New Law to Affect Crafters of Children's Products

[Guest guest]

Well on New Years Day - Happy New Years everyone, by the way - I woke

up to this lovely e-mail:

 

ALERT!!! Crafters of products of toys for children! You are about to

have to pay to have every product tested for lead! Even wood toys and

cloth dolls!!!

 

Overview and Discussion here:

http://www.craftlister.com/message_board.php?

PageType=ShowPost & PostID=6512

 

There is a You can \'Vote\' on this topic at change.org:

 

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

 

I have already voted and posted the following:

------

 

I am the creator of CraftLister.com, the largest online directory of

art and craft shows nation-wide. CraftLister.com is used by nearly

100,000 exhibitors who claim a total of over 2.5 billion in sales

yearly.

 

The new toy lead-testing requirements of this act will leave many

individual artists and crafters unable to comply, thereby decimating

the American hand-made marketplace for yet another product category.

And since children\'s toys are one of the few things you can make

without lasers, furnaces, production robots, chip foundries, etc.

this lost product category will leave many older craftsmen without

hope.

 

While no one can deny the need for safe toys, a protective measure

can certainly be taken too far. Most crafters are able to prove the

certification of each of their raw supplies or could certainly start

doing so. The problem arises when even though all their components

are known to be TESTED to be certified safe, the end product also

must be TESTED and certified at enormous cost for the crafter. Our

average GROSS sales for a professional weekend crafter is only

$26,000 per year. If they must pay around $2,000 each year for each

of say 5 different toys, it becomes obvious that NO crafter but the

most production-line and mass-scale-automated-production ones will be

able to compete. This means all the slave labor in China factories

are safe in job security, but our to-the-bone slaving parent\'s self

made jobs are done for.

 

Make no mistake, as the act stands all toys must be certified. No

distinction is made for handmade wooden trucks, cloth dolls, pvc pipe

marshmallow guns, etc. etc.

 

Crafters are asking for a distinction to be made for US hand-made

toys such that crafters and artists can verify compliance of their

final product via documentation of all raw supplies having been

tested and certified as toxic free.

 

Louis Marquette

CraftLister.com

 

_____

 

I went and read the entire discussion and it reminds you of what we

went through last year with our handmade toiletries and so on. But

this DOES affect anyone who has a business. If you have any product

that is geared towards anyone 12 and under, if a 8 year old picks it

up and wants to buy it, you can be turned in fined or given prison

time for selling a product that a child bought that isn't certified.

This even affects toys sold at garage sales as well or sold second

hand on ebay. So any moms out there who like to get rid of their

kids' toys, can't sell them. I don't know how this will affect

places like Goodwill and other resale shops. If you are a business

owner, you might want to join Craftlister and read the discussion

because it goes much deeper and have great links -- too many for me

to inundate this board with.

 

Even though all of my items are geared towards adults, but I sell

pewter perfume bottles, something that a child could look at and

want. I wouldn't be allowed to sell it to them because they aren't

certified.

 

If you have any children's items you make from clothes, toys,

jewelry, they will have to be tested and from the discussion, the

testing and certification process can cost $4,000 PER ITEM.

 

So there it is.

 

Chaeya