They are trying to make us do WHAT?!

Happy Holidays everyone! I'll get to the main subject of my post in a minute- just first want to say HAPPY NEW YEAR! a few hours early and to thank everyone who has stopped by to read my blog in the past year. I haven't posted as much as I'd like.... sorry about that. Things have been pretty busy here with the little ones, the business, and life in general :)

Christmas here was fun! The kitchen was a BIG hit with the kids and they love all of the fun accessories that Grandma, Grandpa, and my brother's family bought for them. I think the pizza and cookie sets are Sydney's favorites right now- she loves to serve us all day long! She also likes to make "zebra soup" - a little disturbing, but harmless (I think...).



Ben's favorite toy is the Cow Wheely Bug that Santa brought - check out how cute this thing is! I am tempted to get another one for Baby #3 coming in April... have to see though b/c 2 boys chasing eachother on wheeled wooden toys could get really ugly, really fast!



Speaking of toys... let's talk about the CPSIA... Have you heard of this fantastic (snicker) piece of legislature that Congress passed in August '08? If you haven't heard of it, I highly recommend that you google it and check out THIS LINK on cafemom. In a nutshell, all products that are intended to be used by kids under the age of 12 have to go through rigorous and EXPENSIVE lead testing, effective Feb 10, 2009. Sounds like something that would be good, right? I mean, we all want the best for our kids - remember the big scare last year from all of the lead found in paint on the toys from China? We all freaked out! But this law... this law has good intentions, but is not well thought out. It will make HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of home crafters have to shut down their businesses - I personally can't afford to have each fabric choice and size of my bags tested (~ $200-$500 per bag) and most small business owners like myself are in the same boat.

I honestly haven't figured out a plan of how to attack this yet - I am still in complete disbelief, even though it's a mere 40 days away. My optimistic side is holding out hope that small businesses will be excluded from this act, but from what I've read, that's not the plan. I don't mind showing proof that the components that I use are lead free (which is why I chose them...) - I get that. What I don't get is that they are requiring that the final products be tested - just can't do it. Unless of course they want to foot the bill :)

And what if you aren't someone who has a business making kids goodies? Well, you probably buy them now and again as gifts, or maybe you even have kids yourself. It is anticipated that prices could go up 50% after 2/10 due to the cost of the testing (for those companies that can afford it) and due to the increased demand of things (there will be a lot less available on the shelves - check out THIS LINK on National Bankruptcy Day, aka Feb 10, 2008). There will also be a lot less variety out there. Fun...

Please do read up on this and sign petitions, contact your congressman, ask questions.... WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Please have a save and Happy New Year's everyone!
~ Kris

Happy belated Turkey Day everyone! We had a really fun day - hope you all did too :) Leftovers are basically gone... back to cooking I guess!

I did some shopping over the weekend and of course had to pop into Joanne's - this trip was with purpose though (for once!). I needed to get some fabric to fix the stocking - ended up finding this:


And of course got sucked into a little bit more. Their corduroy's were 50% off, and with another coupon on top of that, it was hard to pass these cuties up! The magazines are also great reads - I'll write more about them later.


I finished up the stocking tonight and am pretty pleased with how it turned out - the red stuff was really stretchy, so I used double-sided fusible interfacing and fused it to some thick twill scraps. Worked pretty well :)



Off to bed now, but can you believe that we're already getting lots of this stuff?! I'm not ready!