a way to grieve for a lost child—perhaps carrying around a toy they made for their child, or even sadder, mourning a miscarried or stillborn child who never got to play with any toys.
This trope has its roots in Real Life. Before mass-marketed, store-bought toys became popularly available, most toys were handmade by parents and given to children, and many indeed became treasured possessions or even family heirlooms.
Subtrope of Toy-Based Characterization and Handmade Is Better. Related to Sentimental Shabbiness, Security Blanket, and Companion Cube. If the giver is dead, the toy may be an Orphan's Plot Trinket, Tragic Keepsake, and/or Memento MacGuffin. Compare Empathy Doll Shot, and see also Crush the Keepsake, if such an item is callously destroyed.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl: The two-part episode "Pokémon Ranger and the Kidnapped Riolu!" focuses on a Riolu which has been abducted and taken far from home. It is fearful and suspicious of humans, and only begins to trust Ash after he saves its most prized possession from being swept away in a river—a little wooden Riolu doll that its human caretaker carved for it.
Fan Works
- The Rugrats Theory: After Tommy is stillborn, his grieving father Stu spends all his time in the basement inventing toys for his son who never got to live.
Films — Animated
- Encanto: Mirabel sews a stuffed jaguar for Antonio, her youngest cousin, as a gift to help him feel less nervous about his gift ceremony because she knows he loves animals. He greatly cherishes the gift. When their house begins to collapse, Antonio lets his uncle Bruno borrow it to calm his nerves.
Films — Live-Action
- Babe: Subverted when Arthur Hogget makes and gives a homemade dollhouse to his unnamed granddaughter. She rejected it and throws a fit stating that she wants a dollhouse she saw on TV.
- Saw IV: Bobby the Puppet is a harlequin doll that John had made for his unborn son Gideon, and he became very possessive of it during his depression after Jill's miscarriage. In one flashback, John is seen softly touching Bobby after putting it back on a table from which Art accidentally knocked the doll over. Bobby itself would eventually become the basis of the design of the franchise's iconic Billy the Puppet, and was later seen in the background of Saw V and Saw 3D.
Literature
- American Girls Collection: Most of the girls live in historical eras where store-bought toys weren't widely available, or even available at all. Some of them have special handmade dolls made by their mothers.
- Addy has owned two rag dolls, both made by her mother. The first, Janie, was made when she and her family lived in slavery. When she's forced to leave her baby sister Esther behind as she escapes, she gives her Janie to hold on to until they're together again. Later, when she and her mother are living in freedom, her mother makes her another doll for Christmas, this one wearing a beautiful purple dress and little hoop earrings, and stuffed with beans. Addy happily calls her Ida Bean. Her love for both dolls is a reflection of her love for her family.
- Josefina's family has a doll named Niña that was made by her deceased mother and is passed down to each daughter at Christmas the year she turns eight, along with a new doll dress. When Christmas comes and Josefina is old enough to receive Niña, her older sister Clara says she can't find the doll, but it turns out Clara is secretly keeping Niña for comfort because she misses their mother so much. Josefina is upset, but Tía Dolores convinces her to let the matter go for the time being and keeps the sisters busy teaching them colcha embroidery to fix the damaged Christmas altar cloth. Finally, on Christmas Eve, Clara feels she is ready to give Niña to Josefina, and even continues the tradition by making her a new doll dress that matches Josefina's. She explains that she thought Niña was all she had left of their mother, but repairing the altar cloth helped her realize she has their mother's gift for embroidery.
- Cookie: Beauty's favorite toy is a ragdoll handmade by her mother, which she calls PJ, short for Plain Jane. She looks a little lopsided, but Beauty loves her anyway and finds her comforting.
- Discworld: Subverted in Hogfather. When Albert recounts how he'd gotten a hand-carved wooden horse from his father instead of the huge store-bought rocking horse he'd wanted for Hogswatchnight, Death thinks it was a heartwarming moment. Albert retorts that sort of sentimental stuff is how adults think, and children are short-sighted, selfish little bastards. Besides, his father got drunk and stepped on it later that same day.
Live-Action TV
- Coroner: Darkly subverted in "The Bridges" confronted by Gerald Henry Jones, Jenny tries to appeal to his sentimentality arguing despite his faults his father must have loved him as he whittled him a toy out of wood. Only for Jones to reveal his father never gave him anything and that it was himself who whittled it, years later using the same Chisel to kill his father and all his other victims.
- Lost Ollie: Billy's mother made Ollie the stuffed rabbit for him when he was just a baby. Billy is shown to be very close to his mom, as such, and his friendship with Ollie remains for years to come. Ollie also becomes a Tragic Keepsake for Billy after his mother dies from an illness, at least until he abandons Ollie in an attempt to look mature.
- Sweet Tooth: Gus is very attached to his stuffed animal Dog, which his father made for him and which is Gus' last tangible reminder to his father after the latter passes away.
Webcomics
- Unsounded: The eight-year-old Matty Quigley
has Chitz, a small stuffed blob that his mother sewed for him — very poorly, albeit with love. Since the attack that killed her and blinded him, it doubles as a Tragic Keepsake and is enchanted to "see" for him; he treats it like it's alive and keeps it on his shoulder.
Web Video
- Critical Role: Campaign Three: The werewolf gnome woodcarver Chetney Pock O'Pea is a Grumpy Old Man (over 400, and proportionately grumpy), but as he becomes friends with the Player Party, he starts making each of them a personalized wooden toy. Out of character, Travis Willingham actually made the physical toys to give to his castmates.
Video Games
- Bioshock 2: Eleanor keeps a doll she made herself of her Big Daddy, Delta, as a memento of him after being separated from him by her mother.
- In Fallout 4, potential companion/romantic interest MacCready gives you a handmade toy soldier that his deceased wife Lucy carved and gave to him when they were teenagers. Upon reaching max affinity with him, since he can't offer you something of greater monetary worth after helping to save his son's life, he gives you his most sentimentally valuable item.
MacCready: "I figure I owe you something... and I always pay my debts. Here... I wanted you to have this. I know a carved toy soldier is a strange reward for risking your life, but this one's special... it means a lot to me."
- Fuga: Melodies of Steel: When you rescue Sheena, all she has left is her life, her unwanted magical powers, and Bleuette, the doll her mother made for her.
- Genshin Impact:
- Klee goes nowhere without Dodoco, a doll her sorceress mother Alice made for her. In the first Golden Apple Archipelago story, the plot involves someone named Dodo-king threatening to take Dodoco away from Klee as she is not worthy...turns out it was just Alice making sure that her little girl and her friends had a great summer vacation on some tropical islands.
- The unnamed child that Scaramouche befriended made a doll in his image. It got burnt to ash along with the child's house after his death. Scaramouche, after becoming Wanderer, learns embroidery from toymakers in Sumeru and recreates the doll at some point.
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: If Sol searches through their belongings after the Faceless attack in Year 5, they retrieve only the first handmade doll Tammy gave to them.
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Ventus carries a wooden replica of his Keyblade, symbolizing his relationship with Terra, Ventus, and Aqua during their time training under Master Eraqus. Their falling-out at Radiant Garden deeply affects Ventus, but his visit to Neverland inspires him to leave the trinket behind in the Lost Boys' treasure chest; secure in the knowledge that their friendship transcends the object itself. Tragically, Vanitas gets a hold of the item and cruelly breaks it in front of Aqua during her arrival later.
Western Animation
- Rugrats: Chuckie's favorite toy is a worn-out teddy bear named Wawa that was made by his deceased mother, Melinda.
