In romance, we don't like it with somebody messes with the HEA.

I debated on the H for a little bit...thought maybe I'd do historical. I even thought about doing hockey.

But then it dawned on me...romance is all about the HEA. In a pin campaign celebrating the romance genre, how can I not include something that talks about the HEA?

Book genres are defined by certain characteristics.

Mysteries will have mystery.

Historicals will be set in the past.

Murder mysteries will involve murder.

And romance will involve a couple (**or throuple/more) falling in love and finding their HEA or HFN (Happy for Now).  Romance lovers want that satisfying conclusion at the end, knowing the people they've come to know will find their person(s) and make it work.  Things don't always work out in life and there aren't always HEAs.

But we can find them in some places - and a romance in one of those.

Every once in a while there's a kerfuffle in the online spaces known as romancelandia where a writer-typically newish to the romance genre-will announce they're putting a 'new' spin on the romance genre.  This 'new spin' is a 'love story' without the HEA.

Romancelandia has spoken out, loudly, against this every time somebody tries to reinvent our quite lovely wheel.

A few years ago, during one of these blow-ups on twitter, one of these writers was insisting nobody could tell her what to write.

That's true. But likewise, she can't insist her 'love story without the HEA' is still a romance and think romance lovers are gonna be cool with it. Which is pretty much what I said. And I added something along the lines of "This is romance. It's HEA or GTFO."

When I was going through my ideas for the various letters, I kept going back to H and realized why.  Because...well, we're talking romance.

It stops with the HEA.

And that's how I wanted to end this first pin campaign...with the HEA.

That being said, I'm going to have all pin designs, A-H, available for backers.  G is mocked up and I'm discussing it with the artist, so you'll see the final in an update before I send out surveys.

The H...or the HEA, is already done.

Hello everyone! 

I wanted to share an update here that the plushies have shipped and are estimated to arrive here in mid to late June! A very simple and small update just to keep everyone posted here. I am working on getting some nice little touches to shipping materials like fun tissue paper!

Have a great weekend,
Mai

Good Day Y'all,

Hope everyone's been doing well! I've been doing a looooot behind the scenes and I'm finally ready to start shipping out orders. You may have noticed a last call email going out last week to finalize your address. If for some reason you didn't get that and need to make a change, feel free to reach out to me through email.

These include the freebies, the cross-collab, and the revamped designs!

. . .

Thank you for your patience while I've been preparing pins, I meant to post an update once the pins were delivered... but... I ran into a small snag:

A mama cat and her five kittens found their way into my backyard garden box. I've been working to rid them of fleas, worms, and socializing the babies. I've managed to find homes for three of the five kittens, but it's been an ongoing process. I've been prepping orders in between, but it definitely slowed it down. Your support on this project gave me the means to care for them (I'm learning fostering 6 cats gets expensive veeeery quickly) and I cannot thank you enough!

I'm hoping to send all orders out by Saturday, so keep an eye out for the tracking number.

Hope y'all have had a lovely couple of months, we're in the home stretch!

Stay Cozy,
<3 Leeb

Hello all!

Just a quick update to say there's not really any updates for those receiving pins. The pins are currently in production & we'll send a notification when we get them and start sorting, packing, etc.

For those of you who only got stickers, we hope to start sending out those backer rewards soon! We received most of the stickers, there's one sticker that needs to be reprinted because it came out ... not to our expectations... and we are planning on trying to print that one here in our studio rather than waiting for (and paying for) an order which would take another month or two. I've already started creating the 'all the stickers' packs for those of you who purchased those, and once we get or print the replacement stickers, I'll finish those and fire them off to you!

We also received the banners, and are going to have a little party of sitting down to attach the hanging strings to them. Fun times!

More updates when we have them, just wanted to be sure that you knew we're still out here. :)

If you are looking for Pride wear, of course, head over to our main site, where crewneck tees are on sale: buy any 2 crewneck tees, get the 3rd 69% off! We print those in our Portland studio, so we have relatively quick turnaround, for those of you needing a shirt for an upcoming event. :) 

Solidarity,
Spider

P.S. There are about half a dozen of you who still have failed charges. Please fix your cards -- you can't get your rewards if you don't pay your shipping, and as per our posted conditions, if you don't pay your shipping by 45 days after the project ends, it's considered a donation. We'll waive that as long as it's paid by the time we do shipping. (In the past we've had people come to us like 2 years after a project and expect us to have the pins and to honor a pledge where they didn't pay/pay shipping, and that's just not realistic. Please be cool!)

Hello friends! I hope you've been enjoying these last few weeks of Spring.

The last of the pin designs have shipped out 2 days ago and are on their way to me! Hooray! Packing will begin next week after the holiday weekend. I'm very excited to get these designs packed up and in your hands. I have the majority of the pins in-hand already and they all look great, we were just waiting on a couple of designs my manufacturer had to remake. My manufacturer likes to make every pin absolutely perfect so I was happy to wait a little longer so you can have the best quality!

Our next campaign launches in a bit over 2 weeks, and we are once again part of the Pin Kids Collective. Follow along for pre-launch to get a free bookmark and check out all of our other freebies for early and return backers, cross-collab and 6-way PKC incentives. This campaign will focus on nostalgia and my love for iconic characters you'd see in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

That's all from me for now. Soon I'll be eyeballs deep in shipping which is great!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend,
Nikki