Hi everyone, I’ll be doing a stall next month for our local village gala - last year it did well but there was disappointment that I didn’t have much for the kids. I’ve never made anything aimed at children, I was thinking of doing some little stretch bracelets with plastic/acrylic beads and those soft rubberised charms, and I have some child size memory wire too.
Can anyone with experience in this offer any pointers please? Is there anything special I need to do, other than stating not suitable for under 36 months? Also any ideas of what I could make to sell at pocket money prices would be very welcome - it’s more about community participation than profit in this case. Hope I’m not stepping into a minefield, but please tell me if I am!
Thanks in advance, Fabulous Folksy People.
Julie
It think there are a number of regulations attached to selling jewellery to children I believe it comes under the same restrictions/regulations as toys.
So yes it’s a bit of a minefield.
I have never done this but I was at a craft fair where two people were taking orders from children, the orders were for keyrings or bracelets with “bestie J, O P” on them. ie best friend and the initials of the kids. They were selling for £2.50 each and the stall had such a long queue that the stall holders ended up with two more helpers. I was amazed at the sheer volume of what they were selling and such a simple idea too. Maybe you could do something similar at your event?
Jewellery does not have the same safety regs as toys - I’ve done both in the past. The only thing to bear in mind is if you’re making necklaces, due to hazard of choking etc, and the info for that can be found on p53 here: http://www.childsafetyeurope.org/publications/info/product-safety-guide.pdf
I think sticking to bracelets is the best thing and like Rachel above suggests, bracelets with BFF (Best Friends Forever) and initials or names on seem to do well as the events I’ve visited this year. Good luck!
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Thanks everyone for your input - I’ve been researching some more myself and found that “Fashion Jewellery for Children” is a specified exemption in the Toy Safety Directive, provided of course that the item complies with all other jewellery regulations that we already follow.
Great idea with the personalised bracelets Rachel, I think that’s the way to go and I’ve got a huge bag of those initial letter beads that I’ve been wondering what to do with. I did make a phone charm as a gift for a friend’s daughter with her name spelled out and that seemed to go down well, her friends were asking for them too. So I might add those into the mix.
This gala day is really all about families, so it is sad if I don’t have anything on my stall for the children. Last year I had some organza bags filled with those glass pebbles intended for use in flower vases - I just wanted to clear the stock. I was amazed to find it was small boys buying them - they kept coming back for more! We later found out they had devised some elaborate game that involved hiding “jewels” amongst the trees plus a lot of chasing around stealing the bags from one another. So then I had to deal with a complaint about split organza bags - hah!
I’ll let you know how it goes, thanks again.
Julie
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Sounds like you have a plan :).
Great to know you’ll be ok in regards to any regulations as well 
Thanks Eileen, really great to have this kind of support!
Julie
Ok, now I’m confused 
In the pdf linked by Liz @BigBirdLittleBird it says:
“Necklaces used by children under the age of 14 are considered to be toys and
should both conform to the requirements of EN 71 - Safety of Toys and be ‘CE’
marked.”
but Julie @NightOwlCreative says fashion jewellery for children is exemption in Toy Safety directive.
I would hate to do anything against current safety regulations even if they are confusing
Agreed Rose, I don’t want to do the wrong thing, so I shall do some more research
oh gosh isn’t it so confusing 
I hope you can get it all worked out ok and in plenty of time before the stall.
Just a thought, if the children choose their letters BFF etc and put them onto string /elastic /phone charm thread is that then craft and not jewellery? thus different rules.
Good point Rachel, though I wasn’t thinking of offering this as a kit or DIY thing, if that’s what you meant?
I’ve been reading up some more and it definitely seems to be just necklaces, specifically elastic, that are a problem, owing to strangulation hazard. That’s ok, I wasn’t planning to do those anyway. The reference I found to “fashion jewellery for children” being exempt from the toy safety legislation is here:
http://www.toysadvice.co.uk/toy-safety-standards-uk.html
