The preorder store and survey responses are locking in 1 week!
There are still 20 unanswered surveys. If you want to guarantee you can get something you've been eyeing on the surveys, please make sure you do so before the majority are locked!
We may be able to extend the preorder store, but that depends on health and remaining stock.
Preorder backers who have pledges from the live campaign will have shipping combined! Since preorders are not charged right away for normal campaigns (they are for RTS campaigns), it's possible for me to just zero out the shipping on those.
If the combined orders are pretty heavy then the shipping might still wind up more than the cost of 1 order (for ex. full $7 from order 1 and $1.25 from 2nd order), so to avoid confusion I will not be touching the values until the day of charging. Hopefully that reduces the risk of the true cost being wildly different since it is changing so rapidly.
Thanks to Skinamarink I was able to fix the pricing of the chocolate dead tired pudding!
The tip jar pledge level was previously asking for shipping address even if you didn't get anything else; I removed that, sorry about that.
Again, survey deadline is October 21st, and everything (surveys and preorder store) will be locked and charged on October 23rd, please get your payments in before then in order to make sure things are properly reserved for you!
That should cover everything else I wanted to mention, I think! Thanks everyone! If you missed the announcement of the preorder store, make sure to check out the previous update !
Samples have finally been fully approved a couple weeks back, and the finish date is hopefully soon-approaching!!
I am also sending this out to all projects, so the preorder store is linked here!Commenting below this update is open to everyone, please let me know if you have any questions regarding preorders!
Here are also finished pics of my guillotines!! They are all 100% done with production!!
The red colorway was specifically intended to be a very very dark "hot pink" rather than a true red, because the black plating behind stones makes them a bit more cool-toned. It's something really evident with my lab opal jewelry. I personally think this came out great, and I hope others agree! It matches the stone well and still looks very red without being a costumey bright shade!
For other sample and pin photos, please check out the previous update here!!
On the subject of surveys:
Our current deadline for filling them out is October 21st. We will then lock and charge 48hrs later, on October 23rd. I will have to quality control to both of our standards and all that...so we are on track for beginning fulfillment sometime in November...we hope. I do already have all their add-ons sent to me from Japan by CC, so that part is good to go!
Additional survey info:
For those who did not see all the debacles involved with production, the majority of Chocolat Chaud's new pieces are unfortunately unavailable as preorder or survey options because they had to be upgraded to silver, which is way more expensive. As a result, they can no longer afford to offer them at the campaign price points and quantity ordered had to be dramatically reduced. Collar pin sets are available in limited qty!
For that reason, the vitrail pieces with pink CZ had to be abandoned and instead refunded as credit, because only 1 order of each pink style was not enough to get them produced at that price point.
That issue with the steel not maintaining the necessary details and having to upgrade is also why we could not afford to get the huggy earrings or black cats made, unfortunately.
Last sourcing issue: the Cœur de Chat obsidian beads have been replaced with black agate, but the quality and appearance are the same!
Currently, I'm getting all 16 gauge cat paw septum rings remade. They will have to ship to me after this campaign's jewelry, because it took much longer than anticipated for me to be able to afford it. Each one has 10 opals, and I have to pay for those out of pocket. However, the manufacturer is paying for the metal of the rings and new mold themselves since the QC issues I've been emailed about were due to a major issue on their end and not mine. Anyway, unfortunately that means I had to credit backers for those items...I didn't want to string you along for however many months the remakes take. You can get something else in exchange using that credit, or negotiate a refund (my email address is [email protected]) if affected. The faux (clip-on) cat paw septum rings are not affected.
Some new-to-this-campaign add-ons are available! These include seconds pin grab bags of my monster girl designs, a set listing for both metal colors produced of the porcelain bat, in-hand bandage photos, shoelaces, and more! These are also in the preorder store!
I added more thorn pin sets too, because I finally found the formerly-misplaced stash of the extra purple pins I have!
Backers of paw or bat pendant necklaces can choose between either an 18" or 22" chain.
Merch that is sold out from the live campaign is marked as hidden and cannot be ordered, that applies to merch designed by either of us.
Technically, the survey is what's fully funding the white/black, red/black, and purple/black guillotine colorways, which is why I got a very small qty of them produced. This is mostly because there were so many errored pledges during the initial payment period. But they already exist now, so no pressure - even if only 1 person gets one of those, you WILL receive it!
Guillotines will raise to $80 when sold in-stock after this campaign! I only wanted to raise to $75 but this rapid inflation is making life very hard for everyone, I am really sorry.
Once surveys are charged, stickers will be ordered and will be here before the fulfillment begins!
Shipping info
As everyone now knows, fuel prices are jumping up and down literally daily. So unfortunately, compared to my usual 8oz incremental pricing, I have had to increase shipping cost overall and switch to 4oz incremental pricing.
