In short, this put a lot of uncertainties about shipping within the EU (even as an EU resident myself) due to packaging waste laws where they want businesses to register in each EU country and pay a fee upfront with some countries requiring a representative as well, which can easily cost us hundreds if not thousands of euros just to beable to ship there without getting in legal trouble.
The good news is that the EC has heard our voices and are said to talk about this in October, so for now I'll hold off on shipping out EU pledges until there's more certainty surrounding this topic since businesses like myself could face massive fines if we do not comply with these laws. While there's talk of businesses only receiving warnings initially, the fact that the warnings could still be issued at this moment is scary, so for now I'll play on the safe side much to my enormous frustration. I'm really sorry about this.
🐏 Status on Funfetti sheep remakes
As mentioned in a previous update, the Funfetti remakes have been stuck at customs and I've been in a surprisingly long battle with FedEx about this. I honestly wonder if the PPWR/ESR regulations have had an effect on this but they could not answer me on this.
FedEx promised to get back to me ASAP and my manufacturer is also helping me with this matter as much as they can. I've called multiple times, opened several livechats, emailed back and forth with proof that the package has pre-paid customs and import fees but for some reason there's an unknown obstacle. What worries me is that it'll get sent back to my manufacturer and it'll get more complicated from there.
I'm frankly not sure what's going on with FedEx lately. I also received a reminder letter that I haven't paid for a shipment in December(?), which ended up being completely false and they apologized for their mistake. 🥲
In the meantime, if your pledge includes Funfetti and you're fine with receiving the cooler-toned variant (which was a factory mistake which they acknowledged, hence the remakes) please send me an email to [email protected]. That way I can note it down and send your pledge on the way as soon as I can.
You can see the color differences below:
Left: Cooler-toned variant | Right: Sample that got shown and what I expected to receive in the first place.
I'm genuinely so sorry for all of the issues that keep arising. I hope to be able to post more positive updates soon and I can get the ball rolling again ASAP.
Lastly, since I'll be posting this in every update from now on as a kind reminder in case this is something you'd be interested in so your pledge can be on its way a lot faster:
🇺🇸 USA Reminder: How can I get my rewards earlier? Can I opt to pay for the tariffs so I can receive my rewards sooner?
Absolutely! Since tariff costs have increased since July 24th, it's been a massive dent in my fulfillment plans since I'll be paying for these costs out of pocket on top of also compensating for the upgraded shipping costs that is mandatory in order to be able to ship out the pledges (for more information, please see this update).
This means that shipping will take much longer than anticipated for USA backers, so unless you're fine with covering these extra expenses so you can get your rewards sooner, unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you to wait a bit longer since I cannot guarantee when I'll be able to ship them out. 🥲
If you don't mind covering the tariff costs or have questions, send me an email to [email protected] and I'll send a screenshot with the exact amount that needs to be paid. We can discuss it further from there.
Once again I am super thankful for your support and I'm tackling everything with blood, sweat, and tears. I'll see you all in the next update!
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their sweet messages since the last update - a lot of you were super understanding of the tariff situation and sympathized a lot, I almost started crying with how kind everyone has been, haha!
I want to start off this update with (another) thank you because despite all the challenges with this project, you all have been so nice. It truly has been tough for me not just on a small business level due to all these new changes, but also on a more personal level the past year and a half or so.
I want to share that even recently it has been really tough on me because my dog, Milo, has recently passed away due to a cancer that spread to his liver/spleen at 10.5 years old in late July. His health declined really rapidly in the span of a month and he passed away in his sleep in my room last week He was really struggling with rapid muscle weakness and incontinence, and it's hard for me to even type this out because I really, really miss him.
Here's a cute photo of him. We always had to gently wipe away the lil crusties covering his nostrils due to his condition, we were actually in the middle of it when we took this photo of him. He was a grumpy grandpa and for some reason always had beef with my dad's shoes/feet, but he absolutely loved cuddles and kisses. He'd take that over treats any day. Rest in peace and cuddles, my sweet lil' pupper. ❤️
🇪🇺 Onto other business! Notice regarding EU shipments:
As someone of you may already have heard, there's a lot of information (and panic) being shared online regarding a law that comes into effect starting August 12th (PPWR and EPR). To keep it very short: it affects shipments within the EU that requires business (including micro/small businesses) to - as far as we know - pay an fee for every individual EU country we want to ship to. What this means is that it is possible to get faced with a hefty fine if we don't register within these countries which can range from €100 - 400 per country plus some countries requiring a legal representative.
