Hello everybody, and thank you for following AnimeSpice Studios! It’s been a short while since I last posted because we’ve been building this amazing service called AnimeKoumi. As mentioned in previous entries, AnimeKoumi is a monthly stationery and gift box that contains original anime artwork done by yours truly and delivered right to your doorstep! It’s been a truly exciting, humbling, and purposeful experience, since I get to live out my passion of creating stationery and unique items as an anime artist AND designer. I want to share a bit of what I’ve designed and what we have accomplished and will accomplish in the months ahead.
AnimeKoumi launched amazingly in April, 4 months after it’s conception in January. We started off with the “Floating Sakura” theme, which I had already started developing notebooks for. It was met with a surprising amount of excitement and support, and with that came lovely reviews by some talented Youtubers.
(Limited quantities of this box are still available at http://animekoumi.com.)
I loved that this was starting out as a stationery box, but because I like to not only create art, but build, sew, and craft things, I wanted there to be an element of surprise there, unexpected gifts that are useful and engaging. So I took that to mind when moving into the next few boxes.
May’s box, “Tea Time with Alice” contained a notebook, a coloring book w/ color pencils, and stationery paper that looked like placemats with a fork shaped pen, and in addition, it also came with a teacup with anime Alice on it, an assortment of teas, and honey sticks, so subscribers could set up their own tea party.
July’s box, “My #1 Cupcake“, which ran over into September due to its popularity, is one of my favorite collections because we inspired a whole contest around the surprise activity portion of this box. I started off designed our usual stationery set, 1 mini notebook, 1 matching handmade filer (which I handmade, sewing on the buttons and bands), and was finally able to introduce the cupcake stickers that started it all! (See my More to the Story entry on these stickers).
From there, I had an exciting idea to let subscribers not only put together their own sticker cupcakes and draw in expressions on the toppers, but for them to actually make real cupcakes based on these stickers! Thus, these kawaii cupcake wrappers were born and the gift portion of “My #1 Cupcake” became a cupcake kit, complete with wrappers, write-on toppers, easy recipe card, mini spatula, liners, and colorful sprinkles.
Hello Subscription did a superior review on this box, where they took the time to cut out the wrappers, bake cupcakes, and decorate them. Even their little baby was in on the fun. You can read the review here.
We also have video reviews from Youtube!
Now that the AnimeKoumi community was growing, I wanted to come up with an engaging contest for our members and what better way that to have a bake-off! With the #KoumiCakes challenge open, we received some pretty sweet (literally!) entries, our most notable one from Carolyn, who decided not only to show us her Koumi cakes, but her entire process as well.
5 stars and 2 thumbs up for Carolyn! If you would like to join this contest, we are running our 2nd contest all of this November, until the 30th! Just grab one of our left over boxes from July HERE, and happy decorating!
But wait, there’s more exciting new on AnimeKoumi! In my next entry, I’ll write about our latest October box (Halloween themed!) and how we’re gearing up for the holiday December box. Stay tuned!
Don’t forget! You can still grab any of these boxes while supplies last at AnimeKoumi.com!
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