Hi flock! Big update incoming, please read everything that applies to you!
STATUS UPDATE
Batch 1 plushies arrived! Batch 2 plushies are almost done with sampling. Scroll down for photos!
Enamel pins have been ordered. I'm expecting them early-mid February, but they may be delayed to the end of February depending on the Chinese New Year holiday.
I'm locking your orders in 2 days! Please double check everything!
!! US BACKERS !!READ!! (scroll if you're not from the US)
Please check your survey. You can now find a tariff line in the checkout overview. Please look at this carefully and take note of the balance that is currently open, as your open balance is now higher and I don't want to charge your card without you having checked the new amount.
The tariff rates that have been applied are:
20% for plushies
35.5% for enamel pins
15% for hair claws and keychains
It's a lot and I completely understand if you need to take off any add-ons or anything to lower the balance. The base shipping rates have also gone up, but I've decided to cover these additional shipping costs myself.
I will pay the tariffs to the US government when I buy your shipping label, so your package should be delivered to your doorstep without any surprises.
NOW THE FUN PART!
so. many. boxes.
They arrived really fast! It only took 3 weeks! First impressions are really good. I'm going to be quality checking them soon. I'm getting some friends together in the first two weeks of February and we will start packing then!
WHICH PLUSHIES ARE IN WHICH BATCH AGAIN?
Batch 1:
Standard cockatiel (Cookie)
Female cockatiel (Tea)
Lutino cockatiel (Lemon)
White-masked cockatiel (Pastry)
Blue budgie M&F (Slushie)
Green budgie M&F (Basil)
Yellowfaced budgie M&F (Raindrop)
Batch 2:
Pied cockatiel
Pearl cockatiel
White-masked pearl cockatiel
Pastel green budgie M&F
Pastel blue budgie M&F
Rainbow budgie M&F
SO WHEN ARE YOU FULFILLING MY ORDER?
If your order ONLY contains batch 1 plushies and/or any other add-ons, I will fulfill your order in February - March. I will charge your card for shipping costs and add-ons next week.
If your order contains ANY plushies from batch 2, your order will ship when batch 2 is ready to ship. I don't currently have a good estimate for when this is, but this will probably be 3 months after I give my factory the go-ahead for manufacturing (two months for manufacturing, one month for shipping). My apologies for the delay!
If you'd like to change your choice of plushie, please do so before your order locks.
ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD KNOW?
I'll be out of the country at the end of February, so fulfillment will be halted temporarily at that moment.
BATCH 2 CURRENT SAMPLE PICTURES
Pastel blue budgie: Looks good to go! The blue in the picture looks a bit brighter than intended, so I may tone that down a bit if it looks as bright in real life.
Rainbow & Pastel green budgies: Almost there! I might change their wing to be the same yellow as their head. The green on the green budgie might be adjusted a little bit too, depending on how it looks in person.
Pied cockatiel: Nearly done. The only change I requested is to change the color of the yellow embroidery line to grey.
Pearl cockatiels: Almost there too. The grey printed fabric has a slightly different hue to the regular grey fabric. If this is as noticeable in person, I'll have to make some more adjustments.
I hope you had great holidays and I wish you the best for 2026! It's been a while since the last update, but I finally have some good news!
Plushie batch 1 has finished bulk production and have shipped to me
I'm expecting to receive them at the end of the month. Here are some pictures!
Male cockatiel
Female cockatiel
Lutino cockatiel
White-masked cockatiel
Male blue budgie
Female blue budgie
Male green budgie
Female green budgie
Male yellow-faced budgie
Female yellow-faced budgie
Plushie batch 2 is sampling
They still need another round of alterations to become closer to how I envisioned them. I've added my messy revision notes in case you're interested in seeing what that looks like. The current sample is shown on the left, and the revised design is shown on the right.
Pastel green budgie
Pastel blue budgie
Rainbow budgie
Pearl cockatiel
White-masked pearl cockatiel
Pied cockatiel
I'm getting the enamel pin designs ready for manufacturing
Usually production time on these is around a month, so they should arrive around the same time as plushie batch 1.
Tariff information for US customers
Shipping from my country to the US has resumed. I've been fulfilling webshop orders for a couple weeks now and things seem to be going well! So here's the most up-to-date information I have for you: - US orders will ship with UPS. - I will collect and remit tariffs for you. - The survey will be updated and a tariff line will be added. The tariffs will be collected at the same time as I charge your cards for shipping costs and survey add-ons. - The items in this campaign have China as its country of origin. Currently, tariffs on Chinese items are set to 20%. However, the US government keeps changing things out of nowhere. If the tariffs become unreasonably high again, I may hold on to your orders until they come back down again. - Please take into account an extra 20% charge on your order value.
I will give notice through an update when the tariff line has been added to the survey, and I'll give notice through an update before I'll charge your cards.
In short, things are finally moving! I'm keeping surveys open until plushie batch 2 samples are finished, so that you can take those designs into account too for your final decision.
See you soon with another update, hopefully at the end of the month!
My apologies for the silence on my end. The past month or two have been especially rough and tiresome for me (navigating the healthcare system for myself, my partner losing a family member, and two of my family members ending up in the hospital with concerning health issues). However, things are looking up a little bit, and I'm eager to get back to working on everything roundbirb again!
