✨ TL;DR / Quick summary If you just want to know where we’re at, scroll down to the “📋 Where things stand now” section for a practical recap. Here are the essentials: this is our third attempt at producing the Delidragons pins. They didn’t come out well, so we’re now switching manufacturers again — which means more delays and more costs on our end. This also affects all our other 'pending' projects, since we’re essentially back to having no reliable pin manufacturer.
Delidragons has been at the center of an extremely difficult and frustrating production journey so far.
We’ve now reached what will be our third attemptat manufacturing these pins.
For the first "attempt", we worked with our long-time manufacturer — the one we’d trusted for years. But, as some of you might remember, things didn’t go well at all with them. The communication broke down badly and, even though we spent months trying to reconnect with them (because we truly loved their quality, and for years they had never let us down), there came a point where there just wasn’t much more we could do.
So we tried again. This time with a new manufacturer, hoping to start fresh — as we said in the previous update. We paid for that second run out of our own pocket, just to make things right. At first, things were going great. The rep we were assigned was responsive, competent, and for the first time in a long while, we felt like we could finally breathe again.
But then — out of nowhere — they switched our rep. And from that point on, everything just... fell apart (again). Communication became slow and painful. We’d wait ages between replies, even when we followed up multiple times. The artwork proofs were full of errors, again and again, and when we sent our corrections, we were often misunderstood — or worse, completely ignored. Nothing was clicking.
And then came the worst part. After all that time and back-and-forth, they finally sent us photos of the first finished pins — and we were genuinely shocked. The quality isn’t just disappointing — it's terrible. They didn’t even follow the lines of our original designs. We truly can’t understand why they altered our designs so much. It felt like they ignored everything we’d sent, and we still don’t know how it went so wrong.
To save time (and we now deeply regret this), we had allowed them to create the vector files from our raster drawings — something we’d never done before: we usually make our own vector files and Pantone colors choices. We thought: "Maybe this will speed things up". But what we got back looked like a mess. Nothing like what we’d drawn. Something that never happened in all our pinmakers years.
So no — continuing with them isn’t an option — anymore. Not after all this. Now, we’re doing something we really hoped we wouldn’t have to do: we’re starting over again. We’re back to square one, looking for a manufacturer who can actually do justice to the designs we’ve worked so hard on and someone who can actually do the job right. It’s a historically tough time for this kind of business — with all the ongoing changes, rising shipping costs, the new tariffs, tighter customs regulations, and huge penalties popping up for even the smallest mistakes. It’s putting a lot of pressure on small businesses everywhere — and on manufacturers too, from their side. So we know this won’t be easy.
When it rains, it pours — just one more setback on top of everything else we’ve already been through.
We could really use all help we can get at this point 😔 We know it’s not something anyone should really be asking, but truthfully — we’re feeling pretty desperate at this point, and time is definitely not on our side. If any of you out there are pinmakers yourselves and happen to know a reliable manufacturer — someone with decent communication and solid quality — please don’t hesitate to reach out to us privately on instagram or through e-mail [email protected]. We’d be incredibly grateful 🥺💕
🤍 Why did we stay silent through all of it?
This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about this — but since we still get asked what’s going on and why we disappear for stretches of time (even if we work behind the scenes), we think it’s worth saying again.
The past few years — especially 2024 — have been incredibly hard on us. We've been through a lot, more than we ever expected to carry. And truthfully? It’s taken a toll on everything: how we work, how we stay organized, and how we function day to day.
Saying we “weren’t doing well” doesn’t quite cover it. We were overwhelmed, struggling under the weight of things we didn’t know how to handle — and we were doing it alone. It drained us, emotionally, mentally, and physically -and it still does. We really hope you can understand — it’s not easy to keep writing updates when all we have to report are more struggles or delays. We’re always hoping for that turning point, that the next news will finally be something good to share.
