A metal bookmark tier ($10), add-on for one metal bookmark ($10) and a pair of both Sakura and Hops bookmarks ($18) add-on have been added to the campaign already due to an unexpectedly large amount of backers saying they would want one! (57% out of a pool of over 100 already) For those pledging to just the bookmark tier with no pins, you can add an additional metal bookmark as an add-on for $9 of your choice (exclusive to this tier) since I'll be able to save some on shipping by using a flat mailer instead of a box.
Printed Bookmarks will likely still be added, but I will only be adding them if I have time to complete the art before the campaign ends. I will update if/when that happens. If you want to vote on which designs will be added if I can first do Iris, Cornflower, Chrysanthemum, and Foxglove... you can do so at this Discord link HEREwhere I already have a poll running.
Slight update to Sakura dragon, where I forgot to fill in the deep red on the back.
All shipped orders have been delivered, including the few hiccups that manifested. BUT! If for some reason you never received an email from PirateShip OR your order, please reach out, comment, so I can see what's up and rectify. If your order has in fact, not shipped, let's get that taken care of.
I've gone and marked pretty much everyone as fulfilled outside of a handful of orders that seem to have been missed. Those will be double checked and attended to this week. (Sidenote: I think there is *one* backer erroneously marked as fulfilled yesterday. So yeah, please don't hesitate to to say something if you're not sure!) Since I have to manually import tracking numbers I'd rather spend the time getting my store back up and running.
Folks in the UK who also qualified for the freebie pin with AlstroArts have been marked as fulfilled, as I packaged and sent off your orders to their address. When they get to shipping Bouquet of Dragons you'll receive your entire Green & Gold order as well.
I have been taking photos and constructing listings on my etsy shop, and will be reopening it this week with a sale. It should have everything hosted from the campaign, with SPAAAACE Witch! stuff reappearing closer to October. I will be raising prices on many things next year, unfortunately, so this year is the best time to purchase if you were considering or wanted to share the shop link for others not in the know.
* The production:
It's not all doom and gloom tho'! I am seriously impressed with the quality of the pins and magnets from this production. They all came out fantastic with a relatively low number of B-grades! In time I'd like to add bottle openers to what I'm offering, and get coasters back in stock. I know folks like the idea of aluminum tumblers + pint glasses but I do not have the space to store those products, unfortunately. They'd be a case of 'limited run by campaign' only production. Actually what I'd love to produce is an itabag, and I already know what I'd do, along with some kind of wallet accessory, but that's a next year thing. Yes, it will be booze themed.
Issues I need to address:
* UK licensing + new EU shipping rules
This was me dropping the ball. Imports to the UK require an extra step and I did not take the effort to square that away. I need to do some more reading and consulting before my next project to decide what is the best path for my business. I certainly don't want to leave folks in the UK out, I need to square the cost for handling all that myself VS the complication of pairing with another artist and them taking on the burden.
Since I wrote that the the EU and UK have added on more burdensome for small artists/businesses rules, and I'm at a loss of what to do. This year has been rough and I have so very little reach, I'm not sure I will be able to ship outside the US for a while. The state of global trade for small businesses right now is ... *gestures wildly.*
Regardless, how UK orders are handled will be clear before pledging support. If anyone out there has a guide or blog experiences on how to handle this stuff I'd be happy to do some reading.
* general Shipping
I was fortunate in that I purchased or had acquired all the shipping materials I needed long before fulfillment. When the tariff fiasco(s) began I went ahead and picked up extra boxes, packing material, tape, etc, which was relatively easy for a campaign that had "only" a few hundred orders. It saved me some headache and helped when all other shipping costs increased. Historically, the "winter holiday season" has more expensive shipping so I try to avoid fulfillment during that period, also because delivery delays and hiccups are more common.
However, since the campaign concluded in March 2025, shipping costs have increased multiple times across the boards for a host of reasons we can all be disgruntled about. Part of this I could have controlled better by waiting longer to collect shipping fees; at the time I thought I was *super close* to receiving the last pieces, but pulled the trigger too soon. The absolute chaos of rolling tariff changes I could not have predicted and had trouble accounting for. I ended up paying more for both shipping and tariffs to get pins to me, and given how reimbursement works as a tiny artist, I don't expect to be able to recover parts of those costs. And while I covered them personally because it did not feel right to back-fill ask for you all to do so, it will mean going forward I have no choice but to just increase prices across the board, and that includes calculations for how much it will cost to ship backer orders. (Yes, that includes shipping supplies.)
