CPSIA

Well, I don't know how many of you have heard about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act or CPSIA. If you haven't, it's basically a law that is going to be requiring all manufactures and retailers of children's products to have third party lead testing done. Now, this seems like a great idea, right? There were all those lead scares form China last year, so yeah, we want our kids protected from lead. The problem with law is that third party lead testing is super expensive and the requirement to test all children's products will effectively put all small handmade businesses out of commission. It doesn't matter is the materials were tested before the business bought them and created something with them. They have to test thetm theirsleves. I don't know if many of you are familiar with Etsy or any other small handmade business out there, but many of these are places run by stay at home moms. Now, I am all for keeping lead away from my kids, don't get me wrong. But, really, do I need to be concerned about the hair bow I bought from the mom who bought the ribbon to make the bow from Michael's? Not thinking I do. I'm not sure this post is making a ton of sense, but this is a really bad piece of legislation that was passed. So, check out this post on MomDot to get a better idea of what I am rambling about, or click on the Save Homemade button on the top right of my page.

I understand the need to keep lead out of our kids' stuff, but most of the scares we have had have come from China. Basically, this law would make it impossible to sell any handmade children's products. There are some truly amazing and beautiful products made by very talented people out there that will not be available after February 10th because of this law. I, personally, enjoy making stuff for my kids and to give as gifts and have thought about trying to sell some of the stuff I make (I decided not to just because I don't have the time), but this law would make that impossible. So, just check it out.