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.