*The Last Unlocks
The Amber Ale and Stout pin unlocks I largely ended up covering myself as well, because I had enough folks with failed charges to pull back the support needed to fund them. This is just an unfortunate reality of working on small margins. Later survey add-ons helped cover another portion of their productions, thankfully.
Going forward, I accept a design may not be funded. I do like that with Backerkit I can set up stretch-goals via survey, to catch those close calls later. And I'll have to add more buffer between designs. While similar has happened before, this time was the most harsh difference because of the larger, more complicated designs.
My position on "this cost more than expected" is "that's something I need to handle." Either with my personal funds, or by leaving a design on the table. It's not to ask for backers to cover extra after the fact.
Was there something you'd like to see me address, touch on, or further explain? Leave a comment and I'll do my best.
As always, happy to answer questions, and cheers! (Stay hydrated out there, folks, and glasses up as Oktoberfest is right around the corner!)
Finally all the pins are approved, and we are production ready! The final pins are pretty good now, and I'm locking the survey to get final counts soon!
Survey will be locked down August 18th.
When I lock down survey, you will not yet be charged shipping, that will be once pins get in. Backers can update what pins they want based on updated samples, add-on any additional pins if desired, or update address details until the 18th. I'll be away on a trip with family till then, so I'll lock survey once I get back. As a note, you should still be able to update addresses up until I'm ready to ship your order and charge shipping to the card on file, lock down should only affect your pin selection.
Preorders will also be closed when survey lock down too~!
As a visual reminder, here are the other pins to help you narrow down your selection in the survey if needed.
They have come a long way, and hopefully will be faster in production than they were at sampling.
Notes for minor production tweaks: Hibiscus - None Tiger Lily - None Sunflower - None Chrysanthemum - None Cornflower - Minor fix to screen print thickness to preserve detail Iris - None Foxglove - Fix on areas that were hard enamel that were made solid Plumeria - Slight adjustment to make the belly gradient go darker, and fill the left paw Dahlia - None Hops - None Sakura - None Hops Bookmark- Slight green adjustment to body color so less gold Sakura Bookmark- Make the dark brown body more clear
Finally making some heckin' headway with the dragons, the manufacturer was focusing elsewhere instead of chronologically with the projects I've sent to them. That seems to be what was bogging down sample production. Though we still are in the thick of it, at least some things are getting sample updates finally.
Three pins seem to be almost done with their samples, just waiting on clear fill and screen print on top. When these 3 are ready and Hibiscus is confirmed we will finally be ready for Survey to be sent out.
Plumeria, Foxglove, and Dahlia samples are almost revised. While I can't call it yet without seeing the samples done, they seem to be on track.
On top of that, Bookmark samples finally have a finished visual and are pretty good. There will be some small tweaks in color for production (not significant enough to warrant a re-sampling), but they are otherwise approved.
The black of the body will be lightened for production so you can see the screen through it a little better.
The front yellow screen print will more closely match the gold color for production, and I'll tiny the body clear to a little more green to be closer to the pin while remaining warm.
Otherwise, I'm hoping this month we will be done with samples, because I'm very excited to see the set complete!
Design Statuses:
Hibiscus Dragon - sample in progress
Tiger Lily Dragon - Sample approved
Sunflower Dragon - Sample approved
Chrysanthemum Dragon - Sample approved
Cornflower Dragon - Sample approved
Iris Dragon - Sample approved
Foxglove Dragon - sample in progress
Plumeria Dragon - sample in progress
Dahlia Dragon - sample in progress
Hops Dragon - Sample approved
Sakura Dragon - Sample approved
Hops Bookmark Sample approved
Sakura Dragon bookmark - Sample approved
Stickers are production ready, awaiting pins to lock-down before sending to production.
Reminders:
Discord since that makes it easier to contact me quickly if I've managed to forget to update here. Link HERE to the Discord server.Which is dramatically faster than here, and faster than email.
Survey will stay open though until samples are complete
Until Survey lock, you can manually update your address, add more pins / stickers, or select different stuff if you have changed your mind. You can even message me if you want to swap around your stickers for pins to some degree.
The Pre-Order store will be open until samples finalize as well. So if you missed out, you still have a chance to get them steeply discounted.
