Updates on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

The other day I had a conversation with another dog owner at the dog park who was wondering what the current status was of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act since she also makes items for children. It got me thinking - I haven't been watching very closely as I haven't been very diligent about my own products what with the wedding and all.

But now that I'm kicking off the holiday season with an attempt to make up some goodies for sale (soon to be seen for sale at Fabrika Fine Fabrics in Savannah, Ga and Valley Flower Company in White River Junction, Vt and on my etsy site), I realized that I'd better get up to speed asap.

The short of it is that not very much has changed in the past few months. The legislation passed, but the implementation of it has been on hold. Major interests have been lobbying on behalf of thrift store, libraries and artisans to attempt to convince the Consumer Product Safety Commission to amend the legislation so that it will fairly address these industries. Libraries were successful and did receive notice that they would not need to test books in their collections. The thrift industry is hoping for the same.

Handicraft artisans are lobbying for an amendment which would exempt natural products (ex. untreated wood, natural fibers, beeswax, etc) from needing to be tested and also putting the onus on component suppliers to prove their items are non-toxic rather than on the artisan to test his/her end product. In the meantime, large toy manufacturers (to whom this legislation was directed) have set up their own testing facilities, certified by the federal government, and have begun to test products already.

For more information, here are some current articles:
The Hill, November 15, 2009
New York Times, October 30, 2009
Nancy Nord's blog - Consumer Product Safety Commissioner

Savannah Shower (and awesome craftacular project)

So my Savannah lady friends threw me a wedding shower last weekend. Can you ask for more than a potluck of delicious homemade dishes and crafting? I couldn't. It was perfect - no embarrassing drunken nights out wearing silly bridal gear - and time with my friends laughing and getting creative.

Brilliant idea, by the hosts Ashleigh and Nora, to custom decorate kitchen towels. Ashleigh sewed up some kitchen towels and then let us have at her studio and sewing machines. With loads of scrap fabric, embroidery thread and the ability to either sew or iron on, people got really creative and came up with some adorable ideas. They are so pretty that I don't want to get them dirty!

DIY Wedding : Dinner Napkins

This is what I did all weekend. I sewed 82 dinner napkins for the wedding reception. After hearing that it was $.50/napkin to rent plain white ones from our caterer, I figured that it would be less expensive and more fun to have some homemade ones that gave more of a picnic vibe. The assortment of fabrics were collected over the past ten months. There's some vintage tablecloths and sheets in there, some yardage that I got on sale and a few that I just couldn't pass up. Overall I think that I only spent $30 on fabric and already had the thread. Overall - not the hugest savings really, but I still think that they will be a lot more festive on the tables than plain old white. Plus we can keep them and they are reusable!

The fabric stash was also the supply for the jam jar toppers for the favors and for the garland so hopefully it won't seem too haphazard when it's all set up.

Last weekend I also create a guest book out of a photo album kit that my Mom gave me several years ago so that was free. It's not posted because it's waiting for Ron to decorate the front of it with some hand-lettering first. I also made my bridal fascinator. I'm not going to post that though because I want to keep it a surprise til Ron sees me that morning.

And now with the napkins done, I'm officially done with all of my major DIY wedding projects. A few more small tidbits here and there but nothing major. I can't tell you how excited I am to work on something other than the wedding!

Wedding DIY : Shrug Completed!

Once I realized that it was only two months until we leave to head up for the wedding, I got into high gear finishing off all my projects. I've been knitting so much in the past week that my fingers literally cramped up last night while I was binding off and Ron had to massage my knuckles! But it totally paid off and I finished my shrug. I LOVE IT! Thankfully it fits perfectly and even better...the color of the yarn matches my dress exactly. Here's a sneak peek of my wedding day outfit.

I could not have finished this without the help of the LionBrand Yarn Knitalong for this pattern which was hosted by the pattern's creator Stefanie Japel - whose personal blog is now on my regular reading list.

Wedding DIY : Flag Garland

I had a lot of extra fabric leftover after cutting napkins and favor tops so I decided to make some flag garlands to decorate the reception tent. For white and cream, I used an old sheet that had ripped and some very inexpensive muslin. I didn't want to have to sew anything and found that the range of fabrics didn't all take to glue in the same way. A friend (thanks Meghan!) suggested using brads - a standard office product usually used to attach papers. On the thicker fabrics, I had to create a small hole first for the brad whereas some of the lighter weight fabrics I could just poke them right though. (I found old tweezers did just the right job for creating a small hole.) I like that the brads look a bit like embroidery tacks.

I used 45' cotton cord and made 4 of them and have enough fabric left that I could maybe make one more. I'd been hoping to hang them out on the porch for the photo but it's been raining almost every evening for 3 weeks and I haven't been able to get outside much. I still think that they are really cheerful.

Wedding Budget

Since I've been blogging about wedding plans a lot of late (two months out!) and haven't talked about my quest to get out of debt as much, I thought that it would be a good time to discuss the dreaded wedding budget.

