Full transparency, this is a "things happened and I am not feeling jokes" kind of update. Skip to the bold text if you are here for product updates.
A few days ago, one of my birds was killed in a traumatic, avoidable accident. This is the second bird I have lost in a month because of my terrible, terrible rental company and their disdain for making my apartment worth the $1.5k they squeeze out of me.
This is one event in a string of, frankly, completely awful shit that has been happening in the past month. I implied one of these things in another update, but it's OK if you don't know what it is, because I didn't give any details. I had a bird escape a faulty window screen, and even after searching every tree in the neighborhood with a hunting dog for three weeks, there were never any signs or sightings. The hunting dog, in question, too, may be in relapse with a chronic infection, and it will be over two weeks before we know if she has permanent kidney damage that may shorten her life considerably. My over-achieving cockatiel has three different crop yeast infections, and while he's looking to be OK, the process of holding down a sweet, loving bird and having him thrash and scream and cry twice a day and be terrified of me when I come in the room is breaking my heart.
My days off work have been spent either looking for a lost bird, taking an anxious cockatiel to a vet an hour away, or wrangling my shaking, cowering "fearless" akita into an exam room to be prodded with needles to make sure she will make it to her seventh birthday. This is my life for the past month and a half. I don't have breaks. I don't have leisure. And I love them, but it's taking its toll. My pets escaped with me from my previous situation, and they are the only family I have.
I generally cope by burying myself in work, and get record amounts of shit done, but I can't win this one. I've spent the past couple of days going to work, coming home, staring at my computer screen doing absolutely nothing and avoiding the room where it happened. I dropped the other sick idiot bird trying to give him meds yesterday, and I have had sleep and calisthenics for dinner for three nights. It's only been a few days, but I am already losing track of time and deadlines and what happened when.
I hate being sappy, but my animals genuinely are my world and the reason I do all this shit. Sorry, guys. It's not you. It's them. While I generally dislike making my issues personal for my customers, this is the straw that broke the camel's back for me, and I am at a point that my productivity is becoming your problem.
I need to make sure more of those days don't happen, and to do that, I think I need to step back a little bit. Thank you for your patience. Nothing is stopping, but I need to slow down, and keep my nose in the actual production work and less on trying to be funny and creative when I don't have it in me.
I have emailed commission clients and one-on-one correspondences about this.
You can start reading here if you don't care about that, and just want product updates.
BIRD CRIMES' timelines will not be affected. Updates will be posted as they happen.
All orders were locked and cards charged on the 17th. We have about 30 failed charges, for either full orders or shipping. Please go in and check if your card was declined, and make sure it gets corrected. BackerKit will automatically attempt another charge in about a week.
You can no longer make changes to your order - pin designs, sticker choices can't be changed, and addons can't be added on. Manufacturing numbers are locked in and both sticker and pin orders have been placed.
The preorder store is now closed. Buyers who want LITTLE SHITS birds 1 stickers can still purchase them from the HUSTLE site. LITTLE SHITS birds 2, mammals sets will not be available until early summer on the HUSTLE. There are other bird goodies on the HUSTLE if you want them now, but they might take a little longer to ship than usual.
Backers can still change their addresses until fulfillment starts. Backers who are moving between now and early August should take note, especially. Make sure your address will be current by fulfillment time - while we don't have an exact time yet (it'll be announced as production gets further), expect mid to late Summer.
All campaign-ordered CUSTOM CRIMES have had, at least, sketch artwork completed. Printing of badges has begun. If you have not reached out to me with your physical badge option yet, please do so - your deadline is your ship date, but sooner is better.
I am working on two more projects with other creators, which will launch in spring and summer. I'll talk more about them when I've got more funny words in my brain to put in an email. They're both about birds, and you should go follow Alstro Arts on Instagram and Corviforms on Twitter if you want some more details about each of them.
We have an enamel pin sample of the cockatiel, but the colors aren't quite right yet. Another bird creator has stepped in to save the day, with a pantone book that isn't old enough to drink. Turns out, sepia grays weren't invented until 2015. Who knew?