If you are a backer that can't find your survey, feel free to email me so I can try to help you out. Otherwise you can try this first: Survey Recovery Page email: [email protected]
So by now, as far as I can tell, all the orders I can ship out have been shipped. I have a handful of backers with some combination of unpaid shipping and/or incomplete orders. I have sent a fresh reminder email about those orders.
The breakdown of shipping groups:
1) If you are US Domestic, or International anywhere but GB/UK, you should have received a tracking number from PirateShip, or possibly your package has been delivered. (According to PirateShip, all US orders have been delivered and about 50% of international orders have been delivered.) If you are in this group and have neither tracking number nor see an order on the way/have not received your order, please reach out. You can leave a comment or contact me via Backerkit so I can suss things out.
2) If you are in the GB/UK and qualified for cross-collab with Bouquet of Dragons by Alstro Arts, your orders will be on the way to them shortly and we'll be coordinating how to handle transferring the shipping charge you paid me via Backerkit.
3) If you are in the GB/UK and did not qualify for cross-collab with Alstro Arts and have paid for order, I will be sending you a refund. Unfortunately I don't have a way to handle the sales without the extended tax licenses at this time - I thought I'd have that addressed by now but it totally escaped my mind. I will be sending an email about this and offering some kind of credit or coupon or something as an apology for essentially holding your payment for this period. The credit should be something you can use in the future because I either set up the licenses to handle sales in that region myself, or on future collab projects where I can again send your order to the other artist as a facilitator.
4) If you are in the small ground that just got a reminder email AND you are in the GB/UK, please contact me ASAP so I know how to handle your order. If you qualified for the collab with Alstro Arts I should be able to get your order to them before they begin fulfillment, but it would be more helpful if I can send all those orders in one shipment. If you did not qualify for the collab I would like to refund you as well.
Beyond that, I'm going to begin constructing a kind of report on what worked out well, hiccups, etc, and what I need to handle better going forward in future campaigns.
As always, I'm happy to answer questions, and otherwise, Cheers! -Bliz
So to date all US packages should have been shipped and in transit or delivered. The last sets went out Saturday and were composed of orders with items beyond stickers and pins, including the Lucky foil prints. Plus a few stray pin+sticker orders that didn't make it out yet for one reason or another. Most orders are being fully carried by USPS, but a handful started with UPS.
For US orders, if you didn't receive a tracking email from Pirateship by Monday, please do reach out.
A few packages had shipping labels processed twice; if you got two emails about your shipment, one of them was a mistake and can be discarded. I waited until everything was in transit to cancel the secondaries for less confusion on my end. Each order is confined to one package.
This week I'm addressing international orders and aim to have them shipped by end of week. This means you may not see a shipment email until Monday, June 1st.
As always, I'm happy to answer questions, and otherwise, Cheers!
To date I have shipped over 60% of the rewards, solid progress!
If you ordered only stickers and/or pins, and are in the United States chances are your order is on the way. On deck are US orders that also include shirts, totes, and banners, followed by the Lucky Round foil prints tier, and any strays. I aim to have all that shipped by end of week.
After that I'll repeat for international orders and aim to see all orders in the system by end of next week.
Since I get frustrated by "shipment on the way!" type emails where really, the shipment/tracking number has only been generated and is waiting for that first scan, all tracking information goes out the morning after pick up or dropoff so you should see immediate movement on your package.
For postage I'm using PirateShip, which will email you a tracking number around 9am eastern/GMT+8. If you don't get an email from PS (or your reward) by Wednesday next week and have a US order don't hesitate to drop me a line so I can see what's up. That's when I plan to post my next update as well so it should serve as an easy reminder. Note: The first batches of emails from PirateShip have a very generic "Your shipment is on the way!" subject, but I have fixed that going forward.
As always, I'm happy to answer questions, and otherwise, cheers! -Bliz
The remaining 20+ international orders have been sent to Alstro Arts who has the required tax permissions to send to places such as the UK; I believe those should be sent out along with their lovely Bouquet of Dragons once they are ready to fly <3
All other domestic orders should have reached their destination!
If you are a domestic recipient and have not received your package, please reach out.
I am a little hesitant to consider the campaign "wrapped up" as I don't want to worry anyone about not answering any questions about update orders, so I will still be around, as I still have Spirit of Autumn and Sea Dragons 2 still to work on, but it should be smooth sailing from here on out! I am so grateful to have worked on this project and hope that you love your new pins =)
