Parts of this update are copy/pasted across different campaigns.

The overview currently looks like this;
Midnight Ocean ~ In production/shipping phase one
Mythical Garden ~ Shipping (temporarily on pause)
Curiosity Shop ~ In production
Pods and Pots ~ In production
Literary Critters ~ Survey coming soon

This is going to be a rough one folks, I'm sorry. If you're backing from the US or Europe please make sure you read it all over. This kind of hit us out of nowhere. And there's some production stuff too, so keep scrolling. Its a lot and I'm sorry.

There are new paperwork requirements going into place for items moving into the US. The wording is... Extremely unclear, and we're pausing shipping while we figure this out. If you haven't had a shipping notification, it hasn't gone out yet. All the orders that don't include tarot decks are packed and ready to go here, we're just confirming our obligations in case we get into trouble. There are no extra fees associated, just a shipping delay. We're intending to send the remaining orders out at the same time as the summer sale orders, but because they're packed already and because of tariff charges, we cannot combine shipping. 

This one's the kicker, and there's just nothing I can do about it.

As of July 1st, a new rule went into a place that introduced a flat handling fee of £3 per item type included in any package heading into the EU. This is standard across all the EU countries as far as we can tell. We are not sure if that includes free items at the moment, we're still trying to figure out the details. So every EU package that hasn't already been shipped now owes an extra £3 postage per item type.

On top of that, some EU countries are now requiring us to pay customs/import fees up front (so at point of sale). We no longer have the option of shipping 'recipient pays fees'. We aren't entirely sure which countries yet; we're still investigating. So from now on, and including all packages that haven't yet been sent from this campaign, shipping is going to have to include the appropriate customs fees for EU countries upfront.

Until these extra fees are paid, we can't send out your EU orders. We're working with Backerkit at the moment to see if there's an easy way to do this, or if we need to contact everyone individually and request payment that way. Unfortunately, customs fees have always been the responsibility of the customers; but we've always been able to mark that it'll be paid on receipt of the package rather than up front on our end. I know in the UK we aren't always charged when a package arrives. I'm sorry if that was the case but from now on, we just can't do that any more. 

For non US and EU backers, packages are still going out. If they haven't gone before then, we intend to get them out in a big shipment with the summer sale orders.

This is also extremely unfortunate and we're still trying to figure out how to resolve it. 

A while ago we had to change our chosen production manufacturer for the cards themselves for a number of reasons. We switched to someone we'd already gotten samples from and started work towards getting the major arcana printed for phase two of shipping. Their default sizes did not include the size we'd opted to go for, so first we got a whole test print done with one of their default sizes to make sure it met our quality control standards. Since those looked good, we went ahead and paid for the custom die cut mould to get the size we wanted, and paid for a whole test run of the major deck in the size we wanted. They came back a few weeks ago, and unfortunately they look like this;

Its hard to see, but the print is blurry. Its not the same standard as the smaller, default size test prints. We sent these pictures back to the manufacturer to ask what could cause this and it took a very long time for them to get back to us. Their best guess is its either the paper surface, or the matte finish; but both are the same options we chose at the smaller size too. Also I tested the file sizes, these are the same files I used to make the a6 notebook covers, they are definitely large enough and high resolution enough to suit this size. The manufacturer has agreed to send us more samples, the same designs printed on various paper and finish options to see if it helps. And also to retry the matte test print, because honestly I don't want to switch to any satin or gloss finish. I suspect, perhaps they used to proof files from the smaller sized card print and just sized them up; that would cause this blurry finish. I asked them to make sure they were working with the correct size files. But now we are waiting again, and this process takes weeks each time. 

I'm just sorry its taking so long. We had samples made before we even ran the project, I had no idea it would go on for such a long time. All I can do is promise I'm working on it in the background. We will get there... Eventually.

That's it for now. We'll work on resolving the EU charges as soon as possible and I hope we will have the rest of the prepared packages out asap, its just... Very unfortunate its worked out this way. I'm sorry for the delays, as always.