We urgently need backer feedback on an important change to materials for the collar pins. I usually ask for people to email me with requests, but in this instance I am asking for comments so backer sentiment is easier to see in one big picture (including up and down votes).
I (Midnight Springs) was forewarned early on before I even paid for my sample to be made that stainless steel would be too complex for my design, it wouldn't come out well. That's what I was told. However, despite us having the same manufacturer and our representative knowing all this time that we are friends, they did not afford the same courtesy to Chocolat Chaud. We were operating under the assumption that the stainless steel would be fine, and that there would be no issues with polishing. After all, the designs are fundamentally different from my guillotine, which has many tiny recessed details and a little channel for the blade to pass through. Rather, CC's designs have many broad surface areas that you would think would be easy to polish. Unfortunately, we were seemingly deliberately misled; they're very aware of the standards each of us hold for visible appearance of each of our pieces and these absolutely do not meet them.
The biggest issue is that the stainless steel is very gritty on these pieces, and apparently they can't polish them further. The only options provided were to switch to sterling silver, which is more than 2x the price per piece of every design, or to switch Chocolat Chaud's designs to plated brass like mine are at the same price as quoted for steel.
We have come to the conclusion that it makes the most sense for the collar pins to be converted to brass, but we aren't sure how people will feel about the rest of what they've ordered or planned to order, which is why we need your feedback. Currently, the plan we have is to bring an altered quantity list back to the rep and firmly ascertain that they absolutely need to work with us on a lower quantity per design for these items in order to help us afford them. That's the absolute least they could do, because they refuse to offer any other kind of compensation despite repeatedly saying they could deliver beautiful polished pieces resembling the 3D models and past works made by Chocolat Chaud.
That being said, we will go to the rep with our proposal after we have received feedback in the comments, they have not yet agreed to this.
Our idea is this: • The Vitrail necklaces will be changed to sterling silver. Because of the massive price hike, quantity will need to be severely reduced and leftovers will also need to be much higher priced. As a result, they will not be possible to offer on the survey if we go this route. • The rings will be changed to silver. Same as with the necklaces, quantity will be severely reduced, will not be available in survey, and price will unfortunately need to be much higher when in stock. • The Cœur de Chat will be changed to silver. Same as with the necklaces and rings, quantity will be severely reduced, will not be available in survey, and price will need to be very, very high in stock. • The spikes & ribbons earrings should still be fine in stainless steel, but we're waiting on confirmation. We would reduce quantity of these in order to afford the silver cost for the designs above.
The black cat earrings also have to be dropped because of this mess. My guillotines and spoons already went into production before the CC design samples were finished, so there is no way to alter those quantities. Backers for just those are unaffected.
No one is going to be asked to pay any extra for silver pieces!! You'll be able to just think of it as a bargain. This post, and our humble request for your feedback, is mostly directed to those who backed for collar pins as they will have to have brass with platinum plating as the material instead of the previously-promised steel. All findings (chains, etc) would still remain stainless steel. The plating is thick and not easy to wear down.
There are a couple of options available to anyone who is understandably unhappy with this: • We can discuss with you privately swapping your (now-brass) collar pins to designs that are being made in silver in their limited stock. You would still be charged campaign pricing but have to pay the difference assuming there is one. This can be done on the back-end and does not require much. • We can switch your pledge to add-ons that still have stock available if you would prefer to then drop the pledge tier and swap it for our miscellaneous premade merch. • We can offer a refund for the item(s) that were originally promised to be stainless steel only.
Please also keep in mind again that the guillotines and all my previous designs are this hypoallergenic brass, and even the septum rings (which are in a very...moist environment when worn) have received really good feedback over the years, with no reports of allergic reactions. I've sold hundreds of the septum rings alone over the last 5 or so years, closer to 1k if I count my necklaces (which do have stainless steel chains). If not for allergen reasons, I really ask you to understand that this was completely unanticipated and a seriously devastating blow, and to not look too unfavorably at the brass... We both did everything right on our ends to try to make sure they understood what was needed for CC's designs to turn out as envisioned. In fact, I can very confidently say they understood perfectly and just didn't think we'd complain, as I've been in this spot so many times with pin manufacturers in the last several years. Just really sad the apathy reached this resource as well.
Thank you for your time and please do think this over and let us know your thoughts. More specifically, we absolutely want to hear from backers of the collar pins, those who are allergic to s925 silver, those allergic to platinum (both the brass and s925 will have platinum plating), and those who were planning on getting other designs via the survey and would be unable to with these changes.
All pins are in production now!! In the survey, the bonus pins for the $150+ and $200+ pledges will not be available a la carte, but will be added manually to anyone who newly-applies if they added more on! Chocolat Chaud has finished almost all of their portion of survey setup, so it's just up to me now to get my butt in gear and have that ready to go out ASAP. The preorder store will go live at the same time as the survey is sent out!
The jewelry manufacturer is still extremely swamped, so we have only just gotten the final invoice yesterday and subsequently paid. The physical samples of Chocolat Chaud's designs still aren't complete, but we will immediately show pictures when they are!! After those are approved is when the mass production will begin for those.
As for the guillotines, here are the adjusted enamel colors for white and pink:
I'm very happy about these! That dark-dark pink that was unedited and used in the black/red mockup (the gem color was mocked up) is still going to be used for that colorway as it's a great rose-red color, and we are still working on the purple shade. Stone colors have been picked!
