If you’re a crafty type, you know what the itch feels like. Once a new idea or desire to try some new thing gets stuck in your brain, you can’t relax until it is done. It’s got to be closely related to OCD, only instead of checking or grooming? You buy art supplies.

Lately the thing that nags me is print making. It’s not something I know very much about, but there’s something satisfying about working backwards to move forwards. You draw the reverse of what your picture will look like, or you carve out the negative space. Then you dump ink everywhere and make a mess — it can’t be that closely related to OCD.

On my birthday, there were parades. Fancy dinners which I did not attend but understand were quite nice. The president gave a speech. Thousands of people poured into the streets all over the world to celebrate, some of them wearing shirts that said things like January 20th: The day the world changed.

It was a little over the top this year. I did think the flags were a nice touch though.

So while the world paused to contemplate the glorious occasion of my birth, Kevin took me to the art store. Not Michaels; the real art store. We spent a $50 gift card and holy goodness I love my new art supplies. Not like those 20 boxes of lame art supplies I have stacked in our laundry room. These are new and are wonderful and I love them.

I haven’t had time or energy to do any serious block carving – mainly because it turns out that block carving is difficult to do – but the urge to do some kind of printing was making me cranky, so I tackled monotypes.

MMMmm… monotypes.

Mono is latin for “one” and Type is latin for “type”.

The way it works is: You paint onto a plate that doesn’t soak up ink. Then you press a piece of damp art paper onto the plate and peel it up. There’s your print.

Kevin saw me at work and said – so then why don’t you just paint directly onto the paper? Shhhhh!! Quiet, you! I’m PRINTING.

What’s neat about it is that even as you’re printing the same image, there’s no way to have it come out the same every time. The ink spreads out and swirls around and does what it wants.

Then you let it dry and fill in details with chalk. Here’s my first attempt:

And here’s my second. This one is based on a photo of Graham at about 18 months old, taken by my dad. I put the photo down on the table, then taped a transparency over it. I traced the photo with ink and then print! print! print! These three turned out nice, but check out how different the vibe is in each one:

Here are the ones that didn’t turn out. I should’ve tossed them but it was interesting to me to see what happens when ink goes wild and takes its shirt off and starts yelling wooooooo spring break!

Paper wasn’t wet enough:

Paper was too wet:

Ink dried too much before I printed:

Too much ink, too dark in general:

Ahhhh. The itch was satisfied but man, I want to do more. Block prints, more controlled prints, but also – more messy messy monotypes. Not now. Right now my children are climbing on the actual kitchen counter trying to teach each other how to cook. Time for lunch. But later! Print print!

Enough grumbling! Good things, good things.

1. Winner! Here’s how I selected a winner. My brother Tony is in town. He’s otherwise known as Messy Jesus, even though he doesn’t know that he is known as that, not really. One time he did have a deep religious discussion with my mother which went like this:

“Hey mom? I need to ask you something. Like, everyone is always saying that I look like Jesus, that I have this calm about me and make them feel more peaceful and that I look so much like Jesus. So I was wondering… do you think there’s any chance? That I.. you know…”

“That you’re Jesus? No.”

So Messy Jesus is on my couch right now, drawing in his sketchbook and telling me about his plans and his artwork. He makes glass um… well they aren’t pipes because you can’t sell pipes. They are glass pieces of art that reflect his social commentary on the hollowness of modern society and the ways in which people flow mindlessly through life and smoke buttloads of marijuana.

So he’s talking and I said, “Oh! I need to pick a winner on my blog!” and he said “Is there anyone there named Tony?”

No. But there’s a Toni. So she’s the winner!

So that’s good thing number one.

2. Good thing number two! The CPSIA is slowly starting to maybe make some sense. Today they announced that resellers and thrift stores can calm down, as long as they aren’t deliberately selling poison to babies they won’t be in trouble. So that’s excellent. Also, over on change.org the handmade toys issue is currently on the list of ten things to tell Obama about.

The other 9 things are all a list of things that Tiffany wants for her birthday, which is January 20th. And Obama will be all oh wow!

Seriously, how fucking good would it be to have “Tiffany Ard’s birthday” on the list of ten critical issues to discuss with Obama on the day he is sworn in? Real good, that’s how good. That still leaves eight more issues so they can mention peace in the middle east and fixing the economy and healthcare and the environment because he wouldn’t have thought of any of those things on his own.

