#i will probably put my suppliers in it for everything but enamel pins but there's a whole laundry list of reasons

[cozylittleartblog]

i think i am going to make a pay what you want digital zine this year for people who want to get into making little artist alley knick knacks like keychains and stickers and enamel pins, cuz i get a lot of asks about that and i think it would be nice to put my design skills to the test and have it all in one place! that being said, what kind of questions do y'all have about this stuff that you would want answered? everything from packaging to shipping to the products themselves, what would you guys want in there? keep in mind i have only sold on etsy myself and a couple craft shows, so i can't give much advise about personal storefronts.

please put them in the replies on this post so it's all in one place!

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Tulips, windmills, sketches, and floral wreaths 

Hello from Windy Grove! We’re here with Leif, Elodie, and Kia for the Windmill Tulip Festival! 

Daisy Jane, Alice, Fauna, and I have been busy helping Leif plant tulips all week. Planting flowers is a lot of work - at least according to me - so I don’t tend to my garden as much as I’m supposed to. I try but sometimes I find myself intimidated for some reason. The only exception is flower events, those I can handle since they’re only for a short period of time and don’t involve cross pollination. 

Just to be clear, I don’t hate gardening - in fact I enjoy coming up with rare flowers - but it’s one of those things that usually gets put into the backseat. I do try to keep up - and I’ve been doing pretty good so far in terms of trading flowers for stuff recently - but sometimes things fall to the wayside, especially when life gets busy.

So I did a lot of gardening this week and quite enjoyed it. Probably because I had a lot of help - flower food’s hard to come by; friends, not as much - so things went by a lot faster. Though to be honest, I think I’m gonna take a break from gardening for a while when we get back to the camp.

(Sorry Mom - we have a lot in common, but a green thumb ain’t one.)

It’s nice catching up with Elodie and Kia again now that Wildflower Wagon’s back in business after a short break to reorganize things. Seeing their stand at the festival brings me such joy - it’s amazing how far they’ve come! What was originally a side hustle in Elodie’s room turned into something big and now she and Kia are traveling around the world. Along with floral arrangements, they also sell art prints and enamel pins - all which are very pretty and whimsical.

When I last saw Elodie and Kia, they were in the middle of making some major changes to Wildflower Wagon. Basically their small business has grown so much that it’s no longer possible for the two of them to run it alone. According to Cecelia - a well seasoned self employed artist, it’s a good problem to have because that means things are going well. But it can quickly become a bad problem if you don’t plan ahead.

As of two months ago, Nuvola and Mariya have joined the Wildflower Wagon team! Mariya’s not technically a full-time staff member but she supplies flowers she grows at the community garden at Mushroom Village. So she’s kinda like a supplier for uncommon flowers. Nuvola, on the other hand, is a full time employer, so she does customer service like answering emails as well as help package orders and send them out for delivery.

Since Mariya can’t be full time because of the Matcha Mint Cafe, Elodie and Kia are still in the process of taking on one more employer. Since Nuvola’s still new to everything and everything’s going smoothly, it’s not a priority at the moment. They didn’t say much, but if I had to guess who’s on the list, I’d say it’s either Tsuki, Shannon, or Theda. 

Probably at some point in the future it’ll be all three. At the rate Wildflower Wagon’s growing, that future could be within the next year or so. 

Things in Mushroom Village have been slow as usual, which is why Mariya and Nuvola joined the Wildflower Wagon team. Nuvola’s been going a bit stir crazy because of life stuff so I think working with Elodie and Kia will be good for her. She’s got experience as a secretary so customer service isn’t unfamiliar territory for her.

Poor Nuvies isn’t having the best week so the festival’s a good distraction for her. At least she’s in the process of leaving the Mushroom Village Gazette so that’ll be a load off her shoulders. I wouldn’t say she’s a bad reporter, more like badly miscast. She’s a curious one, just not one who's meant to dig up dirt on others. 

Ask an innocent or seemingly harmless question and suddenly it bursts open a can of worms. Where others dig up rocks, Nuvola somehow ends up with a landmine that immediately explodes the second she puts her hands on it. No matter how hard she tries, half the time her good intentions blow up in her face. Nuvola may not always know how to read the room but somehow she can tell exactly what’s troubling you - often in the most roundabout way.

Thankfully the fun festivities are enough to lift one’s mood after a rough week. Watching the windmills is enough to put me into a relaxing trance. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to sit on one of those blade thingies and ride a windmill. It’s a good thing Siobhan isn’t here or else she’d be climbing up a windmill and hopping on a blade. And she’ll definitely get kicked out.

Getting lost in the tulip fields is a colorful experience, to say the least. I really need to restock on tulips for my garden. They won’t be as pretty and vibrant as the ones in Windy Grove, but at least I can plant my own colorful garden. Pink tulips are my favorite though lately I find myself gravitating towards purple. Both are rare - purple being more uncommon - so I’d better get cracking on planting and cross-breeding tulips if I want to get more purple tulips as well as other rare hybrids.

