State of the Game: Fulfillment Progress
over 1 year ago – Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 02:40:26 PM

Greetings, Beauteaful People!

Today's state of the Game is going to be pretty dense, but I will do my best to keep things short. I will be covering the overall status/strategy, packing materials, and brief Bespoke/Luminary Updates.

Overall Progress

After today's postal run, we will have shipped over 400 packages! After ironing out some of the bugs in the first 60, we made some adjustments and we have been hand stuffing packages as quickly as possible. And because we are packing and shipping all of these by hand, we are trying to proceed in a manner that makes it easier on us to keep track of everything. That system is as follows:

1st GROUP BASIC BLEND ORDERS: Because "Basic Blend" is the bulk of our orders, we tackled those first. after today, ALL US/INTERNATIONAL "Basic Blend" orders will be on their way to their new homes! These orders will all arrive in EcoEnclose recycled plastic bubble mailers. 

While this is a HUGE compromise on our zero plastic promise, this is something we couldn't avoid due to the weight. You can click on the image above for instructions on how to properly recycle your bubble mailer if you would like to keep this out of a landfill.

NEXT PHASE: BASIC BLEND + ADD ONS: The next largest group are folks who Ordered the "Basic Blend" and tacked on extra goodies like metal coins, tea, and Cantankerous Cats. These will ship in EcoEnclose recycled cardboard boxes! The stuffing for these boxes will be a variety of recycled and reclaimed packing materials, so you will see some of the following types:

PLASTIC/BUBBLE WRAP: I had been approached by some of my production clients with the idea of reusing/recycling the bubble wrap that comes with a lot of the live event projects I am involved with. In an effort to both help our costs and prevent this plastic from going straight into a landfill, I decided to oblige them by taking their clean refuse and giving that packaging a second life. This plastic can be recycled by dropping it off at a thin film recycling location, which you can find at:  https://bagandfilmrecycling.org/

PROSPERITEA WHOLESALE BOXES: As we break down an pack our games, we wind up with a lot of cast off material from the six-packs we have for wholesale distribution. We will be reusing these as stufffing for some of our heavier packages where weight isn't a huge issue. These panels are 100% recyclable just like the box.

PAPER SHOPPING BAGS/PACKING PAPER: Our primary source of stuffing! Our friends do a LOT of shopping at stores and via online orders, so I collect their refuse and rip them apart for stuffing. These bags and papers are 100% recyclable.

Bespoke and Luminary Updates

This is the one part of the project we've had delays on, but we are working to get everything back on track as quickly as possible. The short version is I lost the vendor for laser cutting for the Luminary boxes, but found another one that is also quite good! However (like most of the fabricators in LA) they are off at Burning Man and we will begin production and cutting as soon as they return on September 5th.

For Bespoke backers, our tea vendor has been struggling with illness, but everyone is healthy again and we should be back at finishing those orders by the end of the week.

All that being said, my current personal goal is to get the rest of the orders out as quickly as possible so I can focus on completing the hand-made portions of our pledges the moment they are ready to go, including pre-orders we took at KublaCon earlier in the year.

In Closing / The TL;DR

To summarize, we have shipped out about 40% of our orders. We are going as fast as we can, but we are filling them by hand so it will take a bit of time. We have had some vendor issues with our hand-made goods, but we will get those back on track in the next 1-2 weeks.

I thank you for your continued patience as we work to get all of your orders out into your hands. As always, if anyone has any questions you can message me on Kickstarter as that will be the easiest way for me to track feedback and issues over the next 3-4 weeks.

Here's to a wonderful start to the week for all of you!

<3

Aven, Alpha Hoomin of Mentha Designs

Fullfilment News: Final Look at Components
over 1 year ago – Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 11:16:01 PM

Greetings, Beauteaful Hoomins!

Now that packages are heading out of the door, I have some time to show you a peek at what the final components will look like. Unfortunately, we DID have to make some adjustments and omissions of our smaller rewards to make up for the added cost of shipping and freight, but we did keep the most important items: Basically all of the big, shiny stuff. So first off, here are some photos of the final packages:

Now that you've seen everything that is coming your way, it's time to go over what is missing:

1. The Seed paper "Thank you" cards.

2. The Art Prints on Watercolor Paper

These are two things I was personally very excited about, but due to budget and weight issues we needed to trim every ounce we could to keep most of our packages under 1lb. Which gets to the next major change:

3. We switched to recycled Bubble Mailers for Basic Blend Orders

Weight became an issue once we started sorting and building our final packages, and I unfortunately made the tough decision to go with the recycled plastic mailers from EcoEnclose for the bulk of our packing needs instead of paper or cardboard. That fraction of an ounce in shipping was, quite literally, the  difference of a few dollars per package.

BUT, EcoEnclose has a way to recycle thin film plastics so they can reuse the material in their products. If you have a package that's under 1lb, you will have a Bubble mailer and you can fill it with plastic film for recycling!

You can get MORE DETAILS HERE

This takeback program will help EcoEnclose put more post-consumer content in their mailers and keep that plastic out of landfills and oceans, and this can help us maintain our sustainability goals for the project. It isn't perfect, but it is the best alternative on the market for lightweight mailers.

That does it for this update. Our next update will have more details on fulfillment, including opportunities for in-person pickups for anyone in the Los Angeles area. We did wind up losing our intended venue, but we will be reaching out to other retailers we work with to secure a new location and date as quickly as possible.

