This day was coming.
I won't be making costume pins anymore.
I started making pins as a project to see if I could. The response was so overwhelming that it inspired me to create more. Seeing the happy squeals and joyous crows over the internet when people received their pins; that drove me to try new things and I am forever grateful for the support over the last two and a half years.
When I set out to create pins people loved, to celebrate the costumes I dearly loved and constantly painted, I knew that my time was limited. I know that at some point, I was going to stop what I was doing whether it was because I wanted to move onto other projects or the creators said to stop. From my first pin, I promised myself to always respect the creators I was making pins of; if they wished me to stop, I will stop.
Well, the day has come and I am fulfilling my promise. Satomi came out and said it isn't okay, and so here is the end of the costume pin series.
Personally, it came at the right time. Perhaps, the powers that be saw that I was struggling with my current work as a student, communications director, part-time intern and entrepreneur and decided that intervention was needed.
I am sad that the pins that brought so many people joy has to stop. But, I am also relieved that I am free. I knew with Wave 5 that I was burnt out and I was struggling with creating new designs and finishing old concepts. Creating costume pins were fulfilling as much as it was limiting. They were a fun challenge and I learnt so much about pin making from them, but making them meant I could not explore other designs I wanted due to space, time and finance. Sometimes, this thing that I loved doing felt like a chore, and I was conflicted. Really, I’m glad the decision was made for me.
Whatever is on my store is it for the series. I won't be remaking old pins or designing new ones. I’ll be doing a final stock count of everything soon, maybe run a few giveaways while I’m at it to give back to the community, and that’s it. I will be holding sales from April to clear the pins but I predict it will take me a few months to clear all the costume pins.
Until then, I will continue posting about my pins on social media since I have already captioned all the posts. Once my current batch of posts have run out, I will post more of my other products.
I would like to remind everyone that I don't really profit from pins. The amount of time and effort I've spent making them in the last 2 years is basically immeasurable at this point. My friends and family have called me nuts for spending hours upon hours quality inspecting pins and packaging them; hunched over on the floor or chair like a pin gremlin. Whatever I have gained is invested into coming up with new products and overhead costs. Stuff isn't free, like the website you’re reading this on now. Things have to be paid. At times I was dipping into my own savings from my jobs to help fund something.
I would like to say thank you to everyone who loved my interpretations of the designs enough to collect them all. Thank you to all the people who followed me for my interpretations of your favourite costumes. Thank you Yuzu and Satomi for giving us visual masterpieces. This whole endeavour was something I would have never pursued without support.
I know that some will be disappointed. But I hope you’ll understand where I’m coming from. I think this is the best decision I can make morally, professionally and creatively.
I know that my work has inspired many others to create their own fan merchandise and I’m happy that I’ve helped! While I am not an authority of what you can and cannot do, I do implore my fellow creators to respect the creator’s feelings.
Moving on, I will be pivoting to more of my own stuff that I want to pursue and I hope you will support me in my endeavours! I will be doing other FS stuff, but probably to a lesser degree. Inspired earrings, hair clips and the sweet series are fair game. I just won’t be drawing the costumes explicitly anymore.
I want to continue creating the things I want to create.
This is not the end of me. For a while now, I’ve been drawing lots of aquatic animals and building up my repertoire of non FS related pins. It is slow going, but the support for my original ideas has been surprisingly strong. You'll see more of my original designs and my takes of concepts I've been wanting to explore but never had the time or resources to. There is a brand new business project I’ve been working on that is just… miles away from what I’ve been doing over the last few years. I hope you can support that too.
Liz Makes Pins will live on! Just differently. You'll have the same old me, my fangirly ways, and my nonsense. I hope you'll accept me for who I am as an artist, designer, and person.
This is only the beginning.
Thank you.