Handmade Toy Alliance

Nancy Cowles- what a horrid person.

The most frustrating thing about this whole thing is that both our members and Kids in Danger wanted to ensure better quality products than the crap they sell at Wal-Mart. The difference was what we chose to do about it--HTA members chose positive action and started making those better products, while Kids in Danger chose negative action and helped... Read More create a law that they thought would fix the problem. They are now in the awkward position of defending this dumb law in the face of dozens of unintended consequences. If anyone has been used by Big Toy, it's these consumer groups. So, no, Nancy Cowles is not horrid. She's just in an untenable position where she can't easily back down. Admitting you made a mistake is not easy, especially when you use "victories" like the CPSIA to raise funds and build membership.

Interesting editorial that mentions CPSIA testing and overall government intrusion into people's lives.

great article.

This article highlights that for a lot of people, the CPSIA came at the absolute worst possible time. If you wanted to kill all the small batch childrens product manufacturers in the US, this would be the perfect time to do it.

thanks!

Congrats! Let me know if you need help in Washington DC

Thanks for your offer Wendy. Feel free to email me/ us direct. We can always use additional support on the Hill.

The article was good, but nothing new, its the same story with no ending, will the law change in time? can we actually get exempt from testing?
I got a business to protect, February is a short time away, what is actual going to happen here?????

Now is the time to write to your representatives and tell them we need another 1 year stay of enforcement. Feel free to share our reasoning, which is at http://handmadetoyalliance.blogspot.com/2009/10/handmade-toy-alliance-requests-cpsc.html . Basically, we're arguing that 2/10/10 is too soon, especially since we still don't have a component testing rule.

THANK YOU THANK YOU for being so dedicated to changing this law.

Thanks!!!

Saw the toys on your site very interesting, nice work. Check out the fishing rod on my site sweetsawdust.com you might like it. What are you going to do about the paint and the CPSIA regs? I noticed that most of your items are stained or painted.

right now, a surface coating such as paint does require 3rd party testing, but stains that penetrate a substrate do not until the stay of enforcement expires on 2/10/10.

Why don't they just call all parents completely incompetent and take our children away? They must think we are if they make such ridiculous and stupid legislation like this!

Here we go again...perhaps someone is up for re-election?

How can Mattel get a pass when they created this mess????

Look at the Etsy site

Thank you for continuing to make it less daunting to keep up-to-date.

Benjamin-
You can find some answers in this new article-
http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/cpsia-overcoming-obstacles-and-fighting-for-change-5350/
The Handmade Toy Alliance discussion board is a great place to keep up to date on all the current information. You can join through http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/