Early Fulfillment:

Everything except for the sticky notes have arrived, pins have been graded, items packaged, and early fulfillment has begun! 14 packages went out yesterday and 56 went out today. The 14 that were shipped yesterday should have received their tracking numbers. The 56 that went out today will have their tracking numbers e-mailed at 9am on Friday. I will continue to ship out items as quickly as I can. It is super satisfying to package these little guys and send them to their new homes. Packing everything has been a very zen task that leaves me feeling happy and accomplished. I hope that everyone enjoys their isopod goodies, and thank you so much for supporting this project!

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Sticky Note Update

1. If your order contained a pad of sticky notes, it will not be fulfilled early. However, it will still arrive by the project’s projected March ship date. I will keep you updated for when the sticky notes arrive, and will ship out orders that contain them as soon as possible. For everyone who ordered sticky notes, I’ll be including some extra stickers and goodies in your package as thanks for your patience.
2. The extra sticky notes designs I created will available from the get-go for my next Backerkit project, Elemental Myth!

Elemental Myth

The launch party page is ready for Elemental Myth. This project is a part of Pintopia 2026! My next project will be a series of pin sets of mythological creatures and elements, with a phoenix fire and wyvern wind set available as part of the initial funding goal. There will be extra large, medium, and mini pins in each set, available to backers individually or as sets.

There are quite a few bonus goodies planned: Elemental Myth will include free bonus pins for returning backers and early bird pledges. Additionally I will be cross-collaborating with Dream Vale Studios’ Dragon Dice Bag project, and offering rewards if you participate in both campaigns!

If you’re interested in this project, feel free to follow the launch party page so you’re notified when the campaign begins. Following this page will also notify you when I make updates to the launch party page, which might include polls and in-progress designs before the campaign to get feedback.

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Pledge Payment Failures & Incomplete Surveys:

• Payment failure for your Backerkit pledge and/or unpaid shipping and pledge manager items - If your credit card on file is invalid, the pledge and shipping fees cannot be paid. Please update your payment method to one that can be used so that I can get your items to you. Failed credit cards had recharge attempts on December 2 and 9th. I will continue to try and collect payment every week or two until the end of March 2026, at which point I will cancel the pledges (with e-mailed notice.)
• Incomplete or inaccurate shipping address: To send your items to you, I need to know where to send them; please make sure you’ve entered in the address where you would like items delivered!
• Incomplete Pledge Manager survey: Many of the pledges in Isopod Colony included items where you are required to tell me what pin designs you wished to be sent; please let me know what you want so I can send them!

November 30 Preorders, Pledge Manager Order Lock & Credit Card Charge

Pin Production Photos

The enamel pins & charms are nearly finished being manufactured. Here are some photos of their production! Below you can see what the pins look like with their solid, enamel fills alongside their final look, with the UV printing and spot colors added. The spot colors really bring these guys to life!

I have some production photos of the mini pins as well. In the lower right, you can see some of the Panda Kings being hand-filled with enamel! (see the revision & remake notes for Panda Kings.)

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Blind Bag Production Photos

The blind bags for the star candy isopods are currently in production! Here's the final design and a photo of them being created. When the bag manufacturer sent me the video of their production process, I was surprised to see that a single, giant machine prints, seals, and cuts them. I thought that each step would be a separate process and require different equipment. Technology is amazing!

Revision & Remake

Panda Kings Remake:
The Panda Kings/Lemon Blue mini pin is currently undergoing a remake. The eyes and cheek lines were intended to be part of the UV print layer, but were erroneously created as part of the metal mold during production. Doing the eyes in UV will allow for it to match the other mini pins. It will also allow for the Panda Kings and Lemon Blues to have different eye shapes/expressions, as their eye artwork is not tied to their shared metal mold.

Isopod Snuggle Leaf Remake:
When the Isopod snuggle leaf design was taken to the electroplating factory to receive their gold color, something happened that caused 80% of the pins to have rusting tide marks in some of the lines. My manufacturer was awesome and took full responsibility, so they are being remade for me free-of-charge.

 
Blooper Freebies:
Between the snuggle leaf "rusties" and the handmade nature of pins, I am likely to have quite a few blooper pins. As long as it doesn't result in the weight of your package jumping up to a new shipping tier, I'll be including some of these bloopers as a freebie when I ship out orders. I don't know if I'll have enough bloopers for everyone to get one, but will try and include them in as many packages as I can. So if you end up with an unexpected freebie in your order with a blooper note attached, this is how they came to be!

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Pintopia 2026

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That's all for now! I hope that everyone has a great week. 

Pledge Manager + Charge Date

Making all the Things:

• The pin designs and files have been sent to the manufacturer, and are currently under production. The first payment to start production has been sent. Thanks to everyone’s enthusiasm for this project, I will be able to order much larger print runs than initially expected, helping to bring the cost per unit down and ensuring I should have plenty of extra stock for the future. I hope to have production photos to share soon!
• The backing cards for the pins have been ordered, fully paid for, and are currently in production. The Isopod Leaf, Mini Pins, Jewelry, and Stitch markers will all have two-sided Strange Little Creatures backing cards with raised gold text and logos. The Star Candy Isopods pin designs will have custom star-candy themed backing cards to keep with the theming of the blind bags.

Preorder Store:

Thank You for a Successful Project!

What Happens Now?

• Pledge Collection (90% complete): Backerkit should have started the process of charging everyone’s payment methods. During this stage, it’s expected that a handful of payments will bounce or be unable to go through. If you receive an e-mail or notification that your pledge was unable to be processed, please make sure to follow up so that Backerkit can attempt to collect your pledge from a valid payment methods. 

• Addon Designs Finalized (45% complete): The final stretch goal of the campaign was for a set of hard enamel isopod charms that will be used for smaller necklace, earring, and stitch markers addons in the pledge manager. In addition, existing artwork is being formatted for sticky notes, washi tape, and lanyards. These designs will be shown in a campaign update at the end of the week, and in the pledge manager.

• Pledge Manager Setup & Test Run (70% complete): I am currently in the process of waiting for backers data to import into the pledge manager and am setting up the additional items we unlocked. The pledge manager was originally scheduled to launch on September 10th, the day after the campaign ends. I am moving the pledge manager launch to Saturday, September 13th so that there is a bit more time to test and get those additional items ready! The pledge manager closure is also being extended by 3 additional days, to September 27th.