Otherwise, things are looking good - this is the final size and quality of the product you guys will be getting. I'm especially happy with how clear the screen printed text is. Fill colors are in the process of being corrected as we speak, and I hope to have a better sample to show you guys soon. My rep always does awesome, she's good people.
Thanks for reading. Stay good. Give your pets a forehead kiss for me tonight, yeah?
Hi everyone! I wanted this update to include all the new designs I’d planned but my health hasn’t been great, i won’t bore everyone with details mainly just new medication making me nauseous/ continued light sensitivity. I’m completing the survey set up (mainly just figuring out shipping it’s so much math for my single brain cell ;;) all the current designs have their colours picked out and have been submitted for samples so hopefully in the next update I can share some pictures with you all!
Everyone has been so lovely and supportive about all this and I’m incredibly sorry for letting you guys down, I will continue to finish up new designs asap!
I do have something special to share with you though! Asherbee gave me an idea with her preorder variant of the limited edition pin so I hope it’s alright I’ve made this pastel variant of my collaboration campaign pin that anyone can buy in the store when it’s up for those who wanted one/ more of them!
Just a gentle reminder that there are 21 surveys unaccounted for.
Also we have 5 pins that are closer to being unlocked than not, so I will be taking on the extra expense to get them made as long as the current numbers aren't dipping down, so YAY!! I know there were some that really had their hearts set on the ladybug and alternate pin, so we're going to make them all!
Thank you everyone for getting your surveys in, and anyone who is interested in pre-ordering!
*Newly unlocked pins in the Pre-Order Store cannot be swapped out for the pins that were unlocked during the LIVE campaign. Once the surveys go out to backers, making changes to it can cause issues that affect everyone on the campaign*
You have until May19th to get your surveys or orders in. I'll be ordering in the next day or two after, and I would LOVE for you to be counted and not have to work with what's left over after all the other backers who completed their surveys are helped.
Also I will have a booth at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas next week! I'll be at F86-A, so come say "hi" if you're in the area and grab a freebie or two!
I hope everyone is doing well! I thought I would check in with a quick little update of how things are progressing behind the scenes here. I've been working hard to get everything setup properly for this campaign (and the sister puzzle campaign I ran simultaneously). I've been focusing on finishing all the designs we unlocked so fast the last two days of the campaign - and I am happy to say I have finished two of the last three trios!
I'm so happy with how these two sets turned out and hope you guys love them! It is so fun finding the mood and shape language that makes each set feel cohesive together.
This only leaves one trio to go - the blue heron, indigo, and dragon! I've decided I am going to go ahead and design all three, even though the dragon didn't quite get unlocked - as it feels so strange to be missing just the last one design out of the whole set of 24.
It's crazy to think we got that far and I really had thought we would only unlock 4 or 5 painting trios lol but since we got so close to that finish line, I wanted to see it all the way across :)
The extra design will be available as an option once I get the pre-order store setup and in the surveys. For now, though, I am focusing on finishing the designs themselves and working with the manufacturers to get everything just right.
Anyways, I just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know that progress is being made and share some of the new designs as I finish them! I am finding the trios are taking me about a week and a half - to two weeks to do all three designs, so I will probably have another update with the last three designs in about two weeks! Love you guys, and as always, thank you so much for all the support in bringing this project to life! <3
Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to share these previews of our brand new Shroomie ✨STICKER BOOKS!✨ This is the first sticker book I've made thus far, and I can confidently say that I'm super pleased with the quality and final outcome.
If you're not familiar with sticker books, they're basically ingenious ways of storing, organizing and displaying your sticker collection! All of the pages are made of a special material (like the glossy back of a sticker that you peel it from), which allows each sticker to be entirely reusable—over and over again. Check it out:
(Give the GIFs a second to load if you don't see them right away):
If you're like me, I love collecting stickers, but can never decide where to put them or how to use them. I admittedly have a big pile stashed away in box from all I've collected and made over the years... 😅 But now, I can finally dust off that box and give all my stickers the proper display and organization they deserve!
