To the Moon and Back: Space Animal Enamel Pins

hey all! first off, a big, BIG thank you to everyone who reached out with their support following the whole tariff situation -- i'll admit that it has really and truly been a massive headache to navigate all this, so it means a lot to know how many of you are still eager to support the project despite the setbacks. while most tariff fees averaged around ~$16 or so, some of you ended up with a tariff charge close to $100, which is just so overwhelming to think about. i hate that this is the world we're living in now, but all i can really say is thank you, thank you, thank you.

some of you reached out for refunds, which is likewise COMPLETELY understandable & i'm so glad you reached out and were honest about what you could afford. i hope those of you who had to cancel your pledges will be able to grab the pins at a later date when you're able to!

with almost everyone's tariff fees accounted for, i was able to drop off another big batch of orders earlier this week, putting us at over 50% funded with less than 100 orders left to fulfill! 🌠 right now, i'm still waiting on the last few SKUs we need for the campaign to arrive, & remaining orders will slowly begin shipping out over the next few weeks.

the SKUs we're waiting for are:

additionally, i wanted to share a lil update about pintopia 2026. i was invited to join the next pintopia a few months back, and while i initially accepted & began planning my designs, with the tariff situation being up in the air i wasn't really certain if doing pintopia again would even be possible. but the overwhelming support from you guys with this campaign + finally figuring out a way to accurately charge tariffs really gave me hope again, and assuming that people are able to support it, i'd love to give it a shot again. 

so, i've attached a poll at the bottom of this post for you guys to help me decide what themed to go with! pintopia 2026 launches in january, so keep that on your radar!

hello once again everyone!

the good news is that the tariff/shipping company got back to me & gave me a very clear and transparent explanation about the current tariff situation, which I honestly wasnt expecting. the BAD news is, well...

we've confirmed now that the current tariff rate on chinese goods entering the US from here in canada is 33.3%. the breakdown as explained to me by the agent is as follows:

this is the base duty rate that applies to almost all foreign shipments. this was previously not a factor in shipping b/c of the de minimus exemption!

this is the tariff specifically applied to imports from china.

THIS is the retaliatory tariff that I previously thought was reduced to 10% -- its actually 20% -- and doesnt include the above tariff rates as well, which stack on top of it.

so, now that we know 100% what the current tariff rate is, I've gone in to backerkit & applied the rate to all US orders that include items we imported from china (basically everything except for stickers & prints). if you take a look at your pledge information, you should be able to see the amount you'll owe in tariff fees -- but I havent charged anyone's cards yet!

i wanted to give everyone the chance to see how much they owe first, so they can prepare for the expense and either 1. make sure their card information is up to date, or 2. request a refund if the tariff amount will be too expensive at this time.

‼️if I haven't heard from you before monday, 11/24, I'll be manually charging cards based on the information I have on file!

once tariff payments go through, we can resume shipping out orders; id love to get to around 75%/80% shipped before the end of the month, while we're still waiting for the last few pledge items to arrive.

I hope that all makes sense, everyone! thanks for sticking along with these updates, i really do appreciate it.

hello all! here's an update on US shipping that's been a long time coming. the reason for the long wait is primarily due to the fact that the US and china were set to negotiate a new trade agreement around the beginning of november, and i wanted to wait and see the results of that before getting back into the fulfillment process! so here's what i know so far:

so! that's all i've got to share so far! i processed about 5 orders last night while i was testing out the tariff rates, so if you were one of them, you'll be getting a shipping email today. for everyone else: please keep hanging tight while i wait for tariff confirmation! i don't want to charge you guys that 34% tariff rate & then have it turn out that it was just an error on the processor's end.

international orders will continue to trickle out as the last remaining pledge items arrive (i got some more stickers & the keychain lanyards in over the course of the last month).

i'll send out another update before i charge cards for the tariff rate, if that ends up being necessary, so you'll have time to reach out for a refund instead if the tariff charge would be too expensive for you. so keep an eye on your email for that!

& of course, as always, feel free to reach out to me via email ([email protected]) if you have any other questions.

thanks for all your patience everyone!! i'm CROSSING my fingers that we can get the campaign close to being completely fulfilled by the end of the year.

hi again everyone!

in my last update, i talked about some of the obstacles we were having in regards to shipping out orders to backers in the US. due to updated de minimus and tariff rules, packages being sent via regular courier services like canada post/USPS, fedex, etc, were being rejected at customs unless duties were paid for ahead of time. i explored an option to be able to do that for you guys, using a service called chitchats, and in that process discovered that duty fees for these US orders were going to cost me about $35 CAD/$25 USD per order to ship, which wasn't something i would be able to afford out of pocket.

so, an update on that:

the good news is that those test orders i sent via chitchats DID in fact arrive safely into the US! so pre-paying duties and shipping these items out via chitchats DOES work, even if it costs an arm and a leg. many of you reached out to assure me that you wouldn't mind paying extra shipping charges in order to receive your items, which i so so SO appreciate & cannot thank you enough for being open to the idea. but the issue now is figuring a way to charge that to you guys in the first place.

i experimented with modifying the US shipping rate to just be $25 higher than the postage price, hoping that that would then retroactively apply to any orders that haven't been shipped yet, but backerkit won't allow you to change shipping rates for currently active orders. so, my next course of action is going to be reaching out to backerkit directly and asking how exactly i should go about charging this new tariff fee, or if it's even possible to do so at this point.

if it's not, well... we'll have to figure something else out!

another thing to consider is that canada post is currently on strike. while this doesn't affect my ability to use chitchats, who ship directly with USPS, it DOES mean that every other carrier currently has higher rates due to increased package volume from the strike. so, even if i'm able to figure out a way to apply this charge to you guys, it may still be another few weeks before orders begin going out again to avoid having to pay even higher shipping fees due to the strike.

so that's where we're at right now! i'm sorry that it's not a whole lot of actual concrete news or updates, but i wanted to let you all know what i've been working on logistically behind the scenes.

it's currently a holiday weekend in canada, so if you sent me an email within the last week or two, expect a reply starting tuesday or wesnesday!

& of course, thank you as always for your support and patience. 🖤

(also, i did ship out a few more international orders about a week or two ago! so we're not sitting at about ~36% of orders shipped.)