When we first got engaged and started talking about the wedding, we set a budget of $5000. We thought - hey we'll do it at my parents house, it'll be an intimate gathering of loved ones and we'll DIY a lot. We can swing it. Well I'll tell you, sticking to that budget has been HARD. And we are forgoing a lot of traditional elements and DIY'ing a lot.

We've basically doubled the budget. Still far under the average American wedding ($30,000!!!), but way more than I wanted to spend. The main reason is that when we first created the budget, we had absolutely no idea how much things cost. We could have decided to cut way back or do something totally different, but we decided that we were willing to go over budget in order to have the wedding we envisioned - with the caveat that we would get really creative with all of our options.

Our music will be performed by friends or through ipod ; our photography will be mainly done by friends as well. We made our invitations. I will spend a total of $300 on my entire wedding day outfit and hair/makeup. We're making all the decorations and using locally farmed flowers and pumpkins. Our wedding night hotel and mini-moon are being gifted to us.

I've been looking over the budget spreadsheet that I created and I see a few major areas where I way under-budgeted : travel, alcohol, party rentals, food, and miscellaneous.

Travel We didn't anticipate renting a car to drive home, but I don't trust my car to make another drive there and back as it's just too old. That's almost $1000.
Drinks Once I started calculating how much we'd need for drinks (beer, wine, cider, soda, water), I realized that it'll likely be $300 more than I thought.
Rentals Originally I didn't want a tent at all, but since it's autumn in New England and the weather could be unpredictable I was convinced by family that it was necessary. We've booked sides for the tent and heaters. In the event, that its great weather we could end up canceling the extras which would save us some money, but overall it's still another $750 that I didn't originally count.
Food I did some shopping around and found really great caterers that were willing to work with us on price and around our constraints (locally & seasonally harvested, willingness to incorporate vegan options). I'm thrilled with our menu and our vendors, but even with negotiating, it is more than we thought it would be by about $800.
Miscellany The small little crap just adds up before you know it. Shipping costs for anything you order (clothing, stamps, paper, thank you gifts, and on and on). Ingredients that you run out of at the last minute while making favors. Last minute projects.

Overall, I'm still really happy and proud that we are able to maintain our major goal for this wedding - we are not going into debt over it. Anything we've spent so far (~$3100) has all been up front and in cash. We've got money socked away to pay the balances and family has been very generous with some gifting. Friends have stepped up to help us out as their gift. We've made some decisions to cut certain things and add others - all while staying conscious of the impact on our finances. It's the consciousness of our spending that I'm really most proud of - we're planning something that is genuine and sincere and fun and on our terms.

DIY Wedding Invitations : Final Package

We finally got our invitations done and sent out last week. It was a multi-step process. Ron and I worked out our aesthetic for it a couple of months ago, worked out all the text and then he went to town on designing. I'm glad that he pretty much knew what he was doing because with our multiple fonts and a lot of illustrations and clip art, it was a lot of work. We did use a few free clipart downloads from a great DIY wedding blog. Even if you're not doing a wedding, this site has awesome font and design ideas and freebies.

As you'd expect from Old Timey Ron, we wanted our invitations to look like 18th century handbills. I think that he did a great job at pulling it off.

We got our printing done at Kinkos and they were great about cutting down the paper to our custom sizes after printing. Then we just folded and affixed into our envelopes. On the front of the envelopes, we affixed paper cut outs of maples leaves for the addresses. I absolutely love the Love stamps this year and was psyched that they matched our colors and aesthetic so well. Lastly, to close the envelopes we used a wax seal in a bronze wax. (no picture)

All told, I think that the entire invitations packages including postage cost about $4.50/piece. Seeing as that's less than even some pre-made envelopes cost, I think that we did amazingly well.

Napkin Rings

I added another project to the wedding list. I am still in process of sewing up napkins, but was realizing that it might be nice to have some napkin rings when they are set on the table. We have a lot of the heavy cover weight paper left from making the envelopes for our invitations and I did a quick google for paper napkin rings. Of course, Martha Stewart had the perfect maple leaf template to use. Since our napkins will all be mismatched fabric, I think that using these napkin rings, all in the chocolate brown, will be a nice way to tie everything together on the tables.

(Luckily, this project actually goes pretty quickly and isn't going to feel never-ending like most of the others I've taken on.)

DIY Wedding Invitations : How to make an Envelope

In the interest of cost-savings and personalization, we decided to make our own wedding invitations. If money were no object, I would have loved to have letterpress but alas we have a budget. So we figured that we'd design and make our own so that at least if we weren't splurging on the printing, we'd splurge on the attention we spent on them.

Here's a tutorial on how to make your own envelopes. We ordered paper from French's and got a cover weight in a large size so that we could cut it down.