3. My other brother is arriving tomorrow. And he has guess what? BABIES. 6-month-old twin baby boys are descending upon us, and my own boys are preparing many things to teach their young cousins.

4. Look! Look! Look look look!

5. My brother just looked up from his work to ask, “So what was the contest on your blog for? Who has the coolest name?”

Giveaway winner tomorrow. You guys rock. Thank you. I still believe/hope that this is all a matter of silly wording and the law will be re-interpreted or clarified in a way that makes sense. I’m not sure that it’ll happen before February 10, but you never know.

Good news today from the lab that will be testing my products: Because of the nature of my designs, there’s no way to test each color of ink separately. The law requires each component to be tested – which normally means every color of ink – but my work blends the colors a lot and then has a gloss coating on top, so they have to treat it as one component.

So where I was thinking each print or set of flash cards was going to cost $500 to certify, it looks like it’ll be less than half of that.

Which is good because I messed up and forgot to pay my Discover card. They didn’t send my statements for three months, then yesterday I got all three statements in the mail PLUS two late notices. All arrived on the same day. I spent ten minutes tried to figure out how that can happen, and decided to file it under mystifying things that happen to grownups. Rather than think about it very hard, I’m going to use the money I had set aside for multi-component testing to pay off the stupid credit card. Which is perfect, because the money that’s charged on there was all printing of Nerdy Baby ABCs so there’s some kind of symmetry in there somewhere.

In non-boringlogistical news, my children are gross. We’re on the verge of banning Mitten Hand. Totally cute game has now turned into this:

“Hi I’m Mitten Hand. Please give me some candy. And if I don’t like it, I am going to probably throw up all over your hair.” This is Graham talking! Which hooray for syllables and everything but sweet little Graham?

“Okay, here you go!”

“Thank you.” Mitten Hand chews thoughtfully, pauses to consider the texture and flavor of the invisible candy, “Hmmm. I’m not sure I like this candy very much — BLAAAUUUUURRRRRGH HAHAHA HE THREW UP ALL OVER YOUR HAIR.”

“HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA Mitten Hand!”

“Hi. I’m Mitten Hand and you’d better give me a different kind of candy. And if I don’t like it I will throw up in your mouth.”

“Here you go!”

“BLEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH”

The harder I try to ignore it, the worse it gets. Eventually poop and tinkle get involved and boogers and everything horrible they can think of until they’re laughing so hard they can’t breathe and are being so loud and so gross that I finally tell them to stop, only they can’t hear me because they’re laughing and their hands are puking everywhere and oh my god.

… mom!

No wait. She’s disqualified. Because of all the times she made me babysit my little brother when I had more important things to do like sit on the lawn and bitch to my friends about how unfair my parents were for making me babysit all those times when I had more important things to do.

The actual winner is el. Whose entry made me actually laugh out loud and whose blog you should check out, because even if you aren’t religious and so don’t understand like 40% of what she’s referring to, she’s a hell of a writer and I’m thinking a pretty darn cool lady.

This was the giveaway for the week before last. The giveaway for last week, the week of Christmas, will begin on Monday of next week. You followed that? After that, no more! I’m excited about this one because the thing I am giving away is very special – there are only 20 of them in the whole world, so it’s made of metaphorical gold. Either gold or a solid vomitous mass of partially consumed dog poop, depending on what happens with the new CPSIA regulations.

How was that for a segue? Did I do alright?

A new law aimed at manufacturers, CPSIA stands for Child Protection Safety Holy Living Shit Mother of Lord We Are All Going To Be Voted Out Of Office If We Don’t Get Toy Safety Issues Under Control Improvement Act. It’s the kind legislation that includes a lot of things that people like me dislike. Things like passive voice and poor font choice, and an appalling lack of whitespace. There’s a lot of serious panic over the CPSIA and what it means for people who sell children’s products, and I’ve had a few people ask me what I think about it all.

When I first heard and read about the CPSIA, I said: yay. Good. Yes. It puts intense restrictions on children’s products sold in the U.S.

I’m a mother. I hate unsafe toys. I already have to get over the guilt of driving to and stepping foot in Target, spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need that create clutter and mess we don’t want. Then I have to set aside the neurotic worry that our children are over-indulged and somehow damaged by the purchase of random bullshit. But at least the toys are fun and really in moderation, what’s the harm?

