Bunnies & Branchs

Hey hey ~

I've had a few requests for an update about US shipping and the new tariffs and what not, so I just wanted to put out a quick update. 

Unfortunately, for the most part all I can say is 'wait and see', and I know that's not very reassuring.

In short I have no intentions of stopping shipping to the USA, but the shipping costs are going to go up, its inevitable.

The new system requires that sellers pay duties and taxes upfront on US shipments, putting the burden on us to charge you (the customer) at the point of sale, rather than you paying customs directly after your item arrives. If we don't pre pay and have all of the paperwork correct, then you are charged a flat rate fee of $80 when your item arrives. (If this happens to you with one of our packages contact me immediately.) Our UK postal service (Royal Mail) put out an announcement that they will be setting up a service that allows us to do all the prepayments and paperwork online, and they'll handle the rest. This service goes live next week. I won't know exactly how it works, or exactly what the fees are, until it goes live.

The duties/taxes are different depending on the country of origin of your items. All of our items are manufactured in China, therefore that's their country of origin.

For the Midnight Ocean and Mythical Garden campaigns, prepare for your shipping to increase in cost before cards are charged. We don't know how much by yet; and with everything changing there's nothing to say it won't be different again before these projects are ready to ship. We strive to keep our shipping costs as low as possible, and I will continue to do everything I can on that front. I know that the Midnight Ocean has a lot of heavier items, and we might be able to refund just those items to people who need to get back under a weight bracket for cheaper shipping. Bear with us; we'll handle it closer to the time.

For Bunnies and Branchs we are facing a different dilemma. Cards were already charged, because we needed the proceeds from the add-on store to manufacture the store items. If the shipping increase is relatively small, then we will just pay it ourselves; if we don't make a profit on these items then its a loss, but its manageable. And there are fewer backers overall to fulfil, with smaller orders in general. For now, we are just going to wait and see what the real world costs look like.

We may also delay US fulfillment another month or two. Simply put, the new system is going into place just a month before we want to start fulfillment, and there's every chance of serious disruption to the postal services. I don't want you guys losing packages and what not in the chaos. We will keep an eye on how it all goes into effect and if its not necessary then we won't do it. This would be for US backers only.

Although, we still aren't back at home yet, and I'm currently unable to travel, which is a whole different problem. 

Keep an eye out. I'll hopefully have solid news by mid September about how we're going to proceed. Right now I'm still preparing to ship out in October, and everything should be ready... As long as we can get home on time. 

Alright, the final pins are in;

I tweaked the design based on a couple of issues we were having, and now the shading is screen printed. It looks much better in my opinion. The previous ones, the colours weren't right either (they came out muddy, and a little gross). Now they're spot on. 

I had them shipped to our temporary address so I can check them for issues, but they look good.

Now we just have to wait til we can get back home. Packages should start to arrive early October, if everything goes well, so cross fingers for us! I'll give a heads up when I'm about to lock addresses. I got some freebies to send out to make up for the delay. 

As always, if you want to make any changes to your choices just leave a comment under this update and I can manually alter things on the back end for you :).

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer (or appropriate season!) ~

I'm sorry, its not good news :( .

The pins still aren't here, so we're going to have to delay shipping now until September/October. Even if they arrived tomorrow, there's no way we could get all 200 packages out in the time we have left. 

I've seen the pins. They do exist. I can only think that its busy due to con season and the factory aren't communicating properly with our rep about how long things are taking right now. 

Its not 100% sure when we'll be home again, but it should be in August. What we'll do is make sure the orders are as prepped as possible, so its hopefully quick to start getting them out once we do get back. 

I can only apologise, but it really was out of our hands. 

Sorry, another delay -_-.

We're prepping to pack and send, but the manufacturer is long overdue on our last order of pins. They promised the 9th, but its been and gone. Now they're promising next week, but I don't want to jump the gun. They pushed ahead with designs without getting the proofs approved, and things needed to be fixed (again). Its disappointing, we have used this manufacturer before and never had troubles. So I'm sorry about that. 

Unfortunately what's missing are the orange and pink mini sea bunnies, and also the cross collab freebie. Almost everyone has one, the other or both so. The trouble is that if its not here next week, we're going to have to delay shipping until October. I really didn't want to, and it shouldn't have been a problem - but at the beginning of July, we're having to leave for a bit while our house is worked on. Its a whole thing. I can't take everything with us so, it would have to wait until we get back and make sure everything is cleaned up. We're doing everything we can on this end to make sure that doesn't happen - putting together orders are only missing those items, ready to send as soon as they get here.

Right now I can't say either way. Cross fingers, and just know we're doing everything we can :). I won't lock addresses until I know we're starting sending right away. 

Hopefully, I'll have a better update soon. 

Back with a few more sneak previews.

We're now waiting for one more shipment of pins, and a second order of stickers. I underestimated how many sticker packs were ordered. Packing has already started though, so I'm hoping we'll be sending out by the beginning of June.

If you want to change anything in your order (including switching items like stickers) leave a comment under this update. I can change your order manually on the back end of things :).

That said, here's a look at what we got this week;



Orange Elegans. Its so hard to photograph these pins, they're so much nicer in person. Its very sunset colours. Under different lighting, the screen printed details are much clearer.

Leaf Sheep stickers. We actually got the stickers in a larger size from our supplier in the end. The default for all the stickers is clear, matte vinyl. For the leaf sheep, the fancy version is matte holo vinyl. The edges are holo, as is the linework and the pink tips to its 'leaves'. The matte finish, is a bit more understated. Its very, very hard to see in pictures, but its very pretty in person. The material is vinyl like the normal version. 

Pink Sea Bunny. The fancy alt is also matte holo vinyl, but in this case the body itself is holo as well as the edges. 

Flabellina. The fancy alt is matte holo vinyl again. In this case, a lot of the linework is holo while the main body of the sticker isn't.

Cyerce Nigricans. The fancy version has hot stamped gold foil. The edges are not transparent, and its quite a chunky sticker, but its very sticky.

The fancy Frosted is holo vinyl again. The edges are matte black, and then the whole design has a holo sheen under it. 

Fancy Torch has a matte brushed gold finish. There is actually a metallic finish to his 'spines', its just impossible to see in a photograph. 

Its near IMPOSSIBLE to see unfortunately, but the Blue Sea Dragon fancy alt has a holo effect applied over its back stripes, as well as the edges. 

I had so much fun wtih this one. I swear its not actually neon in person but it is LOUD. So the default fancy version has a matte black edge and holo 'veins'. But we also made a version with gold and a semi holo pink finish; both of those will be in the mystery sticker pile.

Unfortunately they didn't offer the finish for fancy cyerce elegans sticker in the larger size, so I can only apologise for it being slightly smaller. It actually has a glow in the dark finish, and all the little spots should glow.  The stickers are really thick, good quality; but they aren't quite as durable as the usual vinyl so they might not hold up to heavy wear and tear. 

The acrylic keyrings came in very nice too. 

Please remember the camera can skew colours quite a bit, despite my best efforts. The special effect stickers look way better in person, I hope you guys love them as much as I do. I'm gonna stick sea slugs to everything.

That's it for now. We're waiting on the sea bunnies and the collaboration pin now, and then we'll be ready to get shipping ~