Thank you all for your support and patience,

<3

Aven Gonzalez

Alpha Hoomin of Mentha Designs

SHIPPING UPDATE: Test Batch is Out for Delivery!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 09:29:41 PM

Greetings, Teariffic Hoomins!

It's been a very busy week of logistics as we placed the order for our shipping supplies from EcoEnclose. I haven't been able to sit down and craft a proper update yet, but I have been taking photos and will post them in the next 48-ish hours.

The BIG thing to note here is: 31 of you have your games on the way, and we will need your help to make sure the system is working before we send out the first true wave of orders!

If you receive a package from "Aven Gonzalez" in the next few days, please reach out via KS Message to let us know everything arrived safely. When we start getting those confirmations, we will start sending out more orders this week.

Thank you all again for your patience and support. I am excited to be getting these into your hands and we will be cranking out packages as quickly as possible for the remainder of the month.

<3

Aven Gonzalez

Alpha Hoomin of Mentha Designs

State of the Game: Prosperitea Has Landed!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Aug 01, 2022 at 05:03:55 AM

Greetings folks! It has been an incredibly busy month for me in the work for hire world, but I'm coming up for air to let everyone know that all of the games will be in our storage facility as of tomorrow!!

Jason and I will be personally picking up everything we need to fulfill Kickstarter orders so we can begin packing next week. And the only reason we are waiting this long is to give everyone 7 days to either lock in or change their addresses.

Everyone will receive a backer kit email with one final request to confirm or change your shipping info. This should address anyone that's had issues changing their address so far. If this doesn't work, we can personally try to fix it for you over the next couple weeks before we start dropping packages off at the post office.

The last show I am contracting for goes up and closes this weekend, so I will be full-time Prosperitea fulfillment from now until mid September.

That about does it for this update. I wanted to keep this one small and focused, as there will be a lot to talk about over the next few weeks.

Thank you all for your patience so far and I'm sorry that it has taken this long to get here. But we're here now and we are going to do our best to get everything to you as quickly and safely as possible.

I appreciate you all very much and I'm looking forward to completing this leg of our journey for you.

💚🫖♟️

Aven 

Alpha Hoomin of Mentha Designs

State of the Game: Luminary Boxes, Bespoke Meetings, Games on a Boat!!
almost 2 years ago – Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 07:25:50 PM

Greetings, Teariffic Humans!

Aven here with a few updates on what we've been doing since last month. This is an update I have been working on since last Thursday because, similar to winter, the situation kept changing as I would write updates and I would have to scrap everything, rewrite, and reshoot. But the big news is that our games are on a boat!! More details at the end of the update, but the TL;DR is we have an estimated arrival date of mid-end of July. We will ask for updated addresses then. Read on for more after the video:

Luminary Box Update

I've finished tinkering in the workshop on the final Luminary Box design! The final detailing has been getting a lot of positive feedback here in person, and I hope you all enjoy the final look. I am particularly happy with how the gold accents came out! (I couldn't resist adding a bit more "bling" to the Luminary boxes)

My laser cutting folks are currently on vacation, but we will start cutting all 150ish boxes as soon as they return. I will be enlisting some help speed the assembly process along so they are ready by the time our games potentially land here in the states next month.

You can check out a video of me showing off the box here:

WATCH THE LUMINARY PREVIEW VIDEO (60sec)

Bespoke Meetings

In the time since the last update, we have been meeting with Bespoke Backers individually to discuss their teas and custom labels. These sessions have been great so far and we have really enjoyed interacting with these backers to geek out about tea, show off the game components, and in some cases catch up with people we haven't seen in YEARS.

We still haven't heard from everyone, so I will be sending a follow up e-mail to all Bespoke Backers to make sure we discuss your tea!

We're On a Boat!

We finally have a shipping update! As I mentioned in the video, yesterday morning we received notification that our games are estimated to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles by the end of July. There really isn't much more to say here that I haven't said in the video, but the TL;DW is that I am incredibly thankful for all of the patience and support that has been shown so far. And I am immensely grateful to the folks we are working with in China for manufacturing and shipping. Everyone has been working hard to get our games out as quickly as possible since their lockdown period ended and that isn't an easy feat given the small size of our project.

We will be sending out notifications to update your addresses once we have confirmation that our games have landed. And when that happens we will be able to start the packing and fulfillment process to bring this leg of our journey to a close.

That about wraps up this edition of "State of the Game." You all have my apologies for how long it has been since the last update, but I try to save big updates like these for delivering large chunks of info. I do constantly update my social media channels with snapshots of things I am working on (including the Luminary Boxes, conventions, and my other freelance/performance work), so if you really need up to the minute visual updates you can follow me there and keep an eye out for #prosperitea content.

Thank you all again for your continued support and patience. It looks like we may finally be seeing the light at the end of this tunnel, and I can't wait to be able to drop everything I am doing to focus on this full time when we get everything in hand.

<3

Aven

IG/Twitter: @menthadesigns

(the business account. Only updated with super polished materials, convention updates, and client work when I have permission to do so.)

IG: @bardofmanythings

(personal but not TOO personal. Where I dump a lot of my work in progress, unrefined images, and "not ready for prime time" content.)

Twitter: @bardofmany

(Slightly more personal than IG. Still learning how to navigate existing on this space as a performer/designer hybrid because they are VERY different beasts with very different expectations.)