💝 Trying to heal
It’s had a deep impact on our mental health. We’ve had to pick up the pieces slowly and alone, with the few tools we had. But we’ve reached out for help. We’ve started a healing journey, gotten into treatment, and we’re learning how to cope — how to get better at managing our work again, too.
🌿 Living with ADHD & Autism
Being neurodivergent makes everything more tangled — especially when it comes to executive functioning: planning, time management, task completion, follow-through...
One of the hardest things to explain is just how much we struggle to even remember to post an update. Sometimes we genuinely think we already did — and then suddenly, weeks or months have passed. ⏳ Time slips away from us without us even noticing. Getting a diagnosis helped. It gave us a framework — a way to finally understand why things have always felt off or harder for us. It’s validating, even comforting in some ways. But it’s not a magic fix. Knowing why we struggle doesn’t make the struggles disappear. It just means we can name them now. And sometimes, that makes the frustration even sharper.
We’re not saying any of this to make "excuses", and we’re definitely not trying to justify the delays. We just want to be honest. To give you a glimpse of what’s happening behind the scenes. Because we are still here, even if we’re quiet. We’re still working. Still moving forward — just at a slower, messier pace.
🌊 Why this matters beyond Delidragons
This doesn’t just affect the Delidragons campaign. It affects everything — because at the moment, we’re essentially left with no reliable manufacturer for our new/pending enamel pins.
Delidragons campaign last year, came before all our other still pending projects, so it became the unexpected "testing ground" for finding a new manufacturer. Until we find one that actually works, we can't safely move forward with any of our other collections.
We know that waiting is hard. But trusting the wrong supplier again also for our other collections, would be so much worse — and we just can’t afford more losses, not emotionally, not financially, not creatively. Because some manufacturers out there don't even make samples to try them out! They "don’t run the machines for just one pin per design, it's too costly" — they require a full batch, not individual samples.
📋 Where things stand now
Here’s a recap of the current status:
❌ First batch — made by our original manufacturer: went bad due to drop in communication, after months of pushing through the same.
❌ Second batch — made by a new supplier (paid by us): rejected due to extremely poor quality and communication.
🔄 Third attempt — now in the works with a new manufacturer. Fingers crossed! 🥺
⏳ Delays — unfortunately, these setbacks have pushed things back much longer than we ever imagined, even when revisiting things after the first delays.
🔗 Other projects — on hold until this new attempt shows promise. Where we can, we won’t take any pending charge from anyone for other projects (like Delicats). While we could really use the 'extra' funds more than ever right now — we don’t feel right charging you just yet, especially if there’s still a long wait ahead.
🌱 Being careful it’s necessary
We’re doing our best to keep going — even if the pace is slow, and the process exhausting. But we’re also learning to let go of perfection a little wherever is possible, and accept that “done” is better than “flawless but never finished.” We’re even working on this in therapy — our therapist helped us put together a visual plan to make things more manageable. 🙏
👉 What to expect from now on
Even though we can’t give you dates, we want to stay more connected. We're actively working on this in therapy too — with the help of a visual plan they’re creating just for us.
We’re committing to posting at least a small update every 4 weeks, even if it’s just a quick check-in on how things are going. Hopefully we'll manage to do it!
🌷 Thank you, truly
If you’ve read this far: thank you. Your patience, your kindness, and your continued presence during all these months mean the world to us. And we really mean it. We haven’t given up — not on this project, or any other of ours... and not on you.
We’re still here. Still trying. Still determined to get these Delidragons items into your hands. Even if it takes tons of time.
We’re so tired of being behind… but we’re holding on to the hope that we’ll catch up everything and finally breathe freely again!
You might see very similar updates (or part of them) across our other projects — because while the specific details may vary, the core challenges we’ve been facing, and the way we’re trying to work through them, are the same and deeply connected. It didn’t feel right to reword the same truth over and over just for the sake of variation. We want to be transparent across the board, and this message felt important enough to be shared in full — to make sure everyone gets the same level of insight and care.
In the meantime, wish you all the best! Until next update~