As you can imagine, this sounds ridiculous and not sustainable long-term since this basically goes against the free trade market that we're used to. In other words, shipping to the USA would now be a lot easier for me than to ship within my own continent, union, even my own country.
It seems like the past two years are full of laws and decisions that actively seem to want to bring down the micro- and small businesses and it's frankly exhausting to keep up with everything. The USA recently opened up for me, only to get hit around a month-ish later being unable to ship within the EU... when does it end, I wonder. 😵💫
🐏 Regarding Funfetti Sheep
The remade Funfetti pins are currently on their way to me but it has been taking unusually longer than what I'm used to. As far as I've noticed, it is currently stuck in customs and has been for a while. I've already contacted my manufacturer about this as well as FedEx to see what's going on but I haven't received any clear information other than it's being actively worked on. All I hope is that there isn't some other packaging law I'm not aware of that's causing this delay, but I'm keeping a close eye on it and keep everyone in the loop as much as possible.
In the meantime, if your pledge includes Funfetti and you're fine with receiving the cooler-toned variant (which was a factory mistake which they acknowledged, hence the remakes) please send me an email to [email protected]. That way I can note it down and send your pledge on the way as soon as I can.
You can see the color differences below:
Left: Cooler-toned variant | Right: Sample that got shown and what I expected to receive in the first place.
And lastly, since I'll be posting this in every update from now on as a kind reminder in case this is something you'd be interested in so your pledge can be on its way a lot faster ☺️:
🇺🇸 USA Reminder: How can I get my rewards earlier? Can I opt to pay for the tariffs so I can receive my rewards sooner?
Absolutely! Since tariff costs have increased since July 24th, it's been a massive dent in my fulfillment plans since I'll be paying for these costs out of pocket on top of also compensating for the upgraded shipping costs that is mandatory in order to be able to ship out the pledges (for more information, please see this update).
This means that shipping will take much longer than anticipated for USA backers, so unless you're fine with covering these extra expenses so you can get your rewards sooner, unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you to wait a bit longer since I cannot guarantee when I'll be able to ship them out. 🥲
If you don't mind covering the tariff costs, send me an email to [email protected] and I'll send a screenshot with the exact amount that needs to be paid. We can discuss it further from there.
It's been a lot of ups and downs this year but at least I'm happy to be making progress even if it's slower than I initially anticipated or would have liked. 😅 Thank you again for your understanding and support, I really appreciate it during these trying times. 💚
As I've been working to ship out as many pins as possible over the month, everyone in Portugal (and likely the rest of the world) recently got notified of the new, updated tariffs that are going into effect on July 24th. This came as wholly unexpected, especially so shortly after we finally became able to ship to the USA again.
The new tariff rules coming into effect will have increased costs. What would usually cost me around €3-4 for pre-paid duties will now cost me around €6-8 (around $7-9 USD) to send only one enamel pin. Considering that some pledges were initially paid for with just standard shipping and that the USA now requires not only pre-paid duties but also for it to be sent with tracked shipping, this is a lot of extra expenses on my end considering the bulk of the pledges are going to the USA.
What does this mean?
This put a massive dent in my fulfillment plans since I mentioned in previous updates that I'll be paying for the tariffs out of pocket on top of also compensating for the upgraded shipping costs that is mandatory in order to be able to ship out the pledges. This means that shipping will take much longer than anticipated for USA backers, so unless you're fine with covering these extra expenses so you can get your rewards sooner, unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you to wait a bit longer since I cannot guarantee when I'll be able to ship them out. 🥲
If you don't mind covering the tariff costs, send me an email to [email protected] and I'll send a screenshot with the exact amount that needs to be paid. We can discuss it further from there.
I'm really bummed about this and I'm frankly so done with the ridiculous laws and rules that keep being added. All I want is to get everyone their pins as soon as possible but it's one obstacle after the other... 🫠 Thank you again for your patience, and I'll see you all in the next update. 💚
It took a little while longer to post this update since my manufacturer told me that the screenprints on the remade Funfetti pins took more time than they expected (on top of having another holiday during the production process), but they finished the plating for the pins and will ship it out in the upcoming days! 🎉
I expect the pins to arrive here by the end of this month or begin August at its very latest. Shipping times from China has taken a bit longer than what I'm used to in the past year due to all these new changes and rules, but I'm hoping to get them earlier than anticipated so I can get everyone's pins on the way ASAP.
