February Shop News & March Crybaby KS (Patreon)

Hi fish fries!! I wanted to share with you all a couple of updates coming this month & next month with regards to the shop and the new crybaby plushes kickstarter!

First of all, Rachel from Rainylune & I have been planning another collab since like... November but due to the Lunar New Year holidays from overseas on top of the holiday rush for Christmas, we couldn't really figure out how to best plan our collab sooner until this month for our items!! I know I haven't gotten a chance to speak much about this since I've been juggling a bunch of other things at the same time, but I'll be talking a bit more about the collab now!! 

Umvvelt x Rainylune Collaboration: Crybaby & Son PJs & Hoodie Blankets

To be honest, both Rachel & I had the same experience where we always wanted to work with brighter/fun colors that usually wouldn't sell well publicly because they're not really colours people want to wear when they go out! So we had an idea instead of making fun colors to wear as comfort clothes like pajamas and hooded blankets--because honestly, they're meant to be comfortable and you're not nearly as concerned about putting on an appearance for someone when you're in the comfort of your own home!

I really wanted to work with yellow for mine, because I personally love the blue & yellow contrast while rachel wanted to work with pink! So our pajamas, respectively, come in yellow and pink with ✨matching hooded blankets✨ for maximum comfort!! We decided long loungepants and a short sleeve shirt (because who doesn't love wearing a nice t-shirt to bed) and are planning on having the option to pick sizes for BOTH shirts and pants (for those of you who wear different sized tops and bottoms) for the sets! 

The hooded blanket will be the exact same quality as my sleepy hooded blankets, for those of you who are familiar/have purchased one, for reference! 

We'll be hosting pre-orders for these and our old collab t-shirts from last year, the No Talk, I'm Stabby/Baby t-shirts as well! Please keep in mind that we plan on ordering what is preordered along with a few extras so we can coordinate and order them for the both of us at the same time! The preorders will be on-going for one week (towards the end of February, so possibly 21-28th) and then will close after while we work with trying to get them into our manufacturers ASAP so that they can be produced and shipped out hopefully sometime in April!

The shop will be updated and opened one day earlier for patrons from both Umvvelt & Rainylune with unlimited stock for preorders so you don't have to worry about selling out! I hope you're all excited for more Crybaby and Son chaos!! 🐸🐟

Additional New Releases for February Shop Update

In addition to the new collaboration releases, I also received new samples of the soft-shelled jacket I mentioned in the interest check in one of my last patreon posts and a new screenprinted sweater design! I LOVE how both came out, but I'm especially in love with the quality of the soft-shelled jacket!! I mentioned as well that the retail value would unfortunately be a bit pricey because of how much it costs to be produced and I'm currently still deciding on the price (I mentioned it would be around 100$ last time, but I might need to bump it to 110$, I'm currently waiting to see how much it'll cost in total to produce a certain amount without losing money ><), but it is a really nice jacket that offers things like outside AND inside pockets, fleece lining on the inside, and a waterproof finish on the outside! It's not a super thick jacket meant for Canadian winter storms or anything, but definitely something comfortable and lighter to wear for cases like rain! 

The Feeling Blue sweater is screenprinted on a Gildan's 18000 heavy blend crewneck (the usual crewneck I have most of my apparel printed on), with screenprinting features on one sleeve and the front!! It's definitely one of my favourite designs up to date, especially with the gloomy look of the charcoal grey sweater itself! This will be priced the same as all of my other sweaters as well (55-60$). 

I'll also be restocking all of my collar pins in a very limited quantity!!! I got some restocks of the Centre of the Universe collar pins and have a few leftovers from the last batch of Crybaby & Aurelia aurita collar pins so please hop on those fast if you want them ASAP! I'll be working to release even more collar pin designs hopefully for the summer with new button ups!

MARCH: Crybaby Kickstarter (but not really a kickstarter)

So, I was thinking about whether or not I wanted to run a proper kickstarter for these plushes but after doing some thinking in terms of production costs, labor, and etc., I ended up deciding to do a "kickstarter" like project that'll be done on my own website instead of Kickstarter!

I know it'll definitely be a little more abnormal but the reason why I wanted to run something like a kickstarter was mainly because I really enjoyed the process kickstarter has to offer with how interpersonal it feels by contributing to a goal! I definitely feel like I've helped in some way when I see a progress bar go a little more forward because of what I contributed and I really like how it's formatted! However, I also didn't want to work with Kickstarter's site in particular because of it's 5% fee which is taken from the total amount raised, on top of the 2-3% I already would have to pay through processing fees.

I mentioned in this post that the process of plush production is extremely labor intensive, from the process of designing and revision up into shipping out orders! However, I do want this plush to be as affordable as I can which is why I'm sticking to the price points I configured in that post as well! Just a reminder of the price points, in case you forgot:

The price points for these will be as follows:

4 inch mini plush keychain: $17 ( 24 hour early bird price $15)

10 inch standard crybaby: $35 ( 24 hour early bird price $30)

20 inch jumbo crybaby: $65 ( 24 hour early bird price $60)

And I will hopefully be able to also offer little family packs (all 3 sizes) for $110 ($100 for the 24 hour early bird price)!

I'll also be offering two varients, in blue and pink! 

I'm hoping by running a crowdfunding app through my direct website instead of on kickstarter, I can eliminate that 5% KS fee and allow a little more cushion room for extra expenses! The website will look similar to Kickstarter's layout, with the description of it on the lower half of the webpage (not shown here):

During the two week period that I run this "kickstarter," all items will be made unavailable in my shop except for the crybaby plushes and some possible add ons like stickers, collar pins, and other crybaby related goods! It'll be just a crybaby themed store for those two weeks in March! The kickstarter will most likely run from March 14th to March 21st and then close to process those orders! Afterwards, the shop will close while I work through shipping out all the preorders from February's shop update and then processing and making sure Crybaby KS runs according to schedule!

After that, I most likely won't reopen my shop until sometime in April or May!! I'll be taking a little break then after tackling these two projects before prepping and reopening for a spring/summer release so stay tuned!

Until then, that's pretty much all the updates I have for now! I'll have more information with regards to the early opening for patreon for February's update sometime within this next week or so--if you have any questions though, please feel free to let me know! 💖

Thank you all again for reading through this little update, please stay warm and safe! Until next time, all the best!

Kir