First you make a template for the envelope. This is probably the most time consuming part because you want to make several trials and mock-ups to ensure that it folds correctly and is the size you want. Once you have a final template, you trace it onto the paper.
Next you cut it out. I highly recommend using a straight edge and exacto knife instead of scissors. It makes for much cleaner lines and corners.
Now score where your fold lines will be. This is especially important on a heavier weight paper so that you get a nice clean line. I used a bone folder.
Use the flat edge of the bone folder to help you get a nice sharp crease when you fold over the edges. Fold all the edges and then glue any pieces that you need to.

Here's our completed envelope. The right side has a pocket. The middle includes the side flaps and over on the left edge is the outside flap for closure.
And here are some completed and folded-up envelopes. I made 50 so that there were extra in the event of mistakes. It probably took me about 3 evenings to work on them. It's relatively time consuming with all the tracing, cutting & folding. But the major benefit is that all it cost us was the paper (~$25) and some new exacto blades. Per piece, it's far less expensive than ordering pre-made ones and we were able to completely customize it for ourselves.

CPSIA about to put me out of business

I only very recently found out about the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that goes into effect on February 10th. The intention of the law is to give added protection to children's products in regards to safety and in reaction to the recent spate of unsafe imported toys and toy recalls.

However, the law has been written so that it will affect any sale (or resale) of a children's item including handmade toys, clothing or furniture - even books! This means that I will no longer be able to sell my handmade stuffed animals, baby blocks or any future items without having to pay an insanely prohibitive fine to have the item tested.

Aside from how that will affect just myself, as general consumers our choices will now be severely limited. The costs associated with testing will prohibit many smaller manufacturers, both in the U.S. and abroad, from putting items in the marketplace. That means that you will not have very much choice as a consumer when you go to buy a children's product. Additionally, thrift and resale shops will no longer be able to resell used items. That means that all used items will have to go into the trash! What a waste.

It seems to me that this law was written hastily and is reactionary. The problem of safety is definitely legitimate and needs to be addressed. However, a quickly passed law that will affect businesses and consumers alike by effectively making it impossible for small business to compete is not the answer.

For more information, please check the following links and please consider writing your congressperson to ask for more thought into how they can protect small business and competition while still maintaining the intent of the law.

http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/
LA Times Article on reselling
Sign a petition

Favorite Christmas present

Ron and I decided that aside from stockings, we'd make each other gifts this year. Here's what he painted for me. (There's a little glare because I didn't feel like taking it out of the frame.)

Junk in da Trunk Craft Fair

First craft fair completed. It was a modest success. It was held on Friday night and Saturday during the day during two days which were apparently record breaking heat for Savannah. Not so nice. I made a few sales and enough money to pay myself back for the table and supplies and a little extra in profit. Overall though I'd say that the weather really held people indoors and even we packed up early on Saturday because of it.

Highlights included:
Selling with Lane and Ashleigh - without them it would have been quite boring.
Lots of interest in the baby block sets and the mobile.
Overhearing that another vendor said that I had a "fancy" table.
People love elephants.

If I do another one, I've got some ideas about how to change my display and know what I would do in regards to products. I plan on doing more of the baby blocks and advertising more about the custom orders that I can do. Also more stuffed animals that adults might want - not as strong a focus on just nursery items. I think that I could probably do some shorter garlands too with some adult-friendly statements.

Craft Fair This Weekend

Nothing to do this weekend? Come down to check me out hosting my first table at a craft show. Here's the details:

When? Friday 7-10pm & Saturday 10am-2pm.
Where? Desoto Ave in Savannah (The alley between Bull Street and the Farmer's Market in Starland District)

Nora's Baby Shower

So during my drought of blog posts on crafting this summer, I mentioned that I'd been busy working on some things but couldn't post them yet. Well, my friend Nora had her baby shower yesterday and so I'm finally able to post about some of the things that I was busy making for her.

Kanga and Roo always make a good baby shower gift. I'm especially proud of the sweater since it's the first time that I've knitted anything that needed to be pieced together. I know that I got the pattern online, but I can't track it back down at the moment. Once I find it, I'll post the link. The booties were made by a pattern from Heather Bailey.

New Product for Craft Fair

So I've been trying to come up with some other ideas for the upcoming trunk show in addition to my stuffed animals. I've gotten some great input from friends with a little more experience with these things that it would be good to have some less expensive items on the table. I came up with the idea of some children's building blocks. They are 1" wooden blocks decorated with vintage children's illustrations and recycled book jackets. One lesson learned - the modge podge that I used to adhere the paper remains a little bit tacky even after dried so I will need to put at least one layer of a clear acrylic over it. I'm trying to find an adhesive that will be sure to be non-toxic so that in the event that the blocks get put into little mouths, there's no worry.

I would love feedback from readers on the blocks. Do you think that I'm using too many images? I like the idea of two sides being larger images that can be used as a puzzle, but I'm not sure if having images on all the other sides is just too busy. What price point do you think that these would sell well at?

New design for KatyDidCrafts

My pal Toby has done me a huge favor and is helping me to create a brand logo and business cards. I've just uploaded a new banner for my etsy account. Isn't it cheerful? Plus the little girl is actually me - at least an illustrated copy of a photograph of me at 4 years old.