Saturday, September 12, 2015

Mini Night Light Boxes

I never thought there would be so many little problems pop up!

I had decided I would start off with just a few Christmas themed mini light boxes. 

Early on after I had been left with a couple of unsuccessful holiday product lines, I swore off sinking any time or resources into such time limited products. But the idea of these cute little light boxes adding just a bit of Christmas cheer was more than I could resist.

I designed three that would go very well together. Matter of fact a trio always linked at Christmas. 

I have stated before and do state often, I can not design anything on paper and have it work out as I wanted. Or work out at all. So my creating is often a long process (and my favorite part of the process). I have to make something to find all the problems. Too be able to see what I need to adjust. To see what won't work. And to see what does work! 

Well I needed to add a bit wider border here and the flap was just too short there and that fabric just did not look good. 

Those were easily conquered. But the next three were not so easy. 

Number one, I ran out of stiff enough chipboard. I live in a area with very little shopping options so my first impulse was to check online. After all how much could chipboard cost. Cost was not the only problem I ran right into. Weight of chipboard was a total mystery to me. Online I could not touch to see if it was strong enough but not too stiff to cut and fold. I found lots of light weight, medium weight, and thick rigid chipboard. What is .022 or 22 pt? How different is .030 from .022? Online was not going to work till I had answers!

Since I don't have money or a good enough car to go wandering around West Texas hitting the larger towns that have shopping options galore, I went to Brownwood. I went to every place I could think of in Brownwood. I found no .022 chipboard, nor .030, nor thick rigid for sale.  I came home dejected. I stopped even thinking about my cute little mini night light boxes. 

But ha ha! What popped into my mind? My Stay Flat mailers I had purchased from Uline. They would be perfect. And cheap but I found out there was a lot of waste. And if I used them all up what would I ship my Dictionary Book Page Prints or Vintage New Yorker Magazine Covers in?  Bet you are ahead of me. A simple check of my invoice to get the item number and off to Uline online to see their description. I now know what .028 chipboard is and that it is perfect. 

This is the first of the three hurdle. Later on the next hurdle.