Mythical Garden

Alright, sorry for the delays! I have the next branch pin for you;



The snow fairy, or the long tailed tit, on a maple branch. Apparently during winter, icicles form on the maple trees that contain some of the sap, and these little birds will lick them for the sugar content. 

My Nan had a whole thing for Japanese maple trees, I have one from her garden in front of my house still. They're such divas, its only sheer stubborness that has kept that thing alive til now. They're sooo beautiful though, some of the fancy variations have really pretty leaves. The red ones will always be my favourite.

The mini pins for this tier are maple leaves - either one by itself at 1.5", or a set of two that are 1" each. I couldn't decide so we're having both options - both will be selectable as mini pin choices in your surveys.

I also made a new quicksand/shaker pin design for this campaign - the Picture Window quicksand pin (pictured twice so it doesn't blow up huge). This is an add-on only pin, you'll need to add it to your pledge seperately. You can do that now, or at the survey stage if you want to. The whole light blue window area will be one quicksand segment, containing glitter and pieces shaped like red maple leaves. That's the Fall/Autumn colourway. If we reach 10k, then we'll also have the Spring colourway - that one should have flower or flower petal shapes instead. You'll be able to choose between them in the survey, if we do unlock it.

That cat is based on my baby, Demsdale. 1 pin = 1 churu. (I jest, I jest). While my windows are not that grand, she spends a lot of time laying just like that, watching the birds and catching the sun, right above where I work.



I love that I got to make this collection so personal.

The story section has been updated with the new pins, mouse colourways and the new stretch goals. Everything that's listed has already been started, even if the artwork isn't finished yet. I'm not promising anything more until all of that is done. Feel free to continue to make suggestions though! I've definitely worked a few of them in :D. 

I think that's it for now! There's one week left, there should be more previews on the way. Check back soon ~

... Okay so I got a bit carried away. 

Since we're going with a full size pin, I added a bit of extra detailing. There are four colourways. The final orange/purple one will be a no swirl pearl gradient effect, the rest are all layered screen printing. 

The previous ones have been slightly tweaked so they balance with a couple of extra colours. All of them are based on real colours for both Iris flowers and mice (although not specifically harvest mice, those only tend to come in one colour), but I did take a few liberties. 

Let me know what you think. They got away from me a bit 😂 .

Well it was a heck of a first day! Thank you so much. 

We smashed through every goal I had 😂 . So what next?

The 'All in' pledge tier has five full size pins, so we'll have five full size branch pins. Two more are already in the works; the next one is the Japanese Snow Fairy (long tailed tit) on a maple tree branch. The mini pins to match will be maple leaves. I haven't entirely decided which concept sketch to use for the last one, so if you have any suggestions of tree/branch type botanicals, go ahead! Otherwise it will probably be a weird fruit, I have a whole collection of those. These will both be posted to preview very soon.

Then, over the rest of the campaign I'm going to be adding a few designs that fit the (admittedly loose) theme. They're just going to be whatever I feel like adding, since its all bonus designs at that point. They'll go into either the mini pin or full size pin selection pool along with the others. 

First up are the harvest mouse and the blue jay. I'll add them to the front page when the next branch tier is done;

You'll notice the harvest mouse has been recoloured, the final result is still being debated behind the scenes. These are both full size pins, both have screen printed detailing, its possible the mouse will have more than one flower colourway. 

I'm also adding XL sticker options to the add-on page. I got the test stickers back yesterday, and while the big pins do like nice at 3", they have a lot of detail so they would make great 4 or 5" stickers too. It looks like there was a bit of confusion - if you order 'Garden Stickers' you will get to choose which design you want at the survey stage. All of the designs come at the same size as stickers, it will be one pool to choose whichever you'd like from. We will almost certainly have a few with holo or special effects, but they'll be optional and listed as their own choice (so there will be 'Blue Jay' and also 'Holo Blue Jay', since not everyone loves holo as much as me.)

That's enough for me to be getting on with for now, but stay tuned! It shouldn't be too long before I have another preview for you :). Thank you for all your support. 

Sorry its late I counted the days wrong.



The Cat-Sith is a creature from Celtic mythology, a large black cat with a white mark on its chest. Its known for stealing the souls of the dead, so family members of the deceased would do various things to distract it, including games and tributes. The Hawthorn tree was said to stand on the threshold to the Otherworld, and were often said to be inhabited by wee folk. 

The mini pin for this section is a big cat skull;

The detail is built up with three layers of screen printing.

Also! The violet carpenter bee won our free-bee poll. Now I have the mock up for it, but its not going to look like much;



The areas of dark purple (majority) are going to be anodised metal, with a rainbow finish. The pale violet lines are going to be carved into the metal with no enamel fill. The darker sections will be soft enamel with an epoxy coating - this looks near identical to hard enamel once its finished. 

It makes quite a nice mismatched pair with our Australian Blue Banded Bee (they will actually be the same size, hah).

Don't forget, there will also be freebies for; 
- Joining in with the PinQuest event, back three or more projects to get a free mini pin from every one. 
- Returning Backers.
- Following before launch. This is a new one! We'll have an exclusive sticker for everyone who was following along before the project went live :).
- Creator backers.

Just a couple of quick notes. The 2.5" pins do cost a little bit extra. Our 2" pins haven't changed in price, but the larger pins in this campaign are technically 'XL' so they cost a bit more. 

Only three stretch goals are listed, but there are more! If we reach them then I'll have them up asap - I've just been really sick the last couple of weeks. The next one would be the Japanese Snow Fairy (long tailed tit) on a maple branch. 

Thanks everyone for following along in our pre launch stuff, and looking forward to getting underway!

Sneak peek for tier 2!

The Physalis;



Or, we used to call them paper lantern plants. Its a hard one to preview with the yellow tones. Physalis are part of the nightshade family, and related to things like tomatoes and potatoes; they date back a long, long way. They have 52 million year old fossil specimens from the physalis genus, with preserved paper husks.

More personally, its one of my favourite plants. The shape, the colours... The first thing I ever remember making is a modrock physalis 'lantern'. 

The mini pin on this tier is a section of the larger pin, but as a stand alone mini;

The red section will be made with a stained glass effect, and the 'crackle' pattern will be screen printed on top. It will be in the mini pin selection :).

Also, it looks like the violet carpenter bee will inch out the poll for 48hr free-bee. If it wins I'll be working on a design using anodised (rainbow finish) metal plating; soft enamel, but with an epoxy coating (so you can barely tell the difference between that and hard enamel). Hopefully we'll have solid metal wings with the pattern carved into the metal (no enamel in fill), and then a simple black and rainbow metal design. That's if it wins!

Next up we have Cat Sith and the Hawthorn bush, so check back for that one soon.