As of yesterday, ALL REMAINING ORDERS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED! I spent most of this past weekend and Monday packing orders at the speed of light so we can get this wrapped up and I am very proud to finally be able to say that all available orders have been packed and shipped and are now on their way to their forever homes! I've even gotten a couple messages from folks that their orders have arrived already!
As always, please let me know if there are any issues with your order or if I missed anything :)
Now that these have all been shipped, the leftover pins are now available in my Etsy shop here! Check out the Beetle Bakery Collection for the pins and stickers from this campaign. For my lovely backers, there is a special discount code at the end of this update for my Etsy shop. This code is valid through October 1st and will give you 25% off everything in my shop!
However, there are still a few stragglers with unanswered surveys or failed payments. I'll leave these pledges open until next Friday, at which point I will consider these orders abandoned and will cancel them. If you haven't received a shipping notification, please go to your profile, click "Your Pledges and Surveys" and check if you haven't answered your survey or if your card was declined. If your order shipped, it should show up there as well and you can grab the tracking number that way :)
That's all for this campaign! Thank you all so much for helping to make this project come to life, and for sticking with me through the ups and downs!
Great news- the remade pins are finally here! I meant to update you all a couple weeks ago that production on the new pins was almost done, but I didn't have any photos of the new pins and thought it would be a boring update. BUT now they're here, and I'm happy to share with you all photos of the NEW and IMPROVED Challah Centipede design:
The new pins are now mostly flat, with recessed eyes and a screen print over the whole top for the darker areas, whereas the old ones had wells with enamel fill. For some reason, there were issues with the color of the enamel filling, which made it look green in most lighting. This new version is warmer, and better matches the other bread designs (Sourdough Spider and Bread Beetle) and I love how they came out~
Here they are all together! They are much more cohesive as a set now, and I couldn't be happier! I hope you all like the updated design, and I can't wait for you to see them in person :) What's next? Now I can finish packing and shipping the rest of your orders! First of course I'll need to go through the new pins to count and quality check everything (again), but I plan on only looking through the Challah Centipede and Boston Cream Spider for now so I can finish packing your orders before I go through the whole lot. I also have a friend coming over this weekend to help check, sort, and pack your orders so I can get them out ASAP! Please keep an eye out for an email from BackerKit with your tracking number and shipping notification :)
I want to thank you all so much for your patience with these, so for everyone who waited for their order, I will be throwing an extra sticker or two in your packages! I'm so thankful for your kindness with this whole mess, and for all the sweet messages and comments you sent me when I first discovered these flaws! Seeing the miss-colored, scratched, and flawed pins pile up was really disheartening, and your kindness really helped me push through to finish this project, and encouraged me to continue planning more projects in the future. Once everything is packed and shipped, I'll begin working on a brand new campaign and I hope you all will join me on my next adventure (whenever that may be).
That's all for now, but if you have any questions or concerns please let me know! I'm available to chat through comments here or via DM on Instagram (ApothecaryOctopus), and of course if you want to share photos of your pins you are more than welcome to post them and tag me <3
Great News: My manufacturer has (finally) gotten back to me and has agreed to replace the damaged and flawed pins! After some back and forth, I was able to get a hold of someone who has now started the process of getting replacement pins made and sent to me ASAP.
Minor Changes: As you may remember, one of the designs from this campaign came out a bit green and was not at all what I wanted the final product to look like. The Challah Centipede design did NOT match the other two bread bugs: the plating was more orange-tinted and the enamel color had a weird greenish hue to it instead of the warm brown the Bread Beetle and Sourdough Spider have. After discussing with the manufacturer (and looking at the other pins) I decided to update this design slightly, and it will now have corrected colors and instead of the medium brown being recessed soft enamel, this will now be part of the print with recessed eyes instead. This is how the Bread Beetle and Sourdough Spider were made, and I hope with the new style and colors, all three designs will match now :)
More Good News: What? More good news? Yup! I've been hard at work shipping all the orders I can while waiting for the new pins to be made, and I am very proud to announce that I have packed and shipped 87 of your orders!
More than that, many of your items are already arriving, and I've had several warm messages from folks letting me know their pins have made it safely to their new homes :)
Y'all have been absolutely AMAZING through this whole campaign, and especially though this flawed pin debacle. I couldn't have asked for better supporters! To thank you, I'll be including an exclusive discount code for my Etsy shop at the very end of this update.
To be fair I always include a bonus discount code at the end of my campaigns, but they're usually only 20% ;)
As promised, I have a few more pin photos to share too~
If you missed anything from the campaign (or your friends want in on the action!) I'm including a special 25% off discount code for you all at the end of this update. This will be in the backers' only section, so please make sure you are logged in so you can see it <3
These designs will likely be listed on my Etsy (linked here) in the next 2 weeks or so, but please keep in mind there are very limited quantities of A-Grade (perfect) pins, so the only pins available on Etsy will be the B-Grade pins- at least until the remakes are in and the rest of the campaign orders are sent out. The stickers however will be made available shortly, with bonus Sourdough Spider stickers available as well. After seeing how popular the design was, I ordered some of those with my last sticker restock and they will be available soon!
