It has been a bit and I wanted to update you all on how the project is going. Besides surviving the insane heat weeks in the Netherlands I've also been taking a little slow and chill period. But back to work now!
Shipping process All the not-combined orders are shipped off since the last update! All that's left are all the combined orders. Due to the summer holidays and summer conventions we are delayed with packing and shipping them off.
Fulfillment overview so far. 'Send & Remind' contains tip-jar-backers as well but 7 in total didn't fill in their survey.
Roundbirbart and I did meet up to combine all the products but haven't gotten the time to pack them in shipping parcels. With it being 230 parcels this will take a bit longer. Our guess is that we'll be able to pick this up again late August/early September. Just know it's all set aside and your frogs and birds will be send to you. Until then we thank you all for your patience!
Missing payments and surveys As an maintenance overview there are currently 7 backers who did not fill in their survey. Knowing from past projects these will never be filled in if they are not filled in right now so after the end of September I will accept these pledges as donations and close the project for them.
There are also still 2 backers whose survey aren't paid yet. These are filled in but not yet paid for possible tariffs, add-ons or shipping costs. I will keep these open until end of September, after that I will accept them as donations and close the project for them. I have put aside the chosen enamel pins for these two backers, just waiting on the last payment.
I have also send an email to Andrea R directly regarding their missing order from last year's August project with Poison dart frogs & Salamanders. If would be amazing if you could reply to that email before end of August! The email would have come from studioappeltjesgroen et gmail.
Look at the cuties of the collab freebie enamel pins!
Leftover enamel pins in my webshop When ordering stock for the crowdfunding I always order with a buffer and thus have leftover stock at this moment. I sell these at upcoming conventions (Terraria Houten, 20th September is the upcoming) and in my webshop. I wanted to inquire if it would be ok to offer these in my shop soon, while many are still waiting on their orders and thus their pins. My shop isn't super active in sales (around 5 orders per month) but it would mostly be a task I can tick off the list. But I wanted to hear your opinion first before doing this. Otherwise they will pop in the shop the moment all the combined parcels are packed and waiting for pickup.
Next enamel pin project A little sneak for the next crowdfunding project is the Pintober one with Fall times with Floris! Another small (around 6-ish enamel pins like last year) with Floris the Frog as the main focus. All in fall, autumn and October vibes. If you wish to get updates, please hit that follow button.
Upcoming new smaller pin project!
As always if you need to reach out to me, do not hesitate to contact me via Backerkit support (the 'Contact us for help' button on your pledge page). Or you can use the contact form on my website, that way you reach me immediately by email and I can help you out much easier. Please keep an eye on your email when you reach out. I usually respond within 48h to your questions.
EDIT: The order confirmation or balance you receive when your card has successfully charged will show you a break down of all costs. Those outside of the US will have both a mention of Tariff and Complimentary Credit. These two should cancel each other out. Tariff mentions €41,04 -> Credit also mentions €41,04
This only applies to those who has chosen the combined shipping option and are outside of the US!
Thank you for those who reached out to me with questions regarding this. Each crowdfunding I'm learning new things, also how things on the front end looks. I had hoped it wouldn't show but.. it's an invoice in a way so it'll be mentioned of course. :')
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Ribbits everyone!
It's a quick sudden extra update but the cards are being charged right now and I will also lock the addresses in 8 hours.
Because the socks are in! As usually the moment I wrote the update I got a message the socks would arrive next day. And so they are here!
Now that I have everything in house I'm gonna start packing immediately for those that did not get combined shipping. To get them all out asap and hopping to their new homes! This includes the orders with socks! Hooray, no delays!
Please check if your card charge went through, if not you should have gotten an email about it with info how to fix it.
As always if you need to reach out to me, do not hesitate to contact me via Backerkit support (the 'Contact us for help' button on your pledge page). Or you can use the contact form on my website, that way you reach me immediately by email and I can help you out much easier. Please keep an eye on your email when you reach out. I usually respond within 48h to your questions.
After a week of strangling the tariffs it all should be solved and set up as it should! Everything is set up and I've just started the 48h final notice until cards will be charged for the survey.
In the meantime the pins arrived and are all graded and checked by Mr X my partner, he's been making a decent size frog and toad army on our dining table. A few photo's below!
Socks are still in transit, but otherwise I'm ready to start processing the Backers who did not choose combined shipping. Roundbirbart has some other deadlines first to meet and after that is solved we'll start on the combined shipping Backers. I'll meet up with her at her work space and prep the orders together.
There are 5 Backers who did not fill in their survey correctly. Either with missing credit card info or didn't complete it to the last steps. If you do not get a charge coming up email, please check if you still have to do something in your survey.
In summary: • Survey's are locked • Survey charge will happen in 48h (this is for shipping and tariffs and any extra add-ons) • Non-combined shipping Backer orders will be packed the coming weeks. • Backer orders with socks will be put aside until socks arrive. • Addresses will be locked somewhere next week. Final 48h notice will be send. • Combined shipping orders will be packed when Roundbirbart is done, probably early-mid August.
And now for some unedited photo's of a bunch of pins when I unpacked them. The weather has been 30+ celcius for a week now so have sunbathing pins whilst I was sweating away.
Sunbathing cuties
Malagasy rainbow frog
Harlequin toad
Luristan newt
Collab pin - Herpetology
Great crested newt
Japanese common toad
Wild axolotl
I am very happy with them all and hope you can admire them yourself soon!