There is something we had to decide: there will be no pink CZ Vitrail de Cristal of any design available in the surveys, because no one pledged for them during the campaign run. We know there is the super slim chance that someone who pledged for a set wanted pink, but if that's the case please reach out via email ([email protected]) if you don't want any other color so we can help resolve things in a satisfactory way. Because of the way we have to order things, there has to be a minimum produced of every colorway for everything, and Chocolat Chaud really can't risk having dead stock indefinitely, I certainly couldn't either. Especially given how hard it will be to ship to the US once the remaining stock has been sent to Japan where they are located. I really hope you can understand!
Where we left off with payments was that there is $553.50 from 7 backers that remained errored through the payment deadline, and the next POT payment of about $910 is dropping in about a week. Some of you did reply to me letting me know you'll pay the errored balance during the surveys - I really appreciate you getting back to me about it!
Thank you for your patience!!
PS: I have some notes after wearing my guillotine sample to Colossalcon weekend! I was also wearing a lanyard of course, which kept twisting the pendant around. If the chain gets twisted, it will not move properly and the blade may even get "stuck" in an odd position. This is not an issue when the necklace is worn normally, and it doesn't do the...chopping motion unless deliberately moved to do so, even if you're moving around a lot! Technically it's reversible: either CZ in front or CZ in back, doesn't matter, just don't let the chain twist and you're good to go! I was really happy to hear the compliments it received over the weekend and I'm really looking forward to sharing the next updated samples with you!
Currently, failed charges are at $878.25 from 12 backers. It looks like all initial POT payments were collected successfully, so they are included in the 99 backers that have paid! Thank you!
If in a week this does not go down significantly, I'll be sending individual emails. To give a better idea of the scale of this: because of the high volume of POT pledges and the errored pledges being nearly 1k, for this first deposit we will be receiving $4.5k less than what was raised (this is due to platform and processing fees as well, but those are worked into the goal and are not an issue!). I'm communicating this for transparency, because while creators do have to work margins into the goals (including 10% for fees) and be flexible on timeframes for things like POT, it's still notable and unexpected for nearly another 7% to be errored completely and over 20% to be in limbo at the time of production start.
We're really hoping we can reduce the errored charges by at least half by the end of this month and we will do our best while setting up the surveys to make sure each and every POT backer has their counts fully reserved even though the surveys won't be sent to them until August! The pledge average for this campaign was over $100, which is astonishing - we can't even begin to express how grateful we are for your support and belief in our designs!! 💓 we are so so grateful to each and every one of you!
Once this first week has passed we will also negotiate our first payments with the manufacturers to make sure paying them in installments will work just fine as previously agreed upon! To help with the other guillotine colorways, I'll reduce spoon quantities since the pledged-for quantity wasn't very high (I know they're very niche). Stickers will also be paid for last, after 2 more POT payments. That way the red and purple guillotines can start production with everything else. We hope that with primarily jewelry that this will be a really smooth process compared to pin-majority projects. Knock on wood, really, but we will do our best to streamline it!🤞
We also hit 12.9k and 111 backers, so the Spikes & Ribbons earrings and the freebie Vampy sticker were officially unlocked!
Just a few quick notes:
POT backers account for 1/3 of all raised funds. That means that 1/3 of all raised funds will take 4 months to be received - this may extend production, especially if we reach the final stretch via preorder store later. Thankfully, we are able to pay a deposit from the campaign to start production first, and that should help
As noted in this update, it takes the full 4 months for POT backers to even receive their surveys. Unfortunately, because of the limits of production this may mean POT backers have surveys that do not include as many items due to limited unclaimed stock for some items. We won't know until we know more about the next point:
In about 2 days we will know how many payments have errored! In about 1 week I'll send out emails to anyone whose cards are still errored. After 2 weeks, we'll start actually receiving deposits. Depending on how much didn't go through, we may or may not have to adjust our goals. If we don't have a massive amount errored, then we can proceed with unlocking the black cat earrings and red and purple colorways of the guillotine via survey and preorder store funds.
The surveys and the front end (this crowdfunding side) are completely disconnected and seemingly on entirely different servers. We have to manually copy over every single listing one by one (all text, quantities, and images) then also link them one by one to the titles of what you pledged for here in order to do the surveys. We have a ton of listings on this campaign... Getting this survey finished will take weeks even between the 2 of us. I don't know why backerkit did this to their website, it's more work for everyone that direct imports don't exist. Stay tuned for when it and the preorder store will be ready!
We're currently at 72hrs left, and have 97 backers!
A few days ago I discussed this with Chocolat Chaud but took a bit longer than intended to get the cleaner artwork ready: once we reach 110 backers, every backer at a physical reward tier will get this 4" holo-glitter sticker for free!
I'm likely to still fiddle with the signature because I'm a perfectionist and it's still kind of wobbly. Sorry!
Additionally, if we do reach that final 14.6k goal in the last hours, I think I can make it work that both 1st and 2nd place in the guillotine colorway poll can be unlocked. That means both will be available to pledge for at 12.9k 🤞 currently, the 2 winning the poll are black x red and black x light purple. Here's a reminder of what their mockups look like and I've attached the poll again (1 day of voting left)!
The poll for the name of the necklace had an exact tie so I'm still privately deliberating!
Thank you for your support on this campaign!! We're really excited to see everything come to life!