Lesser-known issue is this:
I got that email at 10pm on the 1st of October lol so I didn't even have any time to try to get ahead of those changes, which began earlier that day. This is all very frustrating but entirely out of my hands. For anyone in the US charged over ~$10 in shipping though, I should be able to automatically upgrade you to priority mail if things don't get even worse (🤞), depending on region.
I really meant to finish up the last ~hr of work necessary to finish up the survey over a week ago, when I sent out the 2nd gacha market's survey, but I wound up in the ER. The pain issue has not fully resolved itself and is ongoing, though I now diagnostically know more about what's going on there. However, I entered the ER only bleeding internally (cysts), but exited it bleeding pretty profusely from my arm (very over-eager vein where my IV port was!). I had to go back in and get patched up. So I think my RBC are still replenishing, given my frequent anemia, as I kept falling asleep against my will more often than usual the past week. I'm finally back to experiencing sleep attacks at only (my) normal frequency so I was awake enough to be able to finish it. 🙇♀️
Almost all POT payments have gone through at this point, so the majority of pending payments are the ones that errored during the campaign runtime. If you are someone who wanted to fix your payment during the survey, please make sure your payment info is correct 🙏 Thank you so much, we're so excited that these Chocolat Chaud pieces finally have momentum, that the guillotines are done, and to have a clearer timeline!!
Smoke tests are on hold because the samples of CC's jewelry have mostly been rejected, for fairly obvious reasons up close but some of the details are hard to show in photos.
Of course, the most egregious is arguably that the Cœur de Chat pendant's stone should have been cut to have a smooth base on both sides. It's practically a weapon as-is. We are both really baffled as to why this was done and why there were no progress photos so that this could have been intercepted.
Sample remakes shouldn't take long because the molds are of course approved, the material is now settled, and the components are mostly agreed upon! The big gem being a problem shouldn't be a huge deal to iron out, either. But some of the issues are plating and polishing related, and given those are final steps it will take around 2 weeks to see the updated changes.
These photos Chocolat Chaud took are really beautiful and I hope they help keep the hype alive!! ✨️
We really thank you for your patience! Truly don't have words for how disheartening it is to be having these issues.
The smoke tests for the surveys will be sent out once the samples are approved, along with an accompanying update. We don't want to be continuing to promise things that haven't been 100% guaranteed yet, given the debacle we had with material issues already.
In good news:
The spoons are done!
I also wanted to show that my guillotines all have colors approved now!
Thank you for your faith too because as promised, the enamel application is so much cleaner now! With the samples they had to apply it on top of the ones that had unapproved coloring/glitter, which is why it was so sloppy looking. They are now headed to mass production for the enameling so they'll be done soon. Such a huge relief!
This 2nd pic for red is because I asked for one without a giant shadow over it, but the lighter one is now a bit overexposed and warmer (you can see if you compare it to the metal color for the other black ones and orangey background), so expect the result to look somewhat in between these pics. Sorry about that. I'm including both of those pics and that info for the red option in the survey (unless they are finished before it's sent out, in which case I'll replace with a better photo!).
Lastly, I've received the pins sooner than expected! I haven't had a chance to grade them as I'm still trickling out my overdue orders from my monster girl campaigns. Lots and I mean lots of doctor appointments recently, and still to come. So sorry about all that, but I will get to them soon. I did however count them and all is well there. While counting, most did seem good!
You can kind of see the pearlescent sheen in the white, but my camera isn't as good as it used to be. I didn't get more purple produced, so this example is still from the prior batch!
The glitter is holographic as promised! Doesn't really like to play nice with the camera either.
Much easier to see in video !
Silver will be an option in the survey!
These came out SO cute and dainty!!
Last but not least, she came out well also!
We've also almost reached the point we will be ordering the stickers! So stay tuned for those pictures some time after surveys have been sent!
Thank you again for your patience! Please email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns!
Hello! Just letting everyone know that the updated quantities were accepted so we are moving forward. If you didn't see the last update, please check it out in order to understand what I mean.
The one thing we are still waiting on is confirmation on whether or not the spikes & ribbon earrings look okay in stainless steel.
This means I can try to get the survey ready to go out soon, and that it will be sent out once we know that for sure. We are going to have to discuss further what we will do with a preorder store if anything, but we'll have that ironed out soon.
In the survey will be another disclaimer front and center to collar pin backers about them now being brass, and to backers of everything that will now be silver about that change too.
Lastly, I do have a pretty minor update but it still is one: my new pin logo is now being used on the spoons now too (this was one they sampled with the new design)!
Needs replating now that this has been engraved but gives a good picture so far of what it will look like.
I think it came out very cute. The previous design on the spoons was doodled kind of on a whim, and is of course still on the spoons currently in stock.
Older picture comparing the paw logo as well...I am indecisive.
RIP old spoon logo from 8 years ago, it has served me well.
Last thing: shipping to Hawaii and US terrotories is dramatically increasing in a few days so I'll need to figure out how to account for that in shipping charges.
Thank you for your flexibility and understanding through these curveballs!
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