An Exciting Step Forward
My days are filled with cutting fabric, meticulously cutting teeny tiny detailed pieces, sewing and sewing, carefully stuffing, stuffing one little plush for two hours, hand-sewing pieces and parts together. It's a lot of tedious work for pennies an hour, and my fingers are constantly aching and swollen. But I LOVE IT! I love it so very much. To see that look on someone's face when they spot one of my plush for the very first time... It makes everything worth it.My dilemma has always been that I can't make the designs I envision- not fully, anyways. I have to simplify all the detail-work as much as I can so that the doll won't take me twelve hours to make, but only four to five (so at least I'm making close to minimum wage...not counting material costs lol) I've always dreamed of making more detailed dolls, though. I have in the past and it involved a ton of hand-sewing and literally took me about thirteen hours to complete. I have to be honest- I'm not sure how much longer my hands have left. Even as I type this I'm wearing compression gloves.So, I've been looking all year into a new option for a toy designer/maker like myself. At first I was wholly against it, as if it took away some of my integrity or something. But my outlook flipped completely as I saw fellow artists and toy designers taking this step and how wonderful the results were! I'm talking about having my designs privately manufactured. Thanks to the Artist Alley Network International on Facebook, I discovered an amazing small business that manufactures toys for artists just like me! I've been holding back from contacting them, because the cost to have one of your toys manufactured is EXTREMELY expensive. My husband suggested creating a Kickstarter to help fund it. I really love this idea! Last week I started sketching out the details of a Kickstarter project and today, finally, I emailed the manufacturer, Shinedown Productions. I'm in uncharted territory, you guys! I'm so excited and nervous.I'm sure you're wondering which one of my toys I'm pursuing first. Well, I'm proud to announce that it's Merpug! If Merpug is successful, I'll be able to have the rest of the Merdogs made into adorable plush toys. I'll be able to keep the price of them much lower than what I'm able to sell them for now, and they'll be extremely detailed and made of the highest quality plush fabrics! I imagine myself sending them to cute little boutiques in California and New York... Yeah, sweet daydreams of mine :) Wouldn't it be grand?As things move forward with this project, I will continue to update here on the blog. I'll also be posting the link to my Kickstarter once it's finished.Onward and upward!!