Attention if you sell Children's products You need to know what the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is !

[Rebecca Holloway]

I am posting this information about the new regulation taking place
Feb 10 2009 that will effect many of us handmade crafters. If you
sell products for children than you need to take a look at this page!
It looks like thanks to this new law I will have close my doors and now I am looking for a new job.
:(

Handmade Toy Alliance http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org

The following is information from their web page about the new law...

In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to
China and other developing countries violated the public's trust.
They were selling toys with dangerously high lead content, toys with
unsafe small parts, toys with improperly secured and easily swallowed
small magnets, and toys made from chemicals that made kids sick.
Almost every problem toy in 2007 was made in China.

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer
Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing
to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they
passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August,
2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys,
mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and
requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and
batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy
manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands
of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for
testing and updating their molds to include batch labels.
For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however, the
costs of mandatory testing, to the tune of up to $4,000 per toy, will
likely drive them out of business. And the handful of larger toy
makers who still employ workers in the United States face increased
costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had
nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007. Toy makers won't
be the only ones impacted by the CPSIA, the thousands of US
businesses who offer clothing, jewelry and other gifts for children --
in essence-- the entire children's industry will be as well.

The CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of toys that have earned
and kept the public's trust. The result, unless the law is modified,
is that handmade children's products will no longer be legal in the
US.

Thriving small businesses are crucial to the financial health of our
nation. Let's amend the CPSIA so that all businesses large and small
are able to comply and survive!
Handmade Toy Alliance http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org

[Rebecca Holloway]

I make my own hand made Juggling sticks. I use material from a national retail fabric store and I purchase wood dowel form a Chicago manufacturer, but I use recycled bike tires for the body of my sticks. I am kind of in a grey area with the recycled material. I also have a friend who sells Pillow case dress made form vintage children's pillow case. We are very confused. I would think since most of my material is manufactured in the US and available to the general public as an end product those should be ok. My big concern is the recycled material and where that falls.

[Sarah Brown]

I agree that we can't have stuff from China coming in and harming our kids! BUT that's why I always love to buy toys that are made in the USA, handmade, or made in Europe for my kids. I love one of a kind handmade wooden toys. Are you sure that this will make it illeagal for artists to sell children's products that are one of a kind?

[Sarah Brown]

What if you just put stickers on all of your products that say "Not designed for use by children under the age of 18, due to the new safety laws that prohibit the sale of handmade toys for children." Kids play with stuff that is not designed for children anyway, we may just have several new lines of "Handmade Toys for Parents". I get raw milk through a cow share, I can't buy the milk, but I can buy the cow and pay someone else to milk it and bottle the milk for me.