Updates

I can't tell you how happy I am to be writing this update! It's time to move into the fulfillment stage!

There are a few odds and ends that are on their way to me still (namely the patches but they should be here very soon), but I am otherwise ready to begin fulfillment! I have been getting as many steps finished inthe meantime - getting all the pins on their backing cards, getting them sleeved up nicely, making the sticker packs, etc - so that everything is ready to be packaged into boxes and shipped out to all of you as efficiently as possible.

It is still several hundred orders and I am but one person, so it may take me a good number of weeks to get them all shipped out, but I am so excited to be finally ready to start getting these out into the world and into your homes.

I had waited as long as possible to close the pledge manager and charge cards, to give people as much breathing room after Christmas as possible - but I think the time has come so that the project can move to the last stage. So, I have set the pledge manager to lock in 48 hours - and then after that I will charge cards.

So if there are any last minute changes or additions you want to do - now is the time! :) You have 48 hours to make any changes you need. 

I guess this is just a short and sweet update lol but a happy one. Thank you so much everyone for your patience and supporting this project. Its so exciting to know these shiny treasures are all going to be on their way to you very soon! :)

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And a little exciting P.S. - My Pintopia partner for this campaign, Kira, is joining in again this year - and I've been watching her design her new pins over the last few months and oh my goodness are they awesome! So check out her launch page - https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/kira-night-art/shadow-brass/launch_party - to see all the beautiful spooky artifacts she is creating this time around. 

(I have decided to sit out this year's Pintopia and continue to focus on getting the pins I'm already working on finished up and shipped before tackling any new projects. But I hope to rejoin the fray maybe next year.) 

Ok, I'm really finished this time round lol - love you guys! 🖤

Hello! ✨🌙 Checking back in with all the progress updates :) The remaining three pin designs arrived - and they are as beautiful as the rest! Seriously, these are so gorgeous in person - I just wish my photography skills were better to do them justice. I wanted to take photos of each pin individually, so you can see them all clearly - but my photography skills are so bad lol. But I gave it my best shots. The colors and lighting are not great on all these, but they are at least in focus and so you can see all the details.  I hope these photos at least give an idea though of how pretty they turned out.

I also wanted to share how each one's 5x7 backing card will look with the pin overtop - as I realized I never shared how each backing card looked finished. For each painting I went back and painted out the figures, so that it was just the landscape to frame the pin. Here is a preview of each sorceress pin on her gold foil backing card.

Also, since the Astronomer was a newcomer to the collection and didn't have her own painting yet, I had to paint a whole new piece for her backing card. For her I started with the landscape only (so I could order the backing cards sooner rather than later) and am still working on painting the sorceress and her octopus familiar to finish the painting. But I love how the landscape part of her painting turned out so much, I am considering keeping it as a separate print itself lol. But here is how the Astronomer's card turned out, as well as a preview of the work-in-progress of what her final sorceress painting will look like eventually when I have more time to paint her.  

✨Astronomer ✨  While some may be content to swim forever in the seas they were born in, the Astronomer looks ever outward, ever upward. Curious and restless, she reaches for new realms, new realities. This sorceress is the explorer who travels beyond the maps end, beyond the surface of the waves, beyond even the sky. She travels ever upward. She is free from boundaries; she is unbounded. The Astronomer reminds us to never settle into a life that is too small for us, to never remain trapped in the mundane familiar. She reminds to seek out wonder and new ways to grow and live. There are worlds and universes to explore. There are unimaginable lives to live amongst the stars.

The stickers haven't arrived yet - but should be here soon. Because of how intricate the designs were, they had to have a border around them, but I really found the white or black border around them distracting. So I went ahead and upgraded the stickers to be clear :) I always want to make everything as nice as I can, and in this case, I decided it was worth it to go ahead and push them a little more with the clear rather than white material.

I also realized I never shared the 'final' version of the patch design - the Dreamer! So I thought I would correct that now :) I really love how she turned out with the squid, so much so that I hope to be able to create a pin and painting for her as well one of these days (fingers crossed).

The patch is one of the last things I am still working on and waiting to get made before I can ship everything out, as there has been some back and forth still with the manufacturer about what techniques could be used to get the embroidered gold frame but to still keep all the detail on the interior shape. I just want to make sure everything is just right before I give the final ok to make it. But the turn around time on the patches is relatively quick - just a few weeks. So that gives me time to get everything else ready for fulfillment while waiting for them to arrive.

I still have a few weeks of work going through and inspecting the pins, of putting them all on their backing cards and I can even get the orders mostly packed so that all that is left is to drop in the patch in when it arrives and ship it right out. So we are getting pretty close :)

I'm so excited and relieved to be able to report smooth sailing on this campaign.

