Apology and Progress update
about 6 years ago – Sat, Sep 29, 2018 at 10:00:06 PM

Apology

First off I want to apologize for no updates in the past month and a half. I hit a particularly hard spot in my personal life and my mental health took a hit. A lot of it has to do with being a single parent and adjusting to unexpected life changes. I’m not making excuses, but I want the community to know that I am recovering well now and am now able to work on Dice Bottles again.

My one goal right now is to get all the orders out before Christmas. I’m going to be doing weekly updates to rebuild trust and so you can be well informed about my progress. To that end, I’m making a public task list so you all can track my progress and be well informed of everything that’s inflight. This also will help me keep track of all the little details that I need to do to get all these made. (Task list)

I’m going to be leaning on my friends for help wherever I can on these tasks.

Progress

Progress has been made. First, the boxes from China have arrived! They look great and I’m excited to be able to finally move forward with filling them in. 

I finally got the 2nd shipment of dice and now have all the dice I need to fulfill everybody’s orders.

I have 50 Colonial Maple boxes stained and clear coated. I have another 50 Sedona Red boxes that are stained, with 40 of them needing clear coats. That will be completed this week and then I’ll take them all to get silk-screened.

Leather

When working with the leather I wasn’t too happy with the results of my cutting by hand into the leather, as my template too easily slid out of place and could leave areas cut improperly. I’ve got a company making me a leather cutting die which will make sure that all the leather cuts are uniform and less likely to waste material. It also allows me to pay someone else to take on the task of cutting leather out so I can spend time on things I can’t outsource.

As soon as they are all cut I'll take them to the screen printer and have them all processed at once

Giving Back

I want to give back to the community. Ideally, I’d love to support an organization that helps kids get into dungeons and dragons and tabletop gaming. I’ve seen how it’s positively affected my life and I feel it can also have a great impact on kids lives. I’d love to get suggestions from the community on charities I should consider, even if it doesn't match up 100% with the above. 

Professional Healers Kit Status Update
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:09:47 PM

Leather Design Update

 I'm super pleased with how these came out! I can't wait to put them in boxes for you all to use. I've got a bunch more leather to cut and deliver to my silk screener, but this finally is at a level of quality and readability that I'm happy with. 

Colonial Maple boxes progress

 I'm finished with the staining of the Colonial Maple boxes and am moving along with clear coating them. I'll have them done this week and will be starting up on the Sedona Red color next. The quantity for both is about the same, so I expect I'll have the Sedona Red finished just as fast as the Colonial Maples. 

Red Mahogany 

I have these coming by boat within a month and a half as a backup. It would take me longer than that to stain all the orders for this color anyways, so I plan on doing the rest of the manufacturing for the internals of everything before I start hand staining these so that when they arrive it will be a quick process to fill them with the requests and ship them. 

Thanks!

Thanks for all of your confidence and trust in me and I appreciate your patience throughout this project. I'm really glad to have such supportive backers! 

All Basic and Starter orders shipped!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 02, 2018 at 10:08:34 PM

I was able to ship all the basic and starter potion kits out Monday. but...

I messed up the scrolls on the starter kits

 When I had the artists create this design, the content wasn't what they were concerned with. Along the way, I've fixed the text and font styles many times on different pieces of artwork. I thought I had already fixed the text on this piece as all the fonts were already correct when I opened it up to get ready to print them. Well, long story short, I never double checked them for correctness, and merrily went my way printing, cutting, wrapping, and then shipping them. I only was made aware of my blunder yesterday when some of you started receiving them. 

How I'm fixing it

Second, I'm going to mail off replacements to everybody as soon as I can, but it should be by the end of next week. 

Starter Vials and Basic Healers Kits - Finalize your shipping address!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 05:41:14 PM

This is it! We’re finally getting ready to ship!

We will lock down shipping addresses soon. That means you have two days to update your shipping address in your BackerKit survey.

If you need to review your shipping address, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://dice-bottles.backerkit.com.

If you haven’t answered your survey yet, you can still fill it out to get your rewards, but your shipment may be delayed.

We’re currently aiming to ship the Basic Healer kits and Starter Vials during the next two weeks. If you need to change your shipping address, please make the changes in your BackerKit survey in the next two days. 

Pro Kits

If you ordered a Pro Kit and Starter Vials or Basic Kits together then the order is waiting on Pro Kit completion before it goes out. 

Charging credit cards
over 6 years ago – Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 08:42:43 PM

Charging credit cards

Hi Backers!  

As promised, now that I have received the dice I am giving you a little heads up that we plan to charge cards for add-on items you purchased or any additional funds you may owe through BackerKit on July 5th. Make sure that you have the correct card information on file. If any issues arise with your payment you’ll receive an email letting you know to correct your payment information. If you need to review payment information, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://dice-bottles.backerkit.com.

Starter Kits and Basic Kits Shipping Soon™

I've completed 167 of the Basic Kits now that I have the dice. I'm just some manual labor away from finishing the remaining basic kits and starter kits. I'm focusing the next two weeks on getting those out to people who order just those items. 

Pro-Kits

I only received a partial shipment of dice and I'm awaiting the remaining shipment in a month. This gives me time to stain the boxes by hand and get things screen printed before the dice do show up. I'll keep you updated on my progress, but I expect my speed will be about 40 every two days once I get in the flow of doing this work.