I've also shipped out a couple of test pledges and will ship out a couple more over the next few days, although I'm a bit wary now with the upcoming changes on July 8th and how it could affect Europe (if it does). Needless to say I'll of course keep everyone updated!
A kind reminder if you want your pledge sooner (USA backers)
As mentioned in previous updates, I'll be paying the customs and import fees out of pocket due to the long wait because of the new US import laws that took the Portuguese postal carrier (and Europe in general) a lot of time to finally get fixed so we could ship things out again. I feel like this is the right thing to do considering everything, and I do not expect the people who supported me to pay more than what was expected.
This means that fulfillment of your pledge can take longer than initially anticipated since the import costs ended up being higher than the estimate that was communicated with us. Please feel free to email me ([email protected]) if you don't mind covering these costs (which, depending on the volume and contents on your pledge, should be within a range of around €2 minimum to €10+) so you can get your order shipped out sooner. I'll provide a screenshot of the actual calculated costs and we can arrange the payment via PayPal.
Again, this is entirely optional and it's only if you wish to get your pledge shipped out sooner. If you're fine with waiting a bit longer due to the above mentioned reason (me paying it out of pocket), then there's nothing you need to do, however I - for full transparency - cannot give an estimate as to when I'll ship out your pledge since the fees all piled together can be quite costly as you can imagine, so I'm trying my best to things shipped it out as soon as I can since this is also an unexpected added expense for me. 😅
Thank you for reading and stay hydrated during these extremely hot days!
Hello everyone! A quick mini update regarding the Funfetti pins because I completely forgot to mention it in the last update, so here it is.
It was brought to my attention that I haven't mentioned anything yet regarding it in the past few updates, which is totally on me, and I'm very sorry for that! It completely slipped my mind since I - for some reason - thought I had mentioned it at least once.
What's the status?
As you know, it's been quite a long while since I first pointed out the misprint. I first want to let everyone know that it is still being remade, but due to several factors it got immensely delayed (longer than I would've liked and anticipated for that matter, please see the reasons below!)
My manufacturer assured me that the pins will be done by the end of this month (so in a coupe of days) and they'll be shipped out ASAP.
Around January spanning all the way to around late February, we got hit with a massive, back-to-back storm in Portugal that led to catastrophic damage all across the country (unstable electricity, massive town floodings, and more). This caused a lot of damage and issues to buildings, roads, and houses which made access to a lot of areas extremely hard while also having to make sure that we sustained no damage to our home (which was susceptible to floodings).
The factory my manufacturer works with has been very inconsistent with updates which caused me to chase for answers multiple times. For me this was unheard of since I've always had a very reliable and smooth experience with them ever since I started my business, so this led to a lot of frustration and more time loss on my end.
There are a number of Chinese holidays near the start of the year where a lot of factories close, sometimes for a whole week or longer. This inevitably caused more delays, some of them unforeseen to me.
My sincerest apologies it's been taking so long, genuinely. A lot of my focus was on the USA shipment since I've been fixating on that for a long time ever since it's sudden shutdown in August 2025 since the bulk of the pledges are headed towards them which has been a major source of anxiety. Regardless, it's absolutely no excuse that I failed to communicate the status of the Funfetti sheep pins and I cannot express enough apologies for that, so I hope this provided a bit more insight as to why it's been taking a lot longer than initially expected.
A lot of things are happening in the world that's been an absolute nightmare for small businesses in the past year since the costs (and potentially more paperwork in July all of a sudden) have also been increasing due to all the new rules and laws that are being thrown left and right regarding international shipments.
As one person running the whole thing and trying to keep up with all the logistics and such, it's been a lot of things to keep track of and put into motion which caused me to not properly communicate the Funfetti sheep when I thought I did. 😵💫 Again, I'm so sorry for this. I fully understand any frustrations or concerns surrounding the Funfetti pins.
I'll be posting another update once the pins are on the way and when I expect to get them. In the meantime, I'll be proceeding with some test orders as mentioned in the previous update due to the new USA customs regulations.
That's all for now, thank you so much for your time.