Again thank you everyone who offered to take a B-Grade pin! I made sure to include a couple bonus stickers from my candy collection in each of your orders, so I hope you like them :)
Loved my campaign but can't help wanting more? The new PinQuest campaign group launched today! There's dozens of other artists I love all taking place in this limited time event, so I encourage all of you to check them out here or find them on the BackerKit homepage under Groups.
Questions about your order? Please email me at [email protected] or message me on Instagram (ApothecaryOctopus)
Like the title says, this update will be a bit of a mixed bag with some good news and bad news. We'll start with the good, but please read to the end!
First, Good News:
The pins are finally here! They were delivered to me early last week, and I've been hard at work quality checking, counting, and taking photos of them. They look adorable and the packaging I designed for them looks fantastic! I truly cannot wait for you to get your orders!
Macaron Beetle Set
Packaging Example
Unfortunately, there is also some bad news:
While quality checking/sorting the pins, I noticed a lot of them are damaged. I can't tell if this was a shipping/ packaging issue on the manufacturer's part, or if they just didn't do as thorough of quality checking as they usually do, but there are a LOT of pins affected. I estimate around 60% of these pins have scratches on the face of them, spots in the lighter enamel colors, one design has the wrong color enamel entirely, bubbles under the plating, missing enamel in some designs, and scrapes on the edges/corners of them. I've already reached out to my manufacturer with my concerns but have yet to hear back. I really hope they offer to replace the damaged pins, especially since there are sooo many but until they respond to my email, I don't know what will happen. This is super disappointing- this is the fourth time I've used this manufacturer for pins and I haven't had any issues with them before, but I do think they will fix this!
More Good News!
Fortunately however, while a lot of the pins are damaged or have noticeable flaws, I have enough of most designs to fulfill your orders. As with all my campaigns, I ordered much more than I needed for this project in the hope of listing these in my shop after the campaign concludes, so I ended up with enough pins in good condition that I can fill most campaign orders.
That being said, there are two designs that I do not have enough pins for. Those being the Boston Cream Doughnut Spider, which I only have 14 'A Grade' ones out of the 31 I need, and the Challah Centipede which looks greenish instead of the rich brown they were supposed to be- which unfortunately affects all pins of this design.
If you ordered the BOSTON CREAM DOUGHNUT SPIDER or CHALLAH CENTIPEDE:
Please comment on this update, message me on Instagram (apothecaryoctopus), OR email me at [email protected] which of the following is your preferred course of action:
You are OK with receiving one of the 'flawed' pins, with a free bonus sticker included for compensation! Flawed pins will only be ones with minimal issues, like small scratches on the edges of the design (ex. the above photo on the left)
You prefer to wait for the remakes (which may take a couple weeks!)
Boston Cream ONLY: You want one of the 'perfect' pins and don't want to wait. These can go out to the first 14 or so folks who email me.
If you ordered one or both of these designs and I don't hear from you by June 15th, I will assume you are OK waiting for the remakes.
Since I do have enough of the other designs to fulfill orders without the Boston Cream Spider or Challah Centipede, I do plan to startshipping your orders this week. If you need to update your address because you moved or just need your order delivered somewhere else, please keep an eye out for the 'locking addresses' email that should go out tonight and follow the prompts to update your shipping address. If you don't need to make any updates, you can ignore that message and I'll send it to the address you provided with your survey :)
I'm so sorry this isn't a happier update, but I do hope I can clear this up soon and the folks who ordered the Boston Cream and Challah Centipede pins won't have to wait too long for the new pins.
Thank you for reading, and again thank you so much for your patience! -Danny
This will be a short update- but I wanted to let y’all know that THE PINS ARE DONE! Manufacturing has finally finished on ALL the designs from this project, and they have now been shipped. It should be about 8-14 days before they get to me, but as soon as they arrive I’ll be counting, sorting, and quality checking all of them- then it’s packing time!
Quality checking and order packing will probably take a couple weeks, but I have a few friends (and my mom, hi mom!) coming over to help out so we can get your orders out ASAP! Right now, it looks like your orders should arrive late June to early July for domestic (US) orders, and mid to late July for international folks.
Manufacturing for this project has taken a lot longer than it usually does, so I want to thank you all again for your continued patience! Thankfully, all the backer cards, stickers, and sticker sheets are already in my hands so shipping can begin as soon as the pins arrive and are quality checked.
I’ll be posting another update as soon as the pins get to me with new photos of all the designs together, and provide a more accurate timeline update. But that’s all for now! Thanks for reading :)
