Hey astronomers!

I got word that the pins are FINALLY done, packed up, and on their way to me!

Here are some more pictures of finished pins:

And the filler pins too:

Not sure why they didn't send a picture of the white Trio filler. Probably just forgot, but oh well. Everything else is there!

I do have one piece of sort of bummer news. Because of how expensive shipping has gotten with tariffs etc., I chose to opt for a less expensive shipping option from my manufacturer. It literally went from like $2000+ extra in shipping costs alone, down to $500. Unfortunately, this does mean that it will take a bit longer to get the pins than usual - about 18-22 days instead of the typical 1 week or less. Because of this, I won't be receiving the pins until late September, which means I won't be able to start shipping until sometime in October at the earliest.

I know that's a huge deviation from the original timeline, but...it is what it is. 😫 I really appreciate how patient and understanding you guys have been with this project. It wasn't supposed to take all year, but alas.

Once I have the pins in-hand, I'll be able to weigh them, update shipping costs, and finally charge cards in the pledge manager.

I estimate that I'll be charging cards around the end of September or early October. I'll post another update when I'm ready to charge cards to give you a heads up. Please make sure your payment method is up-to-date and that the funds are available around this time to avoid delays in receiving your rewards. If your payment fails at the shipping charge stage, you won't get your reward until you fix your payment.

That's all for this update. Thanks for reading and I'll catch you in the next update!

Cheers,
Rain

Hey astronomers!

First off, a fun question: Did any of you get to watch the Perseid meteor shower this week?? My friends and I went out on Wednesday night to go try to see some of it, and we saw a handful of really good ones, but between storms blowing clouds into the region and some light pollution, we didn't get to see as many as we'd hoped. Maybe next year!!

Anyway, onto the update!

Finally, after months of waiting, I'm starting to see some completed pictures of the pins coming in from my manufacturer! These pictures are getting me SO excited, and I wanted to share them with you all as well!

FYI - The manufacturer used the wrong size of cards for most of these (they used 4.5" cards for all of them instead of 3.5"...oops!) so they look a lot smaller than they actually are. Don't worry, they're the promised size listed on the campaign page!

But so far these pins are looking really pretty and I'm so excited to see them in real life, and I hope these pictures get you guys excited too!!

I'll post another update if/when I get more pictures from the manufacturer. :) Until then!

Cheers,
Rain

Hey astronomers!

SUPER relieving and exciting news for you today! My manufacturer has finally produced a sample for The Night Sky that I'm happy with and I have approved it, and I wanted to show you all.



It took much longer than I anticipated, but I am quite happy with the result. The pin in action is STUNNING - the shimmer is so pretty, exactly what I was hoping for with this pin.

With that, I'm going to do another 2-day warning to re-lock the surveys. If you want to add this pin to your order or any others, this is your final chance!

Thank you so much for all your patience while I've struggled with this, it's very greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Rain

Hey astronomers!

It's been a while, and I really wish I had better news for you. I was putting off making an update because I was waiting until I had finalized all the samples for the pins, thinking, surely it can't take much longer to finalize them? Unfortunately I was wrong. 😓

So let's get into it. First, the good stuff.

I've approved the samples for the Crescent Moon and Stellar Nebula pins, which is a big step at least. Here are the finalized half-complete samples for those two:

The crescent moon looks a bit odd as a still image, but I can attest that the opal effect looks really cool in motion. I'm sadly unable to upload videos to my updates, otherwise I would show you guys T.T

I've also approved samples for Neutron Star and Supernova:

There was a miscommunication with them after this, and they didn't realize that I wanted the updated glitter for ALL the pins that had that color of glitter, so they didn't start new samples for the rest of them 'til yesterday. 😩

The last two samples that are approved are the Blood Moon and one of the alternate colorways:

The original Moon and the rest of the alternate colorways will have the same effect as the Comet recolor above. :)

Now the annoying part 😩

The Night Sky Pin is being problematic. We've done multiple samples with different styles of effects at this point and somehow my manufacturer just isn't getting the effect I want even after sending them multiple example photos & videos. They even showed me samples of pins THEY MADE that had the effect I want, but on my pin, it's just not looking right.

I'm going to keep working on sampling it with them, because I KNOW my manufacturer is capable of it, so this one's just going to take a little longer.

So far, this is the closest sample they've gotten so you can get at least get an idea:
 


This just doesn't have quite the level of glimmer I was looking for based on the samples they sent me (which were super shimmery and GORGEOUS) and I'm not sure why they're having so much trouble replicating it on my pin :/ I'm going to keep trying. But if they can't get it right after the next few samples, I think I'll just tell them to go with the sample above.

In short, I'm getting really frustrated with the production on these. My original timeline put me shipping out orders to you guys this month, and the fact that they haven't even finished sampling them is driving me INSANE. I've NEVER had this much trouble with the sampling process before, nor have they been this slow about it. It has sometimes taken them a week or longer to make ONE new sample of a pin, so when it takes that long and is STILL wrong, the delays keep racking up. 

I'm not the only pin creator that has experienced these delays - it's apparently an industry-wide issue as of late, so unfortunately, even if I wanted to switch manufacturers, most likely it wouldn't help or make things go any quicker. :/

I'm truly sorry for all the delays, but I promise you all that you WILL get your pins eventually. It's just taking so much longer than it should 😭

I hope the next update will bring better news.

Cheers,
Rain