Pins are arriving & sorry for lack of communication!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 09:48:00 PM

Hey all!

Pins are arriving! I've had half of the pins arrive with me a few weeks ago and I've been working on grading them to figure out if all is well. 

I've also been unexpectedly swamped with holiday orders and customer service so I apologize intensely about the lack of updates until now.

I really love how some of these came out!! Jupiter's moons are some of my favourites

Unfortunately it seems the manufacturer messed with my screenprint files, and instead of lighter colours laying on top of block colour, they just cut out / erased any screenprint underneath. This has lead to mild misalignment in some pins (seen in Earth Night on the front paw, and mildly on Neptune's tail) - but in most cases unless it's severe it's not easy to spot when held 1 foot away from your face, so I'm treating these as standard (even though I will be writing an angry message to my manufacturer not to mess with my files, I design them that way for a reason!).

Neptune's tail also has some screenprint issues, but I ordered about 3 times as many pins as I needed so I'm fairly confident that I'll still have enough decent ones to ship out to you all :) However if this takes a turn for the worse as I check more, I will update you.

Bad news unfortunately for Ur-An*s though. Despite ordering 900 of them when I only needed 250 to fulfill orders, they had severe underfill AND metal plating issues which meant I only had 100 I could call standard grade. 

Re-makes have been negotiated (and half paid for by me to get 600 in case of more errors), and are being made. I have requested that they are done quickly due to the holiday season which closes factories at the beginning of January, so I'm keeping all of my fingers crossed that they will arrive in time. Luckily the other pins made by this manufacturer (Jupiter's Moons) all look good. 

As for the rest - some are arriving today! I've got 8 giant boxes turning up today and 6 more are on their way, but this means I will have all the pins ready and waiting to be graded very soon. 

Any patience is greatly appreciated with this campaign, I am pregnant which can make things a little difficult at times (lifting heavy boxes of pins around for example is a no-go. My husband has told me off too many times for still doing it when I'm not supposed to - oops!). I also fell and badly injured my ankle about two weeks ago which slowed things down more than I would like. It's mostly healed now, but I'm trying to go carefully to avoid further injuring my accident-prone self (insert multiple times I've nearly fallen over in our garage while getting pins).  

I also have 17000 pins to grade and I am all on my own with this, but I am going as fast as I can while checking each pin as carefully as I can. However once grading is complete, my helper friend has become a WIZARD at packing pins, so I'm confident the rest of fulfillment will go quickly. 

I eagerly await the delivery of more pins today, and once I've graded a few to assess their standard I will update everyone again. This may be after the holiday season as ended since it's so terrifyingly close (I love this season but where has the time gone this year?!) .

Thanks again, and happy holidays!!

Venetia / ChocolateRaisinFury

Charge Cards & Neptune Update
over 1 year ago – Sat, Oct 29, 2022 at 02:21:38 AM

Hey friends! 

Thanks so much for your continued patience and excitement with this campaign! All of the pins are either underway or nearing completion, as noted in previous updates! I’m fully getting ready with small tasks to help get these out quickly when they arrive.  

I did have one mixed news update between the time I last updated and now. With the Neptune pin, originally modeled after my friend’s ridiculous boy Bengal, the manufacturer miss-coloured one of the screenprints during mass production, and the light facial tone went a fair bit darker compared to my artwork & the original sample I approved. The bad news is that the only fix for this is to strip all of the prints off and redo it, which can harm the quality of the pins (and remaking all of the pins from scratch isn’t an option). 

Below is the picture of the final, the picture of the sample I’d asked to be changed, and the picture of the goof cat which it was modeled after. (Arguably, while an error, the dark streaks actually do look more similar to the Bengal cat’s markings, which they’re well known for.). It doesn't look bad either, it's just different to the original artwork I had presented to you all. 

(Also please excuse the photo quality, these are my manufacturer's photos of the pins).

With this screenprint coming out darker than intended, I did want to give everyone a few days notice in case they’d like to change their selections (to the pin, or away from the pin) so the BackerKit charge date originally scheduled for yesterday -as well as the survey lock date- is now on **November 1st**. 

If you have any issues with adjustments, feel free to contact me directly.  Other than that, everything is still going smoothly and I’m excited to start getting into the pins!

General update - Small Uranus & Mars artwork changes - cards to be charged soon.
over 1 year ago – Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 04:55:36 AM

Hey all!

Hope everyone's hanging in there as we head into colder weather (I say as I'm sat in my jumper, cardigan, leg warmers, and slipper socks - with a hot chocolate.)

Small update to say that some pins are on their way to me! Unfortunately not any new ones so there aren't any exciting photos to share, but re-stocks of Sun, Nebulae cats, and Pluto are all on their way to me. So once they're here I can get a small headstart on grading and packing those up, yay! Neptune is also close to being finished, but will be sent to me once more pins are complete.

Uranus & Mars

Unfortunately with Uranus and Mars, it seems both had some cutouts which were too small for the factory to handle, and in the samples they had those tiny bits of extra jagged metal which can look ick (The Uranus sample was also accidentally plated in Gold, so that will be fixed on the final).

Here are the photos my manufacturer sent to me, and I have circled the problem areas:

Mars has been updated to include recessed metal either side of Rover's neck, and Uranus has had its ring shifted and recessed metal added (which also resulted in some screen prints being shifted around).

Uranus Updated:

The changes are only subtle, but it means that each pin shouldn't have jagged metal. 

These changes also mean these two will probably be the last to be finished as the molds need to be re-made, but luckily the colours were great so they have gone straight into mass production - and with other pins being finished slightly ahead of schedule I am hopeful it won't affect the final shipping date :) 

Surveys soon to be locked & cards will be charged next week.