At some point I ran into Daisy Jane in the tulip fields and we did something that we hadn’t done in forever. I’d pose with the flowers and she’d sketch away in her book. Sometimes we’d turn it into a game where I’d do something silly and Daisy Jane would kick it up a notch in her drawing. So if I hugged a windmill while holding a bouquet of tulips in between, then she’d draw an octopus astronaut being hugged by a windmill covered in vines blooming with tulips and thorns. 

Let’s just say that if a stranger got a hold of Daisy Jane’s sketchbook or saw what we were doing, they’d be like WTF is going on in their heads? Because we too sometimes think that when we look back on these sketches.

After making up ridiculous stories behind the sketches, Daisy Jane and I met back up with the others to make floral wreaths. It’s kinda like making a flower crown but a lot more elaborate. Maybe I went a bit too overboard with the flowers, but hey, at least it looks super colorful! I don’t really go for a maximalist kind of look because I tend to overthink things and end up making it look too cluttered/unbalanced so I’m quite happy with how my wreath turned out. For a wreath, it sticks out just right!

For about two hours we visited various stands and bought a lot of stuff. I tried tulip bubble tea for the first time and it has an interesting flavor. A bit too floral for my liking but it’s not too bad. Of course, I bought art prints and bouquets from Wildflower Wagon, as well as a bunch of stuff from Folksy Florals, Ladybug Gardens, and Coconut’s Grove. I got to talk to Cecelia for a bit before the festivities really took off so that was nice. As for rides, I went on the windmill ferris wheel - which made me feel like I’m on top of the world! - and the flowery porch swing merry go round. 

Two hours flew by and next up on the itinerary was a windmill tour at the center of Windy Grove. The Grand Ole Windy is the oldest building in the village and it’s been taken care of by the same family for generations. While the ferris wheel made me feel on top of the world, gazing out the windmill window made me feel out of this world!

Then it’s back to the festivities for more fun activities. Bug catching contests, fortune telling crystal balls, furniture crafting workshops, tulip mochi treats with lavender tea, group pics in front of the gardens and windmills, bike ride tours around the village, quiet moments in the tulip fields - the hours flew by as dusk slowly turned into dawn.

I’d say the night is still young, but it’s almost sunrise. At moments like right now, sometimes I wonder what even is time?

[i7songszine]

Interest Check Results

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN THE INTEREST CHECK! The check is now ended and we have decided to go ahead with the project! (We get even more responses in this interest check than the first issue of the zine and we are so happy Idolish7 is so loved~~)

Here is a summary of the Interest Check Results. Responses to some comments/suggestions in the interest check form will come in the next post.

--------------------------------

1. Have you heard about us before? >>>  A Surprisingly 54+% of respondents have heard this zine for the first time OAO I hope this means we will have more new applicants and readers this time! 2. What position are you interested in? >>> While most of the respondents are interested in contributing as as artist, we did get quite a number of people who are interested in getting this zine! The number of people interested in buying is actually very important, because this helps to determine approximately how many artists we will be looking for as our goal is to sell enough to provide artists with free zine and merch :D We think we have enough interest to make a zine similar in scale as the first issue with the chance of breaking even after sending artists their copies.

3. Keychains or stands? >>> Since we had keychains in the first issue, we were thinking stands might be more popular, but it turned out 31% of respondents want keychains instead. However, there is 28% or respondents who want both, and 27% of respondents with no preference. As such, we will go for both keychains and stands (stands will probably be small size as we have an idea in mind to make this more awesome than the first issue~)

4. What other merch would you like to see? >>> Here’s the ranking of the results. The chosen merch may be used as bundle merch, preorder bonuses, donor bonuses or stretch goals. This has not been decided yet. No.1 - Stickers: Stickers defeat everything else by a landslide LOL Therefore we will be having stickers again. The current plan is to have all 16 characters and maybe the managers too~ No. 2 - mini print/postcards: This seems to be pretty popular amongst interest check results (even in the first issue) but it seems not all artists want to draw them (everyone fought for the acrylics...). Someone also suggests to make some of the zine pages into mini prints. I think this is a good idea so we will have prints. No. 3 - Washi tape/Lanyards: These two items tied. Based on previous discussion with my supplier, lanyards are not too worth it unless we make a lot, therefore washi tape is on the list! No. 4 - Enamel pin/button: These two items tied too. We will have either one of these but we will check prices and supplier first. The rest - magnets/pouches/hand fan/bookmark - these items are not too popular but they are suggested. If we have more room for merch we may decide to make some of these :)

5. Ranking of teams for bonuses: >>> When Kinako is as popular as the managers and Zool... Ousama Purin you need to work harder LOL We will probably put the idol members for preorder bonuses and the managers as donor bonuses or stretch goals.