I asked if it was possible to make Toby a keychain size and my manufacturer surprised me with a free sample of him being small!
I obviously have a lot of other full size plush to make (and shrink since I know you guys also wanted keychain sizes of those if we can make it work) - but figured I would share since he turned out very, very cute. Toby is paid off now and I am starting to save all the money from all sales and con going forward for the Kitsune plush.
I have Kitsune Kon this weekend then a break for two weeks before my next event. Please make sure to fill out your surveys if you haven't. I am not super sure how some people pay for things but never check back with addresses so I can actually mail them, but I do need that information please. <3
Also if your card was declined for shipping, please fix it. I have packages I can't send until you do. Thank you so much!
I don't have a ton of extra Buster & Murphy plush of any sort so I'm mailing everything I can for now. I am going to be heavily relying on sales from the Toby plush, remaining Buster & Murphy (large) and keychain plush + any of my pins and stickers to fund the rest of this project.
Originally I wanted to order extras of each design but I am going to have to ask my manufacturer to go under the normal MOQ of 200 in order to do that I think.
I have bags of orders set to the side that I can't mail because they either did not pay at all, plan to pay or the shipping didn't charge so I could mark an order as locked (this is how I kinda keep track of where I am at with things to know I moved the order to Shopify where it can stare me down every day).
Have this super fun picture of me working this morning. I leave for Kitsune Kon on Thursday so I have to stop working at some point today to actually pack for the event, but I think I can knock out all the remaining keychain orders at least. The large Buster & Murphy plush have already either been sent or set aside for their respective orders.
If you didn't fill out your survey at all and you wanted one, you may have to pick something else or be willing to wait for a reorder on them. When I ordered them in 2024 I never expected to run out to begin with so quickly. It's a good and bad problem to have lol.
Left box is stuff to be sent today, right box is stuff that is set aside for reasons and papers on the table are partially filled orders.
I am going to try and work with someone more familiar with plush to get the Kitsune sample correct. I really want it to be perfect and this was the downside to me going yeah sure let's do this without having samples ready. = (
Either way when the Kitsune looks how I want it to look, that means the Fox will as well (theoretically). I think the Gryphon and Owlbear had fewer revisions needed overall, so fixing the main problem ones will be important.
Since I have nothing else fun to post, I will share my confirmed order numbers because data! :D
If I can reduce the minimum of these to like 50 of each design (except Kitsune where I would need to order more), then I can probably finish this project more quickly but I won't have many additional plush to sell.
Also please fill out your surveys if you haven't!
Ideally I can make some keychain plush of each of the larger designs. For now, I am throwing up a poll about Toby! I'll probably do this with each of the designs as they get finished and I find out how well they translate to mini versions without being printed. I really hate that Murphy had to be printed and I want to argue with my manufacturer a little more about that whole thing. I don't hate him but printed plush just aren't as nice looking as ones that are sewn together if that makes sense.
Anyways, feel free to ask questions or leave comments.
I have some time next week to work on the sticker designs & my Nebula 2 pin project things (we're still getting the backend together for surveys). Thank you all for your patience with me on this!
I can't share the video on backerkit, so you'll have to look in the FB group, I think instagram or discord to see it. Either way, Toby is done and will be heading my way soon!
He's on my site for preorder still.
The next goal is to get the Kitsune fixed all the way because that has the most and the Fox relies on it to be correct.
Edit:
I was printing more things and noticed I should have been able to send several of these sooner so I apologize! I am still getting through a lot of the stuff in this project. Super sorry some of these were not sent sooner though. Thank you!
I will slowly be going through people who have Toby orders and making a shopify order for you. If you need to update your address, please let me know or I think you can edit it still on the project.
Toby finishes up on July 8th, should arrive to me August. I usually charge shipping and set everything aside in advance so I am in that stage now between events this month.
He has a very special tag either way so I'm pretty excited! There are 17 of you who ordered him so if you don't get a shopify order made but think you should have, please reach out. Sometimes I miss things when I'm messing with segments.
I made some changes to Toby's tag for this project compared to my other plush.
This was the original tag. Instead of having two tags like I had planned early on (one with information and one with my normal product stuff), I wanted it to open. Think like Squishable or Ty, where their tags open and have fun stuff inside.
So my husband, out of the blue, suggested I make Toby's tag holographic. I spent the last day or so working with my manufacturer to sort of see what tag options I could find.
I wanted gold or holo around Toby's head. We both messaged other manufacturers and places but I guess they managed to find someone last night so we're golden (literally haha). They won't be doing a sample so fingers crossed this turns out as I want it to.
Side note that while being told before we could include the non-profit information, I guess maybe that wasn't correct or they didn't understand what was going on with this project, so it won't be on the tags. I did email them about it after I was told we can't sell these for profit if we include their info on there (let's be real I'm barely breaking even every year lol), but I do know non-profits have a lot of rules and such they need to follow. They never got back to me so I just proceeded with the tags without the information since they need these ready to go. Not upset in any way (non-profits really do have an insane amount of rules to follow not to break the law from what I looked up), just letting everyone know that the plans for this did end up changing.
That being said, I still want Upright Canine Brigade to be in people's minds since this isn't a corgi exclusive condition.