Here's a small update on where we're at:
Base campaign goals:
Male, female, lutino, and white-masked cockatiels
Green, blue, and yellow-faced budgies
These plushies are finally in production!
The factory has a new fabric color book, and because of this, wanted to run a new batch of samples by me to confirm that everything still looks as it should. I'm ordering a restock of the lovebird plushies too, so that's why you see them in the picture as well.
The new samples include the male and female variants of the budgies.
Tea had a small update to her nose:
The dark grey on Cookie's wings was no longer available, so he's had a slight color change:
These samples were done a while ago but ended up in shipping limbo so they only arrived here on Monday. I immediately gave the OK to start producing them, so they should be ready to ship to me when production finishes in another 2-3 months.
Stretch goals:
Pied, pearl, white-maksed pearl cockatiels
Pastel green, pastel blue, and rainbow budgies
Will be sampled soon.
My apologies that these have not been sampled yet. I'm planning on placing the order for the samples next week. The factory was still working on the samples of the former batch, and to keep things clear for them I didn't want to order these samples yet and complicate the order even more. Now that the first batch of plushies is in production, I'm going to make the designs ready for sampling, and pick new fabrics from the new color book that the factory sent me along with the samples from the first batch.
Enamel pins: Still need to have their artwork made pin-ready, will be ordered a little later along.
Information for US-based backers: The 'de minimis' rule has been removed, which means that there will be tariffs charged on ALL shipments, even those valued at $800 or less. The exact percentage of tariffs seems to change every couple of weeks..
Currently there are a few options to consider:
Regular postal shipping, which gets handed to USPS stateside. With this option, the shipper needs to prepay tariffs. I can set up tariff collection in BackerKit. However, my main shipping company hasn't resumed shipping to the US as of yet, and there's no indication when shipping will reopen. Shipping costs will probably go up as well.
Express shipping through FedEx or UPS. With this option, the recipient will get a bill for the tariffs. This shipping method is more expensive, but are still up and running as of now.
Hold on to rewards until tariff rates are (hopefully) reduced again.
Have you received international packages recently? Let me know how the tariffs were handled and which shipping option you prefer.
I'm sorry again for the delays, it has been a crazy year so far! Thanks for your understanding, and hopefully see you soon with another update.
Shipping timeline update My apologies for the radio silence on this project. It wasn't very smart of me to launch this campaign during my busiest part of the year.. while also wrapping up two other projects. I completely overloaded myself on work and was not able to I hit certain deadlines I set for myself for this project. Because of this I need to delay our schedule by a few months. While originally I wanted to start shipping in October, I'm bumping this by a few months, and shipping will likely start in February for most packages*.No date has been set yet for charging cards for shipping etc. but I will give notice when we get to that point! I wanted to let you guys know that my work backlog is now clear and I'm now able to fully commit to this project, so I'll be updating more frequently from now on.
Project status The following design files have been handed to the manufacturer and should start production soon: - Male cockatiel - Female cockatiel - White-masked cockatiel - Lutino cockatiel - Green budgie M&F - Blue budgie M&F - Yellow-faced budgie M&F
I'm still setting up design files for the following designs, after which sampling will start: - Pied cockatiel - Pearl cockatiel - White-masked pearl cockatiel - Rainbow budgie M&F - Pastel blue budgie M&F - Pastel green budgie M&F
* Tariff info for US-based customers As you probably knew already, I'm based in the EU and currently fulfill packages myself from my office. The EU and the US struck a trade deal, and it looks like the US will be collecting 15% tariffs on packages sent from the EU. HOWEVER, the USPS currently has no system in place to collect these tariffs, and it is very unclear when we will know more about the way these tariffs will be collected. While they are setting up a system to collect tariffs, the USPS is allowed to charge an 80 USD flat fee per postal item instead of the tariff. I obviously don't want to surprise any of you with a huge bill when you receive your goodies, so in case this is not settled yet by the time we start shipping, US-bound packages may be subject to additional delays. The information we have now is still very vague, but possible solutions I will be exploring are: - Finding a shipping service that allows me to prepay the tariff for you. - Shipping items meant for US backers directly to a US partner who will fulfill for me. I will update once I know more!
My apologies for the slowness and the boring update, I hope next update will be more exciting! Have a good day,
It's been two weeks since the last update. I don't have a lot of new things to show as of now, but I wanted to let you know I'm slowly chipping away at the surveys. I'm a little slower than usual because I just moved offices and attended my largest convention of the year, but rest assured I'm getting things ready in the background :)
Surveys I'm trying to get the surveys set up before the end of the week, after which BackerKit needs a few days to check and approve them. Expect them next week at the latest! (Note: Surveys will stay open until all samples have been finalized and photographed.)
Main campaign designs (shown on main campaign page) These designs have already been sampled, and are ready to start production once I can finalize counts for each design. I'm expecting to receive these by October.
Newly unlocked designs (shown in last update) These designs still need to be sampled, and I still need to pick fabrics and set up manufacturing files. Since the shapes and patterns are more or less the same as the main campaign designs, I don't think the sampling phase will take very long. However, I don't think they'll make it by October. I'll be able to give a better time estimate once the samples are done and production can start.
That's all for now! See you next week when surveys go out :)
