I had grand plans as the internet started becoming more mainstream in the mid to late nineties. I’d revive and update the small business my mother ran on a mail-order basis in the 70s and 80s. My little site would be a store with home made stuff, some sewing tips, and patterns; studded with little stories about each (back before there were “blogs”). Which is pretty much what everyone is doing now, lol.

Then I met the hub, and we started our little family; I’d have time while on maternity leave! Nope.

I’d have time on the next maternity leave! (Insert laughter here.)

Maybe when they were all in school! (Well …)

Even launching this blog a few years later than even my most optimistic projections was part of the plan. But life and my own schooling have slowed my time table a bit.

And now I’m hearing that legislation to provide safer toys, clothes, and child care materials is coming on line. Great! I’ve been looking at joining various trade groups to make sure anything I produce is safe. They are voluntarily or self-regulated; we can see by the results of importing some voluntarily regulated toys.

However, as I and others read, this pretty much puts small toy makers, home craft industries out of business. I’d love to sell you a cute little doll I designed, or a lunch bag, or a diaper, but I have to test each item for lead and certify it because I’m not allowed to rely on third party certifications or allow you to sign a waiver.

And no matter how cute and fancy it is, I don’t think you’ll want to pay $4,013.95 for it. Plus shipping. And you know what’s gone on with shipping prices these days. Yeesh.

Various people have claimed that nothing specifically states diapers, clothes, toys, either hand made or resold new goods (so much for reselling overstock toys for profit later in the year after you clean out the local Target Dec 26th). Others claim this does cover diapers, clothes, toys, both hand-made in small-scale production and re-sale of other’s manufactured goods. Half the problem is the ambiguity and lack of plain-text language and decoding. But I’ve seen more that points toward shutting down a huge cottage industry than away from it.

Fire up your favorite search engine, find out more about CPSIA and how as thrown together it may to kill your favorite etsy store or eBay seller. Then DO something. Pick out a couple of the things that matter – this retroactive legislation is meant to protect, but it also effectively over-burdens small businesses. Pick out some solutions – third party manufacture certifications okay, help in the costs of testing for small businesses. Put them in a short letter to your representative and get your voice heard.

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