Status of all products Enamel pins - done, in house, graded Socks - in transit Sticker sheets - done, in house Acrylic keychains - done, in house Early + Returning sticker - done, in house Pin Safari sticker - done, in house Survey filled-in amounts - all set aside for fulfillment Start packing non-combined-order orders - starting this week Start packing combined-orders orders - starting early-mid August
As always if you need to reach out to me, do not hesitate to contact me via Backerkit support (the 'Contact us for help' button on your pledge page). Or you can use the contact form on my website, that way you reach me immediately by email and I can help you out much easier. Please keep an eye on your email when you reach out. I usually respond within 48h to your questions.
My mailbox was blessed with a Fedex tracking which shows the enamel pins will arrive this week! This means it's time for the next phases for the survey.
• First up, I will lock the surveys tomorrow, 7 July 2026!
• Next I will start adding the complimentary credit to those who have picked combined shipping (Local PickUp) but are NOT an US address. To make my work the easiest: please check if you added in your full address besides choosing Local Pickup (if you are eligible for combined shipping). I will use the info provided (street names, cities, etc) to see if you are living outside of the US to remove the Tariff costs.
• US addresses with Local Pickup (and without) will have tariffs added to their survey for duty paid upfront. So there will be no additional payments needed when you receive your parcel.
• This complimentary credit will be a very manual job sadly, so this will take some time on my end. Meaning I will probably take this week if not next week as well to fix this. When I am done I will charge the survey credit cards! I will give you all a 48h heads-up for it but expect that to happen next week at the earliest.
• In the meantime I will be unboxing, grading, collecting and pinning all the ordered enamel pins to prep them for packaging. Mr X will probably help me with this again!
• Together with Roundbirbart we'll set a date for when we will pack the combined orders at her office. I've heard her pins are also getting near so we timed it pretty nicely! Date for this is tba.
• Orders with the Desert rain frog socks will have to wait until the socks arrive. I hope to receive the socks end of this month, but I'm not sure. I will update when I know more. EDIT: I knew it, one day after writing this update and I got confirmation socks are ready to be shipped! Waiting on the tracking but I assume I'll have them by the end of next week or the week after.
• Lock the address when the actual packing of the orders will begin. I will provide another 48h heads-up for this. That way you can update the address still if needed. But double checking your survey, address AND credit card info and amounts right after reading this update can help loads!
I think that's about it. Locking surveys, fixing the credit, then charge the cards, meanwhile unpack and grade the pins, lock addresses, pack them together and wave them all off to their new homes!
Status of all products Enamel pins - en route to me Socks - in production Sticker sheets - done, in house Acrylic keychains - done, in house Early + Returning sticker - done, in house Pin Safari sticker - done, in house Survey filled-in amounts - all set aside for fulfillment
As always if you need to reach out to me, do not hesitate to contact me via Backerkit support (the 'Contact us for help' button on your pledge page). Or you can use the contact form on my website, that way you reach me immediately by email and I can help you out much easier. Please keep an eye on your email when you reach out. I usually respond within 48h to your questions.
This frog has been sweating with a massive heatwave in Europe, it looks like I got a normal nice summer week coming up so I can hopefully think again and get to work. Hope you all are survive the warmth as well!
Got a bunch more pin photo's trickling in by my manu. I asked if these pins were then done or now approved for mass productions but I didn't get an answer to that just.. more photo's 😆 You know what. I'm just here for the ride and won't rush them because rush jobs means many mistakes and I did place a hefty order with lots of pins so I'll be patience. I do expect a shipment notice somewhere the weeks, just a gut feeling.
In the meantime I did approve the socks for mass production! The background has been made a little darker and that did the trick! Really happy with the result, hope you like them too ✨
Desert rain frog socks all approved and in mass production
And now a little rehash of the previous two updates, just so everyone is up to date of the same things. Find all the new photo's after the PSA!
Survey info The survey is still open for changes, you can still switch around any choices of pins you'd like. I won't lock the survey until we're closer to receiving the pins. This due to the tariff issue as well in the survey.
Pay Over Time Backers should now also have received their survey!
As a reminder for the tariff costs non-US backers might saw pop up: I will manually remove these before I charge the survey. The tariff percentage might still change so I'm gonna leave this for the last moment so it's the most accurate for all! (It's currently set to 35,5% tariff but I believe it's 18,8% at this exact moment.)
If anything changes with the survey (locking them, charging the cards, etc) I will first give you all a heads up for this with another update.
Status of all products Enamel pins - in production Socks - in production Sticker sheets - done, in house Acrylic keychains - done, in house Early + Returning sticker - done, in house Pin Safari sticker - done, in house Survey filled-in amounts - all set aside for fulfillment
But now it's time for some photos! As previous time, these are unedited photos, so enjoy the bad and weird lighting they sometimes have. Especially with the American Bullfrog and the Colorado river toad I am keeping my fingers crossed the colours look better when you see them in your own hands with natural light 😆
Northern leopard frog
Pickerel frog
Green salamander
Dirty lucy
Heavy melanoid axolotl
American bull frog
Colorado river toad
Harlequin toad
Illinois chorus frog
Wild axolotl
Leucitic axolotl
Designs I have not seen now are Malagasy Rain Frog (those were UV printed instead of screenprinted) and the tadpoles in other colours.
As always if you need to reach out to me, do not hesitate to contact me via Backerkit support (the 'Contact us for help' button on your pledge page). Or you can use the contact form on my website, that way you reach me immediately by email and I can help you out much easier. Please keep an eye on your email when you reach out. I usually respond within 48h to your questions.
