Happy November! 🍂 I hope your Halloween was fun, and that you're starting to be able to wear comfy cozy sweaters and breaking out some hot coffee, tea, or hot cocoa, soon! I come with the usual assortment of updates, both good, not-so-good, as well as some brand-new information, entirely! 👀
Buckle up, we have some items to cover!
🎄 Firstly, I would love to invite you all to BackerKit's first Holiday Market! 🎄
"Plushpanions": "Holiday Palooza" | Krampus hosting a little market stall with his reindeer brother, Reinhold
This unique event runs from November 18th to December 1st.
What makes this holiday market unique? Well...
🎁 No Funding Goal! - This is a shopping experience, thus there's no funding goal or "products-to-be", this is just a way to fill your friend and family's stockings with thoughtful items made by small creators, so it's a win-win!
🎁 Only Items That are Already in Stock! - Selling items that are already in stock, and ready to ship, means that items will easily get to you before the holidays, so there's no worries when it comes to gifting!
🎁 Flair Board Shopping! - Just like previous Pintopias, you'll be able to check out a Holiday Market Flair Board, to find other shops that may be of interest to you.
Early Birds ( Backers who make a purchase within the first 48 hours of the shop being open ) will receive a free Plushpanions Holiday Palooza 2025 sticker!
This sticker will only be released for this event. It features Kidd and his brother Reinhold, back to back, behind a "Plushpalooza 2025" sign! Imagine this "picture" as taken after a long day of selling and wrapping gifts at the holiday market.
Below is a sketch of the sticker to be - stay tuned for the full render, before November 9th!
Sketch of Early Bird sticker: Reinhold and Kidd sitting back to back, behind a "Plusha palooza - 2025" sign
Holiday Palooza Subtitle 2: "What's in the shop?"
Below is a sneak peak of what you can expect at the shop!
🎁 Mystery Sticker Bundles
From moths, to bats, foxes, and more, you can give yourself the gift of mystery, by letting us select three stickers for a discounted bundle of stickers! There are also theme-specific mystery bundles, like Moth, Animals, or Cryptids, so you can be sure you're getting your favorites!
Image of yellow mystery bag with a red bow and a big green question mark on it
🎁 Kidd Krampus and Monty Mothman Plushpanions
Keep an eye out for special holiday deals, specifically for this event! 🤫
Left: Kidd Krampus & accessories sitting in the snow | Right: Monty Mothman & accessories sitting in the grass
🎁 Newsprint Yule-Patterned Wrapping Sheets
These are printed with soy-based inks, so unlike your average wrapping paper, they are actually 100% curbside recyclable!
🎁 Eco-friendly matte stickers of cryptids, bats, foxes, moths and sloths
From Left to Right: Mothman "I chase the light, for I have none." | Black and Brown Fox bats | Luna moth
🎁 Eco-Friendly Wooden Keychains
These keychains are crafted from fast-growing maple wood, from managed forests.
From Left to Right: Fox keychain (gold chain) | Honduran White Bat and Brown Vampire Bat (silver chains) | Sloth (gold)
He came a long way, and got a little seasick, but he is in good spirits and is thrilled to be home with you, in time for the holidays!
Polaroid-esque graphic of 7 cube boxes, full of Monty! | "Monty's Arrival!" - "11/04/2025"
Please remember that if you've ordered Plushpanions other than Monty, like Laisy or Dottie, you'll need to wait for them to arrive, before your full order is sent.
This is so that orders don't get confused, and more shipping doesn't need to be charged. Please email [email protected], or open a BackerKit ticket, if you need any edits to your shipping address.
Monty will be shipping out this week and the next, I just have to give each one their designated health inspection, tagging, and dressing before bundling him up in a little box to send to you! 💚
📍 Collab Pin Update 📍
This is an unfortunate, but necessary, update. PrinceFizz has recently gotten back to me about the pins, and it appears as though the pins were never scanned into the tracking system of Royal Mail. I have never worked with this shipping service before, but from the information I have been given, the pins should have been dropped off around October 15th - however Royal Mail has been "Expecting" the package since the label was created. Fizz is contacting Royal Mail and hoping to locate the pins, and I will be calling them tomorrow. If the pins were never dispatched, I will have a backup plan in place to execute immediately - one of the perks of being an over-planner problem-solver!
✨ A little honest, small business moment, here: This is one of the more stressful aspects of being a small creator. You can plan everything as well as you can, however, events out of your control occur. There are elements that can simply fail, and it is also rare if you'll ever get the resolution you are hoping for. These hiccups are stressful, and sometimes even needless, but it not everything is within your control. The road gets even more bumpy as you try to partner with other people - it's just like it was, in school! 😂 You can never estimate who anyone is, their availability, communication level, or what they will go through in the near future - yourself included, but you become tied to the results, all the same. You have to reach the promised outcome. The most difficult part can be pushing through the previous negative experiences and trying again - but you have to try again, or there's no chance for growth.
You have to remind yourself to take it one day at a time, or else your candle will burn out, fast. With that said, once the skill is learned, you'll be all the better for it and can even hope to share that wisdom with others, to pave their path a little bit more than yours was.
Back to the crux of it... as of right now, I am unable to send out any Monty Mothman plush orders with collab pins included, as I cannot parse out items within a shipment. I will update here and on the Discord as soon as they are located. However, again, if the worst case scenario rears its ugly head, I will have a backup plan ready to go. My sincerest apologies to those who are looking forward to the collab pin, please know that I did my best with swift follow-ups at all stages, but be prepared for any scenario.
🌙 Laisy Update 🌙
The design behind Laisy's blazer has been a head-scratcher since the beginning. Originally I wanted a snap, however when crafting children's toys, there are only specific snaps that pass through safety - and the snaps that we tried, never worked as needed or would have tugged at the fabric aggressively, wearing it over time. Thus, and to no one's real surprise, we have turned to magnets! While this may interfere with some props, I do not think that issue will come up too often, and I am happy to have a child-safe and functional resolution, over throwing in the towel for an element of the original design.
Left: One updated tailcoat shape shown - "Tailcoats!" | Right: Both tailcoat shapes shown - "Tailcoats!!"
🎃 Dottie 🎃
There has been no direct Dottie update, however the request for the wings to be embroidered may indeed take a little while longer, since the designs are so detailed. This is a more than acceptable reason to wait, because the feel of Plushpanions, from tactile to soft, is intentional.
🐲 Bonus - Digby Update! 🐲
Lastly, as a bonus, we have a Digby Dragon update! This is our newest plush creation partnership, so there are some stylistic choices that we are working out - namely the amount of printed fabric, versus actual fabric with added embroidery, scaling preferences, and a few other items.
Digby Dragon - Left: No clothing/accessories | Right: "oak armor" tunic and pants
Considering this is the second iteration, Digby is pretty great! Mainly his hands need to be resized and detailed correctly, however he is very cute so far!
Don't forget to join the Fabled Friends launch party! 🎉 We already have 99 joined... who will be the 100th?! 👀
Thanks as always, and keep an eye out for the mini update on collab pins, coming soon!
