About Bittersweet Haven

Bittersweet Haven is a small art shop based in the USA and run by one person- me! („• ᴗ •„)


I've been drawing since I was a little bean, and I decided to try setting up at convention artist alleys since I went to cons already for cosplay. It was meant to be a temporary thing until I decided what kind of career I wanted to pursue, but I never really found anything else. I finally decided to stick with my art and try to make a living from that, though it's been incredibly challenging to say the least. Owning my own shop has always been my dream, but it never seemed realistic. I still don't know if it really is, but I'm going to try my best at it!

I've always been a little isolated from the art community, and to be honest, I have no idea why. Maybe I worry too much about taking inspiration from other designs. I've never taken art classes (unless you count elementary school) so there's a lot of technical things I don't know. I used to feel very self concious about it, but now I understand that it doesn't make my art any less valid or likeable than others.

I'm working my very best to make things that make both myself and other people happy. ♡

Frequently asked questions

Do you make your plushies by hand?

Originally I did, but it was very time consuming and I couldn't make as many as I needed for conventions. I also was getting very burned out and wanted to focus on new projects, so I found a manufacturer who would work with me to create them according to my design.

My first manufactured plushie was the catbat, and for a long time I had them made with blank faces so I could handpaint the face expression myself. This kept an aspect of handmade art in the design, and allowed me to do many different expressions! However, I ended up developing severe de quervain in both wrists, which was the final push I needed to go fully manufactured. I had surgery to fix my wrists, but sometimes they still get sore from too much repetitive crafting. So now I try to pace myself more on handmade crafts and only do the designing for the plushies.

I understand that this might devalue the plushies for some people, but I hope it doesn't take away too much. I do design all the characters and work closely with my manufacturer to get the plushies just right. The manufacturer is far better at creating plushies than I ever was, so I do think the quality is better this way too.

I put a lot of love into my plush designs, and I hope everyone who gets one loves it just as much as I do!

Do you use any kind of gen AI in your creation process?

No, I've been doing art the same way for 10 years. ...Which may not be a great thing, I really need to improve my process. (; ื▿ ื) But it's not gonna be with AI!

I saw your art/design on another website, is it legit?

Currently I only sell on my website and Etsy. I have seen one of my plushies ripped off on Temu however. (⇀‸↼‶)

If you see my art or designs anywhere else, please contact me with a link to it so I can look into it.

Are your designs original or fanart?

All my designs are original, however some characters may be based on folklore, old classic stories, legends, etc. Generally in these cases I try to keep the iconic elements that make the subject recognizable, but put my own overall design on it. Such as Alice in my Twisted Wonderland art having a blue dress, striped socks, and blonde hair. Other elements for her are original, such as the haircut, dress construction, bat elements, etc. I don't sell artwork of copyrighted characters at all.