Loren's Blog (16)

Whew! this post has been a loooooooooooong time coming.

Well, as many of you know, I've been working on making custom punched glitter, ever since I first saw that WaMu lamp and bought it on ebay...the one with the house-shaped glitter flakes. That lamp infected me with an idea!

It's taken me a lot of time, effort, and money, but I'm finally close to being able to take custom cut glitter orders...but with a disclaimer.

So ok, first things first...

After trying all…

I know it's been forever, but it's been a long journey for me. I finally found a glitter that works in the lamps I sell, found out what it's made of, found out how thick it is, found out where to buy some, and now I'm waiting to hear back from a ton of wholesale distributors. At first all I could find were manufacturers with minimum order requirements of 1-10 tons, but I finally found the distributors. Hopefully soon I can order some, but in the meantime I've ordered 12 different colors of…

On a hunch, I decided to try and spray some stripper onto an UNpainted lamp. I just couldn't figure out why in the world only the inside of the cap anodised! I knew why the base didn't, and that's because I didn't connect the power correctly, but the cap? My friend who is helping me said something about aluminum being pre-anodised sometimes in order to seal it to keep it from oxidizing...but how did they anodise it without getting ALL of it? There must be something sprayed on…

Sigh...

Throughout this entire venture, there have definitely been ups and downs. Here lately though, it seems like there have been way more downs than ups! First I hear that the mail ruined Bridget's lamp. :( She did all she could to try and salvage it, but it just got worse. I'm in the process of fixing that for her, but in the meantime I was trying to anodise, and finishing up Drew's third lamp. First off, it would NOT stop raining long enough for me to paint! I FINALLY got a brief…

Yay! My power supply finally came! It was the fourth one, and hopefully the last. As soon as I opened it, though...my heart sank. The bottom of the unit was so bowed out that it wouldn't sit flat on the table. The face place sits very loosely on the front, and the metal cover is warped! Worst thing about it is, the box was completely un-dented. Whomever packed my power supply saw it in that state, and packed it anyway. I could have screamed.

But instead