♡ nurri's nook gallery ♡
a look back to past bundles and sharing my thoughts and insights.
past drops and nurri's thoughts
Feb 2020
Drop 1
This drop featured FOUR different coloured bean plushies that embodied Valentine’s Day~ They had little felt heart stickers on their bums. This was the first time I’ve ever made plushies in bulk and I genuinely had so so much fun… The last time I made a plushie was for my friend who was graduating from her undegrad (I made a League of Legends Poro with a grad cap hehe).
This was also the first time I had ever designed stickers! My process has definitely changed since. But I used to have these stickers printed on large sheets of sticker paper at UPS. And I would take them home and hand cut them~ I was actually really proud of these stickers. The print that I designed for this bundle was super outside of my comfort zone and I didn’t really have a defined style at this time; I was just getting back into digital art after years of break due to university and was a newbie on my iPad pro.
This drop also introduced the constant shop permanent item, the adorable Green Bean Plushie <3.
This drop was a HUGE leap of faith for me… and I’m really glad I took it.
March 2020
Drop 2
This drop was one of my favourites, truly, as I introduced a bean that took a little more love and work to make… THE BUNNY BEAN! These sold out so extremely fast that I had to bring a small amount back in for the next drop! This drop also introduced satin printed tags for each bean to help contribute to the exclusivity of the bean plushies (as they are drop specific)!!
The theme of Drop 2 was “Spring”, which essentially bundled in some birthday elements (March is my birth month), Easter, and St. Patrick’s day!
In this drop, my sticker process was still printing at UPS and cutting them out by hand (I think at this point I invested in a pair of good scissors LOL). I also loved the sticker designs for this drop. But what really impressed me was… my Studio Ghibli and Animal Crossing fan art!!
Here you can sort of see that I am getting a lot more comfy with digital art and my own personal style is starting to become more distinct~
JUNE 2020
Drop 3
This drop was around the time where we have already been in quarantine for about 4 months and the political flame was being lit. The BLM movement was in full swing and the world was feeling the effects of a truly scary pandemic. So… although smol, I wanted to use my platform to help, even just a little. So this drop’s theme was centered around COVID relief and contributing towards the BLM movement.
This was the largest drop I have ever done!! Beyond the COVID Relief and BLM items, I also created four new Animal Crossing: New Horizons prints that featured Lily, Marina, Marshal, and Raymond with some of my aesthetic flair; I added washi tape accents as well as flowers that I felt represented them best.
In this drop, I created permanent sticker items for my shop… STICKER SETS! I was super proud of these as it took SO much time and energy trying to use my brand new Cricut machine! Okay truthfully, I had received my Cricut from family and friends for my birthday, and yes…. it took me 4 months to finally figure it out (I’m a slow learner sometimes okay!!)
Anyway, I made sticker sets for ACNH villagers and NPCs as well! AND for Avatar <3 Avatar was poppin’ off as Netflix had just added it and it was extremely nostalgic watching it again as an adult and seeing fanart everywhere. One thing I’m super proud of is that all the sticker sets also come with backing cards designed, printed on cardstock and then cut by hand all by yours truly~
But wait… we’re not done there yet. NOPE! This drop also featured handmade APPAREL! YES. NURRI MERCH CLOTHING. I made tank tops and t-shirts that had a small bean sprout hand embroidered on the left chest or middle for tanks. These did SO extremely well and I was SO humbled by the turnout for these. These, however, took a lot of time and energy to make as I had to run out to buy the shirts for each order and then embroider each individually. I also sewed a ‘nurri’s nook’ tag on for each shirt too… phew! Although it was a lot of work… it was work I enjoyed doing and it genuinely made me happy. So I hope to do more shirts in the future.
SEPT 2020
DROP 4
This drop was much smaller compared to the giant that was Drop 3, but I still loved it just as much. This drop was themed around SUMMERTIME. Yes yes I know it dropped in September , but my idea for this drop’s bean was so cute I HAD to do it.. Better late than never right? Also to be fair the last day of summer was technically Sept. 22 and the drop was Sept 21 hehe.
ANYWAY!
I really loved this drop for the design idea I had for the bean.. Was it a little ambitious? Yes. Did it take a lot more time to make than usual? Yes. Did it require more trials and messing up to get the design right? Yes. But was it worth it? YES YES YES!
This bean was a sky blue colour and came with TWO removable accessories; sunglasses and an inner tube. The inner tub was actually super tricky to make and took a lot of time as it required both sewing via machine and by hand. But the amount of compliments this bean design received made it so worth it <3 These guys sold like hot cakes~
What was special about this sticker set was that my Twitch community actually helped designed the stickers with me! I actually streamed pretty much the whole designing/sketching phase live.
But other than that… This drop was sweet and smol~
OCT 2020
DROP 5
I can’t BELIEVE we’ve already done FIVE heckin drops! I’m so grateful to everyone who’s believed in what I do and for making this a dream come true to be honest.
Okay so this drop’s theme was HALLOWEEN themed!! My favourite holiday~ So here’s some real tea about running a small handmade shop… you have really big ideas but unfortunately only some ideas are attainable based on the margins that are those of a HANDMADE shop. Yes I can easily look up some manufacturers over seas to make these ideas come alive, but right now… I find so much joy in making all the plushies and stickers by myself. And I think you guys do to. But maybe perhaps one day in the future I’ll design a permanent plushie that could be made from manufactures hehe. We’ll see!
Anyway, so for this drop I initially designed the bean to be an orange coloured bean, with features that resemble a jack-o-lantern! And since the removable accessory designs did so well in the past, I thought that it’d be cute to have the pumpkin bean come with a removable ghost sheet; so that you could choose to have it displayed as either a ghost bean or a pumpkin bean. But with many trials, the ghost bean idea flopped as I quickly realized it would be too much work for the time and money I put into it. So I had to scratch the ghost sheet idea >_<. This made me super nervous because I decided to take a big risk this drop by making FIFTY beans to sell (I normally sell 25) … (Note from the future: thank you so much for selling these beans out… given my worries/insecurities for making double the amount I normally make. You humble me.)
The stickers for this drop brought me so much joy. I’ve always wanted to design a sticker sheet and so I did it! I also designed 2 waterproof emotes that were inspired by very cute Halloween themed Twitch emotes; peepoWeen and peepoCandy! I also designed some Among Us characters as if they were dressed up for Halloween live on stream! Unfortunately, I couldn’t sell these as intended (due to respecting wishes that the developers of the game made), so instead I gave them away as freebies for each order!!
This drop was also super special to me as I released my Sailor Scouts as Witches stickers!!! I am SO proud of the design for these and how they came out… It’s literally combining two of my favourite aesthetics~