Saturday Update!

Hello again! It's been a very eventful week for me and I am quite tired haha!

I don't have too many things to report since I've been slowing down, but I do have a bit.

The first thing is that I have finished the art for the new keychains:

[ The strange red on metal items won't be the final look, that's just to indicate to my manufacturer where I want silver foil for the special foil keychains ]

I know it's just small areas, but I'm imagining it to be a fun little extra special quality to the keychains. I hope it works out!

Next week my top [ only? ] work priority will be to get these files cleaned up [ and the standees ] and get my restock orders with Vograce started/paid for.

I'm going to separate them out into 3 orders, because experience has taught me that some items take longer than others, and I don't need to hold up everything because one or two items take longer. They'll look like this:

Order 1: Keychain and Daki restock. This will include old items that have sold out, such as the Strade/Fox dakis, and the various sold-out keychains. I expect this order to be completed first.

Order 2: Enamel pin restock. This will include the special hearts and other pin designs that have sold out. Enamel pins take longer than the other stuff so these will get their own order. I might squeeze in a quick design for the YKMET:Strade logo. We'll see.

Order 3: The new keychains [ seen above ] and the new acrylic standees [ also of YKMET Strade and Ren ]. The keychains will be 13CAD because they cost $1 more to produce than the normal keychains due to the shiny foil, but I don't know what I will charge for the Standees yet [ I haven't fully decided on size, and size will affect their price, so I gotta math everything out still ]

Then all that will be left is for me to draw the art for the new YKMET Strade and Ren daki/pillowcases. I will not lie to you guys, I'm dragging my feet on this because I'm burnt out. I'm not gonna say I'll work on them right away because I think I need more downtime first. I want them to be good so I want to come at them refreshed.

They will happen eventually but not right away.

And while we're on the topic of merch still, I have no updates about the plushies. I believe they're still currently being manufactured. I assume the company will email me once they ship them out!

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I also have some news about my personal life. I don't generally like putting anything on the internet any more but this will affect my work a bit since it's going to be taking some of my time and energy for the next few weeks.

On Wednesday I adopted a new cat friend from the local humane society! I've named her Willow and we're still getting used to each other.

She really loves the fancy cat tree I bought! She's already made a habit of hanging out on there while I'm working.

She still meows quite a lot, esp in the morning- surely due to the anxiety of everything changing around her. I'm making sure to offer her reassurance and comfort consistently.

She's rather small but the humane society told me they think she's around 2 years old. She had kittens very young, so they fostered her with them until they were weaned and old enough to be adopted [ and she's also undergone a spay surgery recently ]. I can imagine some of that may have been traumatic for her so my top priority is giving her a calm environment with lots of love and comfort. She'll be coming with me to the vet next week to see if there's any more vaccinations or treatments we need to follow up on as well.

She seems to be noticeably calmer and more confident every day though! She'll probably always be 'chatty' [ her file described her as 'vocal' haha ] but I think that's a good fit for me, living and working alone and all.

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Anyways that's all I got this week! I'll be getting those orders made and then resting/taking care of Willow for next week I think.

Thank you guys so much for your support and patience with me during this down-time! And especially thank you for your financial support- it's allowed me to get nice things for Willow like her tree, a water fountain, plenty of toys, bed and litter supplies, and top quality dry and wet food. It makes me so happy to be able to provide her with nice things, so thank you very very much 🙏💚