Meet Nifflr Thingmabobs LLC | Enamel Pin Creators

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nifflr Thingmabobs LLC and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nifflr Thingmabobs LLC, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We both collected Disney pins for a few years and have always played with the idea of becoming creators and making the pins that we wanted to see for ourselves and add to our own collections. The fantasy pin community is very large and the creator network is huge, so we were able to reach out to other creators for their advise on the best way to get started. After 2-3 months of gathering information, organizing what we needed, we launched Nifflr Thingamabobs!

What should our readers know about your business?
We are Nifflr Thingambobs LLC and we are a small business that makes fantasy art pin creations. What sets us apart from others in the fantasy pin community is that we don’t just focus on one fandom but instead create pins for two of our favorite things: Disney and Harry Potter. Typically, when creators start off, they choose to stay in one community before branching outwards – we decided to take the risk and start off with both. It worked well for us, and now we have a following and a good many supporters that push us forward and enable us to continue doing what we do.

It was not easy to get to where we are now, especially in a highly competitive platform like Instagram where there are hundreds of fantasy pin creators trying to get their names out there. A lot of our challenges came from the quality of our products compared to other creators – we played it safe for our first few designs and the end product was clean and simple, but did not possess the wow factor that many buyers are looking for. It was hard at first, especially when making decisions from turning flat art into 3D pins (things such as choosing colors that are true to art, effects that will work to make art pop, etc), trying to find good manufacturers and thus working with manufacturers in different timezones, and just us as partners butting heads on what we think is best for the overall end product that our investors will be happy with.

We can spend upwards to a full week working with our manufacturer discussing small, minute details and even then, within the 3-4 month production time, we may change some colors to better match the artwork our artist has created for us. We spend a few days once we have the products in hand quality checking and packaging the pins for our investors and future buyers. It’s a of work and organization involved, but we enjoy every second of what we do!

In the almost year we have been creating enamel pins, we learned that quality and consistency are everything and we’ve begun pushing the boundaries on the finishing effects for our pins. We’ve learned from our earlier mistakes of just accepting and settling for the bare minimum and have really pushed ourselves and our manufacturers to produce quality pins that everyone can enjoy in their pin collections. We’re incredibly excited for our future projects!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
A historical tour Downtown Los Angeles that starts with breakfast atThe Grand Central Market, lunch at KazuNori Handrolls, followed by a night adventure and dinner at Little Tokyo and the Arts District breweries. A full day at Santa Monica pier and the downtown area with a definite lunch stop at HiHo burgers.
Breakfast at Millie’s Cafe in Silverlake followed by a hike up to the Hollywood sign, lunch at Pink’s Hot Dogs, and dinner/shopping at The Grove and Grove Farmer’s Market. If time permits, dessert at Better Than Sex Dessert Restaurant and Lounge.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There were many creators and other small business that have shared their knowledge with us to help get us started! We wanted to give special shoutouts to Pinny Planet (@pinnyplanet), The Pin Hut (@thepinhut), and DBG Fan Art Collectibles (@designsbygenn) for sharing their knowledge with emerging and new creators in the pin community. We would not be able to do what we do without our artist Emma Quiroga (@_emmaquiroga), for working with our ideas and turning them into fantastic works of art that we are then able to turn into enamel pins. Also special thanks needs to be given to Reincarnation Paintings (@reincarnations_paintings), Fondness Knocks (@fondnessknocks), Paulina (@laro,pau), and Natalie Jumper (@nataliejumper) for their insight on what it is like to be a creator and run a small business!

Website: https://www.nifflrthingamabobs.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nifflrthingamabobs/