Let’s Talk Birthday Promos!

Good afternoon everyone!

‘Tis the eve upon the day that marks 33 cycles around the sun for me! (It sounds so much less daunting when I say that instead of years.) Anyway, here is a quick look at all the birthday promos since I know that’s what y’all are most excited for anyway! :p If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out, ideally today since tomorrow I plan on doing fun things!

Summer Event Update

Here’s an updated list of our summer events. We decided against Anime Houston as we realized it’s only the second year of them doing it and wedged between two other very big anime events in Houston area, so we worried we couldn’t make back expenses. Instead we are hesitantly attending Emerald City Comic Con—it was a terrible show for most vendors last year due to timing of the show being moved to December directly following Black Friday and the surge of Omicron. But after talking with a sales rep and seeing a whole new staff has been brought on to pick up where it failed previously, we feel we can give it one more chance.

July 8-9: Redmond Derby Days in Redmond, WA
July 16: Georgetown Makers Market (Seattle)
July 30: Making Local in Bothell, WA
August 4-5: Wholesale Market (Seattle)
August 7: UCU Maker’s Market (Seattle)
August 17-21: Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle)

Pin Club Packages

Quickly mentioning that I am still going through grading allllll the pins that came in. It was a LOT, something around 1500+ and it always takes a good amount of time for me to grade since I like to clean up screen print and sometimes give a polishing if needed. Unbagging the pins alone actually took me 5 hours, and then I still need to construct the boxes and put pins on backing cards. But worry not, I’m definitely making progress and hoping to start shipping out by the end of the month for folks waiting on Esmeraude, Uranus, Neptune, Petz, and Calaveras!

I should also note that Mugen Club members for April waiting on Botan (peony) will be waiting a little longer because I’m still waiting on the sticker sheets to come in. I went ahead and ordered multiple months at once so that there won’t be future delays since we moved to production for sticker sheets as opposed to making in-house. Good news is the quality will be more pristine and I was able to increase the size of the sticker sheets from 2x3 to 4x6! Bigger stickers for you all! :D

Future of Pin Club Updates

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, we are planning to increase membership by $2 for all tiers starting in July. At least half of you had input and I really appreciate you all for taking the time to give us your thoughts. You were all super sweet and thoughtful, and most of you so understanding and not expecting any extras from us which it really does mean so much to us that you are willing to continue supporting us. A lot of you expressed concern that we are making ourselves to work harder to please you all, and well yeah, it’s kinda true, because at the end of the day we always want to make your experience one of the best when you choose to support us!

Most of you were leaning towards wanting combined shipping (25%) and wanting more exclusive designs (50%). We’ve heard you and will be working on making that happen. :)

Other ideas included having an exclusive discord for those who don’t want to use IG for updates. While I’d love to do that, to be honest I rarely use Discord and don’t like the idea of having to keep track of who is or isn’t a member every month to limit access to it.

I already spend at least one work day every month tallying up who gets what pins, whether the address has changed, adding up how many months members have been in to ensure they get their loyalty gifts, etc. (see above).

For this reason, as well, I also have decided I won’t do a lower pin grade tier option and members will continue to be guaranteed Collector grade. It would be too much work on top of me already having to keep track of which design each person wants, to also have to determine whether they want to receive Collector, Standards or B-Grades.

I hope you all understand this decision was made so that I can continue to provide the best customer service as I can with minimal mistakes. :) It will already be a lot of work to do combined shipping as I will have to always make sure to pull from stock and set aside (so I don’t oversell) and make sure I remember to pack your orders with your pin club orders. But I am really happy to save y’all some shipping costs (and inadvertently help the planet with less shipments going out meaning less gasoline for multiple deliveries, less packaging waste).

And since the primary thing people wanted was more exclusive designs, we are going to focus on creating more content for you all and will open up some surveys in the future to see what designs you might want to see for both Pretty Winkers and Japanese Original themes! :) My goal will be to produce at least one exclusive design every other month, if not more. And when possible, I do want to create some digital content for you all as well! :)

I even bought one of those trendy phone stands so I can record me working on stuff/sketching/etc and share that with you all!

Behind the Scenes

The past couple weeks I’ve been taking things a little slower and yet also being super productive. Since we are moving all sticker production to a sticker company, I’ve been working on making more sticker sheets (since those always sell pretty well at events), and Taka’s been designing some fun stickers for his own business as well as of our original characters.

As you all know, our original characters are something we have a lot of love for but haven’t necessarily made a lot of merch for. We have also been ordering a bunch of restocks of our original designs because stock is getting pretty low for a lot of that and with our upcoming wholesale event in August and more local shops requesting wholesale with us, that is a big focus for us. We have some new pins of our original “puppy” characters, Shishi-maru and Shishi-ko. I put parenthesis because they’re actually technically LIONS since karajishi or shishi, also known for some reason in the West as fu dogs—don’t ask why, we have no clue, are actually lions. But I grew up calling them shishi dogs since that’s what my dad told me they were after he learned about them while stationed in Okinawa. And when I first met Taka and learned his family name was Shishido, I thought it was cute and sounded like Shishi dog. Hence the creation of them as our mascots. So do expect more cuteness of them.

On a personal level, I’ve also been working a bit in our yard and what is going to be my glorious summer patio, which I hope to use to relax, maybe sit and grade pins on warmer days, or also stream some sketching.

Thank you for your continued support and good vibes! More greatness to come, and in the meantime, happy shopping! And if you haven’t had a chance to give us a piece of your mind, feel free to do so at the survey below.

Mandy & Taka