Oct-Dec Rewards (+**IMPORTANT UPDATE, PLEASE READ**)

Hello fish fries!

First off, I really want to apologize for suddenly going MIA on patreon with posts and reward previews. These past few months have been really difficult for me in terms of adjusting to a new life routine from moving homes, transitioning to a fulfillment center, and personal issues I've been going through.

I'm going to go ahead and paste the text that I had posted over from discord over onto patreon as I feel like it adequately explains what I've been going through as well as highlights some important future adjustments to patreon and the rewards tiers:

hi my fellow fish fries I just wanted to go ahead and sit down and have a bit of a serious talk with regards to patreon and some big changes that'll happen from here. first of all, I know I mentioned that the secret shop would open this month and it hasn't, I just didn't want to be accepting in any more orders while there were current orders pending especially when we are still waiting on a few of them from the moon jelly plush bags. I'm so so sorry for the delay, but I decided that I will have the secret shop open on Sunday, the same time as the shop update this weekend so that everything can be checked out at once!

like I mentioned before, patreon rewards and secret shop orders will be shipped separately from now on that way I can focus on fulfilling both out separately instead of spending the time trying to figure out which name goes with who >< because of that, you will be charged for shipping separately if you purchase anything from the secret shop! 

with moving houses and settling in and transitioning to a fulfillment center, I was hoping that the work load would significantly lighten up but after a long time of denial and an attempt to keep pushing myself forward, I think I'm now forced to admit that I am burnt out--many of you know that I worked through and didn't take a vacation until September for umvvelt of this year, and although the vacation was great, I think I really underestimated the burn out that I was experiencing as I kept expecting myself to tackle on more work. Patreon in particular, I try to plan out 2-3 months ahead of time, but especially when each tier has their own rewards it takes a long time to sit down and create everything and there are work weeks where I'm shoving 2-3 months of work into just 2-3 weeks of time to ensure that rewards are sent out at the very least, by the end of the month. I don't know exactly how bad the extent of my burn out is (this doesn't mean I won't be closing patreon or anything no worries for those of you who are trying to think ahead at where this message is going) but with the huge growth in Umvvelt's storefront paired with patreon, I'm just forced to face the reality that I have more on my plate than I thought I could handle.

I've, unfortunately, decided that the Education Club (previously the deluxe club for many of you) will be discontinued as of today, I'll be refunding October's & November's deluxe/education club members, as well as give partial refunds for sea king members. As much as I love the Education club and I poured my heart and soul into each postcard, unfortunately the postcards take me almost 12 hours per card and is more of an assignment for myself (complete with the 20 tabs of sources and all, just like university used to be for many of us lol) than a passion project that I wanted it to be before. my intent for Umvvelt has always been to create products and items with a passion that will allow others to feel that same passion I created it with, and I never want to force myself to create a product out of pressure as it completely defeats the purpose of my brand and the whole core/reason I began umvvelt. 

since the crybaby sticker clubs and the pin clubs are still something that I very much enjoy, I do intend to keep them around still--just the education club and the tiers that include it for rewards will be deleted at the end of the month ^ _TT;; I'd love to add something else in its place, maybe some sort of crybaby pin club but I don't want to put myself in a case where I load more on my plate than I can handle again LMAO so I think I'll continue with this for now until I feel like I am in a more stable place with myself and my mental health

if you're still interested in staying with my patreon if you're in the education club tiers or any rewards that include it, I hope you'll consider moving to either the sticker club or the pin club which will continue forward with its rewards as normal! if not and you decide to leave, I want to say thank you so much for the time and support while I worked on this project of mine for the past 14 months I've ran it! All in all, I made over 14 postcards front and back with matching sticker sheets and each one has been a challenge but brought me so much joy to create in the times that I made them ^__T I'm really sad that it's something I have to give up, but I don't want to put pressure on myself to create them and have it not be fun for me and have you guys lose out on the effort that you deserve when you subscribe to stay a patreon.

please let me know if you have any questions for me as well! I'll also have more information with regards to the shop update this sunday with early access for you all! if you read it this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read it OTL I'll be responding to any comments, questions, and concerns etc later but I'm definitely going to be taking some personal time on and off for these next few days to just process my own mental health and prepare myself for the next feeding frenzy LMAO ;; please take care of yourself too, especially as it gets colder! i love you all and all the best,

sincere fishes,

kir 

If you read through the whole thing thus far, thank you so much! ;; I really feel disappointed that I haven't been giving my patreon as much attention as I wanted to, ultimately my patreon is a huge source of community for me and it allows me to interact with you all on a more personal level and I'd like to revisit and make that something more enjoyable for me so that I can produce a higher quality content for you all in the future.

Like mentioned earlier, I will slowly be going through and refunding the education+sea king club for October and November ^__TT;; thank you again for all of your wonderful support, I'll also be making a post shortly for the shop update tomorrow, to which all patrons will have early access one hour early 💖

Thank you again, please take care as always!

Kir 🐟