abandoned...

are you feeling abandoned? i'm sure my blog is. sorry i haven't been around much, i had a very busy week, starting last saturday with a craft show (that went well!), and my son's 6th birthday party sunday (that was crazy!). i went on tuesday to film a special project on tuesday... a "how-to" video that involves the garland above and will be up next week! it was fun, but nerve wracking... i am definitely no actress! hopefully it will come out all right. i'll let you know when it is up!

in other news, i just want to briefly mention the consumer product safety improvement act (cpsia). if you haven't heard of this yet, it's a very broad attempt to crack down on the terrible safety issues plaguing toys made overseas in the last few years... that's a great thing, but the potential consequences to small toy makers (like my self) and responsible business's is very dire. it mandates third party testing and certification of every toy, at an extremely costly price. if these toy makers and business are made to follow the same rules that very large companies are the result will be that the large companies actually responsible for this mess will be largely unaffected, especially monetarily, while everyone else may be put out of business. it makes me wonder how responsible we all are for allowing this to happen... for our over-consumption that leads to shoddy toys made with no oversight or questions, endangering our children. now the unfair burden will be placed on those who actually care about what goes into the toys they make... who have carried on a tradition of making small amounts of high quality toys.

if you would like to find out more about this act, which goes into affect next february, click the above link, or join the handmade toy alliance. there, you can sign a petition and contact your congress person and senator to ask them to look into the matter further (i did!). there is also an article on the etsy blog to check out as well. thanks for your help in supporting handmade!