Hey astronomers!

It's been a while, and I really wish I had better news for you. I was putting off making an update because I was waiting until I had finalized all the samples for the pins, thinking, surely it can't take much longer to finalize them? Unfortunately I was wrong. 😓

So let's get into it. First, the good stuff.

I've approved the samples for the Crescent Moon and Stellar Nebula pins, which is a big step at least. Here are the finalized half-complete samples for those two:

The crescent moon looks a bit odd as a still image, but I can attest that the opal effect looks really cool in motion. I'm sadly unable to upload videos to my updates, otherwise I would show you guys T.T

I've also approved samples for Neutron Star and Supernova:

There was a miscommunication with them after this, and they didn't realize that I wanted the updated glitter for ALL the pins that had that color of glitter, so they didn't start new samples for the rest of them 'til yesterday. 😩

The last two samples that are approved are the Blood Moon and one of the alternate colorways:

The original Moon and the rest of the alternate colorways will have the same effect as the Comet recolor above. :)

Now the annoying part 😩

The Night Sky Pin is being problematic. We've done multiple samples with different styles of effects at this point and somehow my manufacturer just isn't getting the effect I want even after sending them multiple example photos & videos. They even showed me samples of pins THEY MADE that had the effect I want, but on my pin, it's just not looking right.

I'm going to keep working on sampling it with them, because I KNOW my manufacturer is capable of it, so this one's just going to take a little longer.

So far, this is the closest sample they've gotten so you can get at least get an idea:
 

This just doesn't have quite the level of glimmer I was looking for based on the samples they sent me (which were super shimmery and GORGEOUS) and I'm not sure why they're having so much trouble replicating it on my pin :/ I'm going to keep trying. But if they can't get it right after the next few samples, I think I'll just tell them to go with the sample above.

In short, I'm getting really frustrated with the production on these. My original timeline put me shipping out orders to you guys this month, and the fact that they haven't even finished sampling them is driving me INSANE. I've NEVER had this much trouble with the sampling process before, nor have they been this slow about it. It has sometimes taken them a week or longer to make ONE new sample of a pin, so when it takes that long and is STILL wrong, the delays keep racking up. 

I'm not the only pin creator that has experienced these delays - it's apparently an industry-wide issue as of late, so unfortunately, even if I wanted to switch manufacturers, most likely it wouldn't help or make things go any quicker. :/

I'm truly sorry for all the delays, but I promise you all that you WILL get your pins eventually. It's just taking so much longer than it should 😭

I hope the next update will bring better news.

Cheers,
Rain