Please contact your Congressional Representatives to support CPSIA amendments!

I posted this on Etsy recently, this is a letter I sent to my Congressmen asking them to support passage of the bills that are in committee amending CPSIA. If anyone would like to use it or repost it to your own blog you're more than welcome to do so:

(This is the version I sent to my HR rep, you can use it for your senators by replacing HR 968 with S 374 and House Energy and Commerce Committee with Committee for Commerce, Science, and Transportation.)

Please support the passage of HR 968, the bill that is currently being reviewed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This bill must not die in committee! If HR 968 is not passed the entire US children's product industry will be in danger of collapsing. Effects are already being felt, I have seen many stories of libraries and bookstores removing children's books printed before 1985 from their shelves (in some cases destroying them!), and just today I saw an article that manufacturers of motorcycles and ATVs are no longer being allowed to sell bikes or ATVs marketed to kids, or even parts to repair them. Because of lead content--it's ridiculous, what child that is old enough to ride a motorcycle is going to LICK it??? That's the only way any lead content would harm a child. The ATV industry has estimated their losses in the BILLIONS of dollars. And that doesn't even touch the second hand stores and small business crafters, many of the latter got into business because they WANT to make safe alternatives to mass produced toys and other children's products but CPSIA left as-is will put them out of business. Not because they don't want to test, but because they CAN'T AFFORD IT.

Please help us keep safe affordable children's products available to the families that need them. Regulation is good but it needs to be sensible, and CPSIA is NOT.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.....

I was at McDonald's today with my mother for lunch and realized that probably 90% of what goes into their trash on a daily basis is recyclable. I mean, paper cups for drinks, paper wrappers and cardboard boxes for food items, plastic utensils and straws....it's kinda crazy if you think about it! Same thing with other fast food restaurants, coffee shops, etc (hence the pic of the Dunkin Donuts cup). I remember years ago at DD if you came in as an eat-in customer they'd give you your coffee or whatever in a regular porcelain cup or hard plastic (or even glass) glass--my sister used to work there, in fact, and brought a few of said cups home once, they had the DD logo on them and everything. Now you get paper or styrofoam no matter if you're eating in or taking out! Is this really better for them economically? Now they sell reusable cups for people to get their coffee in, would it be that hard or more expensive to offer them for one-time use of eat-in customers? "For here or to go?" is a standard question at these places when employees are taking orders, it shouldn't be too much trouble for them to pick between different types of cups depending on the answer given. Am I making sense here? At least maybe they should have recycling bins available so the recyclable stuff can be easily separated from the "real trash". IMO most people are used to recycling at home so it should be fairly simple to switch from what these establishments do now to a recycling system. It would go a long long way toward lessening the amount of stuff that ends up in landfills every year, reducing raw materials usage and cleaning up the environment in the process. And if they wanted to get REALLY environmentally friendly they could compost the food waste and either use the compost in their landscaping plans or offer it to the local community for residential use. What do you think?

Getting back to work

I haven't posted anything Etsy related for a while, thought I'd show off a couple things I've recently been working on. This one with the blue and yellow stripes is for a new line I'm calling "Dan's Delights". Why? Blue and yellow are Dan Radcliffe's favorite colors. :-) It's ready to go, I just have to write up the description and get it listed. I'll probably be doing some blue and yellow flower pins like the ones I already have in my shop, not sure what else yet.



This one is for a new line I'm calling Spring Treasures, the pink and green go really well together! I think it would make a great gift for baby's first Easter. It should be done in the next couple days, I've figured out these blankets take me about 16 hours from start to finish.



It's nice to be getting back to work, the stay from CPSIA means we can breathe a sigh of relief for now, but let's make sure the reform bills that are in committee in Congress (there are similar bills in both the House and Senate) don't get stuck and die there! February 2010 will be here before we know it.

(Hey, I finally figured out how to space the pictures out in the post so they're not all at the top! Cool!)

Harry Potter stunt man injured in accident on set

David Holmes (on left in picture), Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double in the Harry Potter films, was recently injured in an accident on the set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As of this writing it has been reported that he is in the hospital recovering from a back injury. Best wishes for a speedy recovery David! (Sorry for the watermark but it's the only pic I could find of him. There's some video of him on the special features of the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD as well.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4420403/Harry-Potter-stuntman-David-Holmes-vows-to-return-to-work.html

Computer issues and great CPSIA news

OK my laptop's been acting stupid the last few days and hasn't been letting me online long enough to do all my Entrecard drops. Today it finally seems to be back to normal, I just wanted to say thanks to all the EC bloggers who continued to drop here even though I couldn't reciprocate.

Great news in the fight to fix CPSIA! The CPSC has announced a one year stay of enforcement, meaning the law still goes into effect but they won't prosecute anyone just for not testing. That's how I understand it anyway. The fight isn't over, please continue to contact your Congressional representatives to have this law permanently changed! Senator Jim Demint will be introducing a bill this week to make permanent changes, it pretty much covers everything we want done. Please ask your congress people to vote to pass this amendment!

I have also heard that many "consumer protection" groups are calling for the firing of CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord, PLEASE let your representatives know that this is NOT the right idea! I have actually gone onto www.whitehouse.gov and emailed President Obama that she deserves a REWARD for all the crap she's had to put up with through all this! IMO she deserves a raise and a vacation after all the stress and hassle this stupid law has dumped in her lap. I don't have her contact info handy but I think it would be great if we all sent her a quick note letting her know how much we appreciate her great work.