When it turns out that the harm is things like seizures, brain damage, and consumption of coma-inducing date rape drugs – well, you can see where I’d be mad. As a mom. So yeah.
Making baby toys out of poison, many parents agree, is bad. Bad enough that people who do it should go to jail and pay big fines and never sell consumer products in this country again.

And hey! Good news! That’s the exact gist of this new law: Anyone who sells anything that’s going to be touched by anyone under the age of twelve must have each product fully certified, with testing from an approved labratory proving that each component of the product is free of grody scary shit. Failure to comply = fines the size of your mom and jail time.

Well. Guess what! The new law also applies to small companies and individual artisans. Total panic over at etsy. But honestly, though it was unpopular to say so, the law still sounded like a good idea to me. Crafty people can buy a bunch of things from Michael’s that were all made in China out of leftover pesticides and then glue them all together into a baby teether. Wouldn’t hurt to test it for lead, you know? And even though my Nerdy Baby flashcards are made here in my own town using inks that are made onsite, I DO want to make sure they are safe for babies to eat.

But the more I learn about the law, the more I understand why people are freaking out. Here are the biggest problems that I see:
1. The testing required is redundant many times over.
For example, my ABC flashcards and the 123 ones were made as part of the same print run. Then we divided them up, shrinkwrapped them into separate products. Under this law, I have to pay for double lab testing. Each ink color must be tested, so that’s four x two tests at roughly $100 per test. The same goes for all of my prints and posters. I’ll do it, but it seems redundant and weird, doesn’t it?

If you buy yarn and knit a bunch of baby sweaters to sell at a craft show, you need to have one tested. If you make matching socks, those also need to be tested even though they came from the same blob of yarn.

2. One of a kind pieces will become almost out of reach.
When someone commissions me to do an original drawing, the price is usually $80. Under the new law, if the subject matter would even possibly appeal to children, it’s a children’s product. That means I need to have each individual color of paint, pencil or ink tested for each new painting that I sell. So an $80 painting will now cost close to $800.

Or I can scan it and make a print of it, and bring the cost down to $480 because there’s only four colors of ink in there.

3. And that is all true even if all of the materials I’m using are already certified as safe for children.
The inks I use for most of my artwork are made by Derwent, a British company that complies with the strictest safety standards in the world. I have seen a copy of their product certification, and I would have no problem feeding my ink pencils to my own child if art supplies weren’t so expensive.

Same for people who raise their own sheep, shear the wool, spin it into yarn, and make things out of it. Those end products must be tested to make sure they don’t contain lead paint. Seriously.

4. The law is insanely broad and far-reaching.
Even products that children are unlikely to ever touch are affected. I have to certify a decorative art print before I can sell it, even though the parent is going to take it home and display it in a frame made out of solid lead.

Also, ANYthing that a kid is likely to play with counts. Not just toys. If it looks the least bit cute or bright or appealing to children, it must be tested. In my house that means that scrap paper from Office Max, miniature staplers, turkey basters and other kitchen utensils all should be certified.

And my goodness – think of the number of objects in a school classroom. Staples, paper, pencils, wall decor… All of those are about to become a lot more expensive. Not because the manufacturers have to switch to safer ways of making them, but because the burden of proof/testing is so expensive.

5. The law contains a lot of ambiguous language, and we’re having a hard time getting any clarification.
So small businesses with limited resources are scrambling to comply with this law in time for the Feb 10 deadline — but we still don’t know exactly what we are supposed to do.

6. The law affects you, even if you aren’t a small toy manufacturer.

• If you donate toys or clothes to charity or sell them on ebay, you’d better make sure all of them are certified. If you knit socks and give them to the local children’s shelter, that’s your ass unless you have them tested. Fabulous Julie giving away her amazing quilts? About to be illegal even if she grows the cotton herself and makes all of the fabric and thread on her very own loom, which I assume she does.

• If you shop for children’s products – including jewelry, clothes, art, toys, art supplies, anything – prepare for prices on those things to go up a bit. The more components a product has, the more expensive it’ll be. Look at a shoe and count up the number of different materials you can touch. Of course, if you’re selling 20,000 pairs of those shoes the expense of certification might not be terrible… but it’s a rough time for anything to become more expensive, ya know? Then again, as a mom I’m okay with this. A small fee to make sure my kids aren’t ingesting poison? Ehh… nevermind this one. Suck it up, consumers. Said in a loving way.
• You’re also likely to have fewer choices. Consignment and resale shops – including ones on ebay – may have to shut down, and a lot of smaller toy manufacturers are throwing up their hands and shutting down, or at least giving up selling in the United States. Not because they want to produce unsafe toys – but again, because the burden of proof is not only expensive but so complex that it’s easy to mess up and become a felon despite your best efforts to follow the law.

