Awaiting CE approval

Who'd have thought a hobby could get so complicated?
I've suddenly be catapulted into this (overwhelming) world of CE marks, tax, self employment and a whole bunch of other stuff I never expected to happen, not now, or with this anyway!
But I'm finding it exciting, and I'm learning so much!
At first I thought I was going to have to give it up, but now I'm ready to tackle it right on with the help of trading standards. The thought of having safety certificates for everything was so much, along with declarations of conformity...testing..BS14whatevers.

I had a very helpful phone call with a man from trading standards who informed me of a few things I didnt know.
like.. any toy that is soft, is not allowed to be marked with the 'not suitable for 36 months' as its a given that parents will give a soft toy for a baby. Which cued a bit of a panic for me, as I was worried on the off chance that say a bunny ear would fall off and get eaten, wouldnt that be a choke risk? but apparently not, the choke risk lies in hard items like buttons, which would have to be put into a tube and tested to see if they are too small to go down the wind pipe. Soft things are not an issue (which to me as a parent is totaly bizarre! personally I would have rather marked them as not suitable just in case, but I cant do that! I can only recommend they're for a certain age)
On the other hand though, it does mean my star baby can be sold for under 36 months as when added with lavandar makes a nice sleepy time toy for bed. (though I'm sure I'll have to jump through hoops for lavandar oil?!!)
Even the man said its incredibly complicated and has recently changed.

So I'm currently prepping two toys for testing, I have one bunny to go, because I figured if it was going to be one that failed it'd be those darn ears, and I'd rather I knew where I was going wrong and be safe than not.(not that I think its going to fail! I'm sure it wont) and I also need to send one bundle baby as they're the basis for the other toys at the moment. I also need to send my labels so they can be sure I've labelled them properly.
It'll take 3-4 weeks to get results back (probably the longest wait eveeer for me! equal to pregnancy!! ) but I hope that once I'm in the all clear I'll have a little stock going on ready to upload! I'm lucky in that my local trading standards are sending my dolls away for free for basic testing! anything more would have to be paid for, there are also tests I can do at home apparently.

Also as well as having the CE testing, I need to keep a technical file for the toys, so every 'batch' I make with the same fabrics, needs to have a declaration of conformity, which is a form to say they've been made with the CE standards in mind. This along with all the safety certificates and risk assessment need to go in a file with any other information like design etc so that should I ever need it, it'll be there to prove I've done my job properly.

I've had to email my fabric companies for certificates,though the main and most important is the stuffing safety, and should I be using eyes on toys they would have to be pull tested (but I dont).
thankfully the stuffing safety was easiest to get hold of! fabric companies are a little more of a challenge.
So all this on top of learning about tax, and self employment its no wonder that my head feels like its going to explode!!

Anyway, I'm excited to get these last few bunnies finished as I have to admit they're not my favourite to make!!