Surveys will be locked early next week and cards will be charged at the end of the month! My original plan was to charge cards later this week, but I'm conscious it's a little close to payday so I will delay it until the 28th of October. Surveys will be locked on Monday 24th. 

COMPLETE COLLECTION BACKERS - PLEASE CHECK YOUR SURVEYS.

I know I mentioned this before but I want to be clear - I updated the surveys so that those who already purchased Saturn and/or Pluto could instead choose between the Nebulae pins as their free additions instead of receiving duplicates.

In the "Choose which extra Cat Planets you'd like" section at the end of the survey (shown below) - this is where you can choose which free pins you would like.If you did not select Saturn and/or Pluto, and did not purchase them as add-ons they will not be included in your order!  You will receive what you selected here, and any add-ons you have purchased.  

Please make sure you have selected which free pins you would like before surveys are locked, as I'd hate for anyone to be disappointed when they receive their package.

Purrtagonists: Fabled Felines Enamel Pins!

Alchemy Art Group has organised a collaboration between myself and blushsprout to make cute little D&D  roleplay inspired cat pins, as well as following a D&D style storyline and the campaign is well underway!

The pins & characters revealed so far:

More characters & creatures are to be revealed through the updates and as the storyline progresses (written by Alchemy Art Group), where you can also vote for which direction you'd like the group to go and join in with the story. This is in conjunction with BackerKit and their new campaign portion of their website, which makes everything nicely integrated :) 

A link for those who are interested to find out more: Purrtagonists: Fabled Felines Campaign

I think that's about it so far, I'll be sure to update everyone once pins start arriving!

Update, Surveys, and stuff!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 26, 2022 at 03:23:17 PM

Hey all!!

So sorry about my silence since the campaign ended - I very much misremembered posting an update after the surveys had gone out, my bad!

Huge thank you to everyone who has filled in their surveys so far - Since you were all so quick, and thanks to BackerKit's estimated count tool, I was able to order most of the pins in good time ^^ 

There are still about 10% who haven't filled in their surveys - If you have lost your survey or need to recover it, head here: https://cat-planets.backerkit.com/ 

COMPLETE COLLECTION BACKERS 

I meant to clarify this sooner in the update I thought I had already written (seriously, my brain these days) - but since many of you had already purchased Saturn and/or Pluto previously, in the surveys I allowed backers to choose between the Nebulae pins, Saturn, and Pluto, for their two free pins. 

PLEASE NOTE - the Complete Collection only includes two free pins,  if you chose two Nebulae pins in the "Choose which extra Cat Planets you'd like" sections of the survey, then Saturn and Pluto will not be included unless they are purchased as add-ons. 

Pins!

Since the campaign was doing so well and would definitely be funded, I was a little sneaky and used some of my personal money to fund getting some moulds and samples made a little earlier many of which were ready a few weeks ago! (I couldn't afford to do this for all the designs, though). Some designs needed adjusting to get the colours and screenprints right so I'm waiting on second samples to be completed - but Neptune, Jupiter, Earth Day & Night, all 4 Mini Moons, and Ur-An*s, are all in full production. (Sun, Moon, Saturn, Pluto, and the 3 Nebulae were already complete so they've also gone straight to production).

This means even though they're staggered, when some pins arrive I'll be able to dive straight into grading and packing while the remaining ones are finished. 

As for grading and packing -- with this campaign I ordered three times as many pins as I technically needed. This will -hopefully- (*touch wood*), mean that even if there are significant error rates, unless it's completely catastrophic then I'll still have enough for orders without waiting for re-makes. But, it means I will have many pins to look through.

This time I have hired a friend of mine to help me one day per week, with a view to possibly increase her hours if necessary. She's already started to help me get my current stock, office, and storage sorted, ready for the onslaught of approximately 16,000 pins which are headed my way! *gulp*

Now it's a bit of a waiting game until more samples are finished and until the pins finish production. Until then I've also been working on a couple of other projects, my ongoing collaboration with Alchemy Art Group being one of them, as well as a new exciting one Alchemy Art Group organised between us and Blushsprout !

Thanks again everyone for all your patience, I'm excited to get the pins in hand!

Surveys & minor update
over 1 year ago – Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 09:00:53 PM

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much for your patience over these last two weeks. Our flight home ended up being cancelled due to thunderstorms and we got stuck in Norway for a short while, and my beloved family dog passed so I went to see my family for a bit. 

I am however back full time now - and am ready to go back in full steam to this campaign!

Surveys

A few have already messaged me about this - but surveys have not gone out yet. So no need to panic if you haven't received it / can't find it! 

Unfortunately I misremembered BackerKit's timeline (or they changed it since I first used them 2 years ago), and they advised users wait 14 days before sending out surveys - as well as required users to pay their fee before sending the surveys to them for review, so I had to wait until I got paid. Good news is I just got paid today, so I have paid the fee and am hoping to send out surveys later this week. 

Dropped Payments / Backers

Many backers have had your payments fail, or have had card / bank trouble. Backerkit allows you to fix your payment after the deadline, so you'll still have the opportunity to continue your backerkit pledge. 

If you are still struggling after trying BackerKit - I can send out PayPal invoices. This does however take time since I have to do them individually, so depending on how many need to take this route, it may take me a little time to get through them. 

Add-ons 

Add-ons purchased in Backerkit won't be charged until much later - closer to the shipping date.  At the moment I am thinking around early November / late October. I am conscious of charging much later than that as I know it'll be approaching christmas, and it can be a difficult time for extra payments to go out (feedback on this is welcome.).

I think that's about all for now - I'm waiting for BackerKit to glance over the surveys and check I haven't missed anything, then the smoke test will go out and the pins can be ordered! 

Thanks again to everyone's patience and kind messages <3