So! that’s what I think. I think it’s a good law that needs to be clearer and less redundant. Manufacturers who buy parts from other vendors should be able to use the certifications that those vendors provide. If you make a dress out of certified fabric using certified thread and certified zippers and buttons, why re-test every one of those things once they’ve been assembled into a dress?

My plan is to stay in business and do my best. My flashcards are already at the lab for testing, and my prints and posters will go next. Unless the law is ammended, I’m no longer going to offer one of a kind things like mobiles and drawings. This also changes my plans for complex products with multiple components like Nerdy Baby toys, mobiles, craft kits, and gift sets. I’m bummed because those things were going to sort of rock, but you never know. I’m hoping hoping hoping that enough people will appeal to lawmakers to change and clarify this law.

And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to move into a three bedroom apartment and use the extra room to start a lead-testing lab. Woooo!

Business has been wobbly this season. Things are selling, but not at the incredible rate I saw last year or the year before. This is normally when I make most of my money for the year and so like most independent designers, I’ve been a little stressed, and a little checking OMGobsessively for orders every 15 seconds. It’s as though by clicking “get mail” I can force an email notice to appear. Get mail! Get mail! Shit. Get mail get mail get mail – Oh yay! Order! Get mail get mail get mail…

Nicolaus overheard me whining to Kevin about the problem and he helpfully offered three reasons why people aren’t ordering my artwork this year:
“Maybe they all have a thousand gallons of your artwork. And some people are picky and don’t want to buy artwork from someone if they – they like, already have a bunch…” This is my secret fear, actually. That everyone who wanted my art like, already has some, so that’s it forever.

But he had another thought: “And I saw a commercial saying you have to do all your shopping at Home Depot, so maybe they saw that. And they wanted you to buy like ONLY THOSE TOOL THINGS. With the battery pack. So people might all be off doing that.”

And finally he suggested, “And the third reason is because they’re poopie.”

Which I think is a fair possibility. Consumer poopiness is not something I’ve heard any of the economic experts discussing, but I know that whenever I’m poopie I certainly don’t feel like shopping. I’ve also noticed that every time the dow drops dramatically, I have a very quiet day – so I blame CNN. If the media really cared about this nation they would report the opposite of what’s happening so people would rally and make it better. This is such an obvious and great idea that I think it’s safe to assume that they’ve already thought of it and are already doing exactly that. So you didn’t LOSE $40,000 yesterday. You MADE $40,000! Don’t you feel more confident and spendy just reading that?

So! During this difficult international financial crisis, and with the heart of the holiday season in mind, I’d like to make a heartfelt case for you to buy stuff.

1. If you have less money to spend on presents this year, it feels nice to spend it on things that will help boost small businesses, who are hardest hit during tough times and are the quickest to go under.

2. When you buy gifts direct from artists and designers, you are getting unique things that your loved ones couldn’t just buy for themselves at Target or the mall.

3. That whole planet thing. I can’t speak for other designers and artypants people, but my own items are produced locally and I only use vendors who pay their employees well and practice environmental goodness. Most of my paper products are printed on recycled paper, and all are printed with vegetable inks at places that recycle and try to minimize waste.

4. You’re helping my kids learn about commerce and capitalism and goodness and niceness. They are very proud to be in charge of return address labels and loading the packages into giant IKEA bags. Who cares about my kids, right? But remember that children are our future. If this business goes under, what are you teaching the next generation about the benefits of hard work and creativity? I’m not sure, but it’s probably not something good.

5. All of your family and friends wrote to me and said they really really hope you plan to buy them this:

or this:

or even this:

6. And there is still time to order Christmas cards. I’m shipping all of these priority mail at this point, so if you’re in the United States they’ll arrive in time for you to send them out.

I’d like to conclude my whorish rant with a simple holiday request: Please buy things. From me. Or from someone like me. And if you aren’t busy, you know, like doing anything, please tell every single person you know or meet to do the same thing. Thank you so incredibly much.