Are you a Work-at-Home Mom or an Indie Designer of children’s clothing or toys? Or maybe you’re a second hand store owner? Maybe you’re a frequent shopper at the second had stores in your area, or online? Organic toy lover? If you are any of these, then these changes affect you. Big changes are in store that could affect your business and will be taking place on February 10, 2009.

As of February 10th, a pending legislative mandate will no longer allow the sale of used kids clothing or toys unless they’ve been tested for lead and a host of other potentially hazardous materials. While this sounds great on paper, the truth is that hundreds, if not thousands of people are going to be put out of business in one swoop of the governments hand. It will make selling handmade products illegal without getting the testing done.

This is a huge deal for WAHMs with their own websites, eBay and Etsy sellers of children’s items, and second hand store owners nationwide. Let’s not forget your local neighborhood thrift store – Goodwill, Salvation Army, CHKD, and the countless other thrift shops that thrive on these sales. Not only will they lose business but the charities that they raise money will be affected as well! The money from those thrift shops puts coats on children in the winter, food on tables that are empty, help elderly residents pay their overpriced heating bills when it’s cold outside, and help sick children to get much needed medical care.

The reach of this is much more than a few little shops and websites. This is going to affect kids, adults, families, schools, communities, and the entire nation as a whole. I beg you not to overlook this.

If the government really wanted to help they could stop the importing of garbage covered in lead and hazardous materials from China and other foreign countries and allowing it to be put on store shelves and sold without putting our own country’s small businesses out of business. AquaDots anyone? How about Curious George toys?

The United States economy is already on a downslide, and this is taking any glimmer of hope small businesses had for a good year and flushing it right down the toilet.

If you’re a Twitter user you can follow the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtag #CPSIA for fresh updates.

I encourage you to visit the Handmade Toy Alliance website where you will find loads of information about this new law, petitions to sign, and who to contact to Help Save Handmade!

Loretta is a work at home mom and blogger. You can find her crafty and creative shenanigans on Craft Blog, a subdomain of Stitching the Night Away her Cross Stitch site offering free cross stitch patterns and a message board community.