These are great for sticker-commitment-anxiety too, since you don't have to perfectly align the sticker placement on the first try. If you peel and place your sticker at an odd angle, it easily peels right back off and re-sticks as many times as needed (without losing ANY adhesive)! Or if I decide I want to rearrange the stickers in a different order, swap other stickers in and out, or even give people my stickers right out of the book, it's all possible with these brilliant glossy pages :)
Frosted front and back covers for artwork protection.
I'm so excited for those of you who have ordered a sticker book to see these gorgeous albums in person! 🤩 And it's not too late to grab one if you haven't yet. If you're a current backer, you can edit your survey pledge and use the Add-Ons to group this with your current order. Or if you haven't pledged to this project yet, then you can still get any of the campaign items, including this sticker book, through the Pre-Order Store (it comes with 2 free sticker sheets too)!
— Sticker Book Specs: —
- All pages are made of sticker back material to allow stickers to be re-peeled and reused! - A5 size (5.83 x 8.27 inches) - Includes 50 sheets of paper - Gold spiral binding - Protective clear sheet over front design
I also need to share this beautiful sticker book that my fabulous sister-in-law (and bff) made! It's the same size, materials and page numbers as mine, just with a different gorgeous design :) I highly recommend getting hers too, especially if you prefer these lovely floral patterns and colors. They should be up in her Etsy shop sometime soon, so be sure to give her store a follow so that you get notified when they drop! 💖 DragonLeafStudios Etsy Shop
That's all for now! Hope you wonderful shroomie friends enjoyed this first sneak preview :D Until next update,
This morning I made a mistake within Backerkit and locked down about 910 addresses. I was trying to execute a different action and instead hit the lockdown address button. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to undo this action. The expected ship date of this project is still mid July to early August, however, due to this mistake I just locked down the addresses early. This just means you won't be able to update your shipping address yourself. Your shipping address can still be updated at any time before shipping begins, it just has to be done from my end.
If at any time you need to update your address please email [email protected] with the following information:
- Name of the campaign (Ink & Enamel) - Name on the pledge - Email associated with the pledge - new address
With this information I can locate your pledge and update your shipping address.
Refer a Friend Program
If you participated in the refer a friend program, please note I have not yet sent out emails. I will be sending them out within the next few days to find out what pins you would like added to your order.
This is your mid-month reminder to PLEASE COMPLETE YOUR SURVEY!!! We're at 95% completion on the surveys which is great, and it's enough for me to gauge how much product to order.
But there are still around 12 folks who haven't completed their survey yet. Please do so ASAP so I can get the most accurate count possible for how much product to order.
THE SURVEY DEADLINE IS MAY 31st!! Please fill out your survey by then!!
If you have any questions or concerns for me that are preventing you from wanting or being able to complete your survey, please reach out to me via commenting on this post or you can message me privately HERE.
Thank you so much for your continued patience. I've been working countless hours on the survey and other details. I sent out Smoke Test Sruveys, and if all goes well will be sending out the rest tomorrow. The due date for surveys is June 5th! After this date, you may not be guaranteed what you want in rewards. In addition please check your payments as there are several outstanding balances. Thank you all!
First off: my test print pin banners came in today! Take a look at these beauties:
I think I'm going to revise the master file a little to improve the cut line along the bottom curve so that there's a distinct "wood" border all the way around. I'll keep one of the 5 test banners and sell the other 4 at a discount on Etsy once the Creepy Cuties pins come in. Otherwise I'm pretty chuffed about these!
What do you think of the pin banner? Let me know in the comments!
Second order of business: I've found a new pin manufacturing partner who will work within the project's budget and we are finally on our way! I'll share updates from the manufacturer as I receive them. :D
Last up: almost all surveys are in, with the exception of ONE straggler! :D I'm going to give this last person — and pre-orders — one more week before closing surveys.
This means that the new survey lock date is May 25, 2024. I'll send a 48-hour reminder on the 23rd. If you want to make any changes to your items, you will have until May 25th to do so!
A bit of backer-exclusive content if you click through....
