Save Handmade!

As someone just starting out in the handmade selling biz, this news is rather distressing.  Sure it won't affect my prints, journals, paintings, collages, or any paper art,  but who knows where it could eventually lead?  It could affect my etsy store with the bibs my mom has made, and it would definitely affect the stuffed toys I've been thinking about making.  Baby Man may be the only one who ever sees them.

An excerpt from the article:

The January 20 2009 deadline for millions of American homecrafters to object to a new law requiring expensive testing of their products, is approaching fast. Child-products without certificates proving they have no lead content, will have to be scrapped.

The new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – passed hastily to bar poisonous foreign products – also will require millions of American homecrafters to have each of their products tested at huge cost, ranging from $500 to $4000 per product – including their old stock which was manufactured before this law had even been thought up. See law here

Formal complaints against this act must be lodged before January 20 2009 Comments must be labelled: Section 102 Mandatory Third-Party Testing of Component Parts'. Lodge complaints here

Without the CPSI certificate of compliance, millions of homecrafters selling their products on EBay, at fairs, in home-shops and at charity shops face conviction under this Act, which goes into effect on February 10 this year. Convinction carries tens of thousands of dollars in fines and potentially even jail time.

It seems so many things are done in haste these days, with no thought to the small business out there. Please, lodge your complaints and help save handmade.