Not to go too much into detail (but also I want to stay transparent and share what is going on behind the scenes) this last year really buried me with medical problems, and I've been spending 2-3 days a week traveling to doctors, getting brain and spine scans, and meeting with specialists and it really turned everything upside down and so much precious time has been spent on medical stuff when I would rather be working on my art.

Seeing these pins arrive in person as beautiful as they did really did so much to refill my spirit, and I am so happy to have beautiful things to send to everyone again.

Ok - I think that covers everything 😅 We are getting close to the finish line!

I want to leave the pledge manager open as long as possible to give everyone as much time as possible. I also realized it was getting close to Christmas and I don't want to give anyone an accidental surprise hit when cards are charged esp. at a time when banks accounts may be a little extra thin due to buying presents and what not - so I am thinking it would probably be better to wait to close the pledge manager until early January, to give everyone time to recover a little from Christmas. I hope that is helpful to at least some of you :)

Also, I've been getting messages and comments about people asking if it is possible to pre-order these still - and the answer is yes! So if you didn't back and decided you wanted one anyways, or if you wanted to add new designs to your pledge - the pledge manager / pre-order store is still open for a couple more weeks.

** Quick Edit - I got a few messages about the pre-order page not showing up for some people, so I am adding a direct link here in case it is helpful to more people: https://sorceress.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

With most everything here, and everything else almost here, my hope is to start fulfillment next month. Of course it is always dependent on all the external factors, but fingers crossed everything keeps going as smooth as it has thus far!

So the tentative timeline is - to close the pledge manager the first week of January and hopefully the last few things will be here by then. In the meantime, I will start putting together all the pins and backing cards and starting to pack orders. And fingers crossed, be shipping orders to you guys by the end of January.

Thank you as always for sharing your excitement with me and helping me create these lovely new shinnies 🖤✨ These are probably my favorite items I've created outside of my paintings and they honestly surprised even me with how cool they turned out in real life - so I am dying to get these into all of your hands! In the meantime, Happy Holidays ✨🖤 I hope you have been able to have time with your loved ones and step away from the crazy day to day of everything for some time of nourishment and rest. Love you guys! 

Oh my goodness - I am so excited to be writing this update - but boxes and boxes of beautiful shiny pins have begun arriving at my house!!

So far, it looks like 7 of the 10 designs have arrived - and they all turned out so pretty. They are so much more 'everything' in person than I dared hope. I will do a longer more thorough update with better photos (hopefully tomorrow) but I couldn't wait to share these with you. So I wanted to at least put up a quick teaser update letting you guys take a peak at how lovely the ones that are finished so far turned out

Also, I know that I intentionally designed these to be large art pins, but goodness, in person these are massive and heavy, and shiny and glorious.  <3 Outside of my paintings, these might be my favorite things I've ever made. You guys are going to be so happy with them when you get to see them in person as well!

Ok - as I said - just a quick yay post for tonight. But I will be back tomorrow for a post with a lot more pictures and whatnot :) 

Love you guys! 

Just realized it's been about a month since I updated you guys and wanted to stop in to give you guys a quick overview of where everything is so far :) 

I got the pins ordered a few weeks ago and they are in the process of being made. I am very excited about working with this manufacturer. They are a lot more expensive than my previous ones, but they have a very good reputation for very high quality pins and a very small flaw rate. This was important to me, as I really wanted to avoid a lot of the difficulties I've run into in the past. So, fingers crossed, everything goes super smooth - and in a little bit, they will be shipping beautiful shiny pins to me. 

In the meantime now, I am working on getting the backing art cards finished and ordered. I don't foresee any trouble with these as I make a lot of gold foil prints on the regular - so should go according to plan without surprises. So, not a long update, but an eventful, exciting one! :) 

Pins are currently being made. Everything is going smooth and moving forward. Love you guys! 🖤

Oh - and for the surveys, they are still open. I didn't need to lock them down to get a count close enough for what I needed to order. There were a few comments worried about that, so I went ahead and left them open in case any one needed more time. There are a few dozen people who haven't filled them out yet, so if you haven't yet please take a sec to pick your rewards. But otherwise, I don't see any issues with anything. I am going to leave them open a little longer, to wait till closer to ship time before closing it, to hopefully give everyone as much time as possible. Hope that helps! 

Short and sweet update - I have gone ahead and hit send on all the surveys :) 

We got about 75% of the smoke tests surveys back and everything went really smooth - so I figured we were good to go on sending the rest. So keep an eye out and if you could fill those surveys out when you see them, that would be super helpful so I can get proper counts on all of these and give the manufacturer the go ahead! 

Love and appreciate you guys! <3 and I'll be back with an update soon to let you know they are being ordered :)