Flora & Feather - Enamel Pins & Bookcharms - Birds, Flowers, and Dragons!

Hello again! Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the summer :) I wanted to share a quick progress update and let you know that I will be starting to send out surveys!

Progress Report -- We're still a ways off from the pins being finished - the vectors are still being finalized and we still need a round of samples before going ahead with the full order - but everything is still steadily moving forward even if it might be another couple of months till they are finished with production on such a large order.

In the meantime, while I was waiting for the vectors, I got the Backerkit survey page built -- no easy feat lol 😅 since I made so many different options and bonuses (seriously - how did I end with hundreds of SKU's???💀). But with a bit of help from Backerkit the last few weeks, we got everything set up and hopefully it is all setup perfectly *fingers crossed*

Since the survey page is ready to go, I'm going to start sending out the surveys! I figure it will help it go smoother and quicker if I have the surveys all finished when the pins and bookcharms arrive - so I can send them out right away.

Smoke Test -- Backerkit has us start by sending out a small amount of surveys first to a random set of backers just to make sure everything is working properly (easier to fix a handful of mistakes rather than hundreds lol) before it sends out the whole lot of them. But if everything goes smoothly, everyone should have a survey in the next week or so.

New "Complete Set" Tiers - I also had a few people asking about being able to switch to tier for all the designs since we unlocked so many new ones in the last day or two - and I did add three new tiers to help with that :) I made a tier for all 24 pins, a tier for all 24 bookcharms, and a tier for all 48 pins & bookcharms. Anyone can switch to those tiers if they'd like to get the complete set - hopefully this helps!

Add-ons -- And of course, you can add-on any of the new designs to your pledge in the add-on section if you would like to just pick your favorites :) Everything from the campaign is eligible as an add-on (except of course the unicorn bonus for those who backed Kaitlund's campaign as well). Not only are all 24 pin and bookcharms designs available, but also the gold foil stickers, the bookmarks, the journals, the gold foil prints - plus all of the Egyptian Mythology series as well, including brand new black and gold foil Egyptian journals that arrived just this week from the printer ✨ there are so many goodies to choose from!

Pre-Order Store - Also, I opened the pre-order store as well, for anyone who missed the campaign and would still like to get some shiny Flora & Feather treasures! https://florafeather---pins-bookcharms.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders (link to pre-order store)

Since I decided to go ahead and complete the series, even though we were shy of the last 1 1/2 designs, I am going a bit over the budget of the campaign to get these all made - and so any extra add-ons or late pledges will help keep me from going too far in the red on this project. I just couldn't imagine being so close to the complete set and not making the last few pieces - so I decided to just trust that it was worth the extra investment for now *fingers crossed* lol but every bit will help 💞

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TLDR: Everything still going smoothly - waiting on vectors and samples. Surveys going out this week starting with a small amount of samples and then followed by all the rest. I added 'complete set tiers' for those who would like to up their pledge to get a complete set - or you can add a few of your favorites from the new designs as add-ons if you like. 

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Thanks again everyone 💖 this project has meant so much to me to see it come to life and it is thanks to all of you that I could bring it to life. I'm excited to be moving to the next step in getting these shinnies in your hands!! ✨

Hey :) I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and if you're in the States that you had a fun holiday with your loved ones <3

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I thought I'd post a little update to let everyone know how things are progressing. As I said during my campaign, I work towards making things as nice as possible rather than as fast - so I know I'm quite a bit slower than most of the other Pintopia campaigns, and I don't want anyone to worry along the way.

{{Quick tldr 😊 we are at the step of waiting for the vectors to be completed by my wonderful vector artist and sent back to me. Then next step I will send them to the manufacturer for samples.}}

I'm terrible at vectors lol - seriously! - the few I've done in the past took me weeks to do per design (which with 25 designs would take a lifetime to complete lol) and struggled every minute of it. So I've learned that is a step best hired out for. And I've been so lucky to find an artist who does an amazing job with all the vectors I've ever sent her - keeping the designs super accurate to what I drew, while also ensuring they meet all the requirements needed to translate well into metal and enamel. She has the finished files now and is vectorizing them and preparing them for production. She's also an artist who does conventions - and will be doing AX which creates a slight delay for her working on the vectors - but our hope is to have all the vectors finished and sent to the pin manufacturer by the end of July :) So we are getting there!

After that, the next step will be getting samples from the manufacturer. Since there are so many colors and this is also my first time using the UV gradient printing on pins I think the samples are super important to ensure that these turn out as beautiful as we hope. The pin manufacturer has been very easy to communicate with thus far and is eager to start production - so I anticipate (knock on wood) everything will go smoothly :)

While I wait for the vectors, I'm working on getting the backerkit survey page and pre-order page set up. I always make the mistake of making my campaigns more complex than I should lol and that comes to bite me when setting up the survey page 😅 but I am making good progress on getting everything set up for that as well.

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Those are the main brush strokes. I also thought I'd share all the final art all together here for you guys to see them all polished and shiny :) There could still be some very slight variance if, during the vector phase, some areas are too tight for metal and enamel - but these are very close to what the final will look like. A few of the early designs I worked on a little further since I did them all in such a rush and blur during the campaign and they needed some polishing to make them on par with the rest of the set. Most were pretty subtle changes, but some are more noticeable - for example - the dove, I went back and added more peony to the design rather than just the little bud sticking out of the head - and the jade vine, I added in a few more blossoms so it looked more like the vine and fit with the long shapes of the other two designs better. But I think all the designs are as nice as I can make them and I'm really excited with how everything turned out and fits together! And I hope you guys love these all as well! <3







Whew - Its been quite the process to get all 25 of these designs created and polished lol but it will all be worth it when they are turned into shiny little treasures. Thank you so much everyone for joining me on this adventure and for your patience as I strive to make these as nice as possible for you <3 I am so glad to have had the opportunity to create this whole series all together and it is thanks to all of you <3 

That's all for now, but I hope you guys enjoy seeing all the designs and are happy with how they all turned out! Thanks again <3 Love you guys! 

I finished the pin and bookcharm designs for the last three sets!

I decided to go ahead and design the blue dragon to complete the blue heron and indigo set even though we didn't quite unlock him. It just seemed such a shame to do 23 out of 24 designs lol and it would drive me nuts not having a complete set for that one last painting. So I went ahead and designed him and will add him to the options to choose from when I send out the surveys.



I'm going to make one more polish pass over all 24 designs to make sure they are all as nice as I can make them - but I wanted to share these so you can see all the different designs. :) 
 

I'm heading out tomorrow morning to fly to a workshop for the week that I am really looking forward to - but I will be back next Sunday to dive into finishing the next steps on getting these shinies into everyone's hands! We are almost at the finish line for getting these ordered! I hope everyone loves all these new designs and talk soon!

I hope everyone is doing well! I thought I would check in with a quick little update of how things are progressing behind the scenes here. I've been working hard to get everything setup properly for this campaign (and the sister puzzle campaign I ran simultaneously). I've been focusing on finishing all the designs we unlocked so fast the last two days of the campaign - and I am happy to say I have finished two of the last three trios!



I'm so happy with how these two sets turned out and hope you guys love them! It is so fun finding the mood and shape language that makes each set feel cohesive together. 

This only leaves one trio to go - the blue heron, indigo, and dragon! I've decided I am going to go ahead and design all three, even though the dragon didn't quite get unlocked - as it feels so strange to be missing just the last one design out of the whole set of 24. 

It's crazy to think we got that far and I really had thought we would only unlock 4 or 5 painting trios lol but since we got so close to that finish line, I wanted to see it all the way across :) 

The extra design will be available as an option once I get the pre-order store setup and in the surveys. For now, though, I am focusing on finishing the designs themselves and working with the manufacturers to get everything just right. 

Anyways, I just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know that progress is being made and share some of the new designs as I finish them! I am finding the trios are taking me about a week and a half - to two weeks to do all three designs, so I will probably have another update with the last three designs in about two weeks! Love you guys, and as always, thank you so much for all the support in bringing this project to life! <3 

Oh my goodness ❤️ thank you so much everyone!! ❤️ I can't believe how far we flew in just a short time! I'm so grateful for all the support and pledges - and everyone pushing at the last minute to get the heron unlocked! ❤️ You guys are all amazing!!

I wanted to post a quick update to let you guys know what to expect from here 

Finishing Designs: I'm going to be working on finishing all these designs for a little while lol 😅 They usually take me about 8-10 hours each - so about 2 days per design if I get a chance to put a good amount of my work time towards them. I'll be posting updates as I finish them so you guys can see how they turn out - and then of course when the pledge manager goes out, it will have all the finished designs for you to see and choose from.

Pledge Manager:  I like to wait to send my pledge manager out when I have all the pins and bookcharms in hand - so there is less time for anything to go wrong or addresses to change. So my pledge manager will probably come later than a lot of the other pintopia ones. 

Once I finish all these designs, I'll be working with the manufacturers to get samples (possibly several rounds of samples) as I want to make sure everything is as perfect as possible. I've never done UV printing with pins so hopefully it will go smoothly - but I will take the time to make sure it comes out great either way. Then we wait for them to make the order - which with as large as an order as this turned out to be - could take several months. So I wanted to let you guys know it will probably be a few months before I send out the pledge manager but not to worry. 

I really prefer to focus on making everything perfect even if it takes a little longer rather than rush to get these to you guys a few weeks faster. And I hope when you get your shiny treasures it will be worth it when everything turns out as nice as I can make it ✨

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I think that covers it for now 😅 Thank you so much everyone!! 🥰❤️ I'm so amazed by how far we came and all the designs unlocked. And I couldn't have done any of this without you guys. I can't wait to send you all shiny treasures!! 

My brain is a bit of a puddle now lol so I'm going to go melt for a few minutes 😅 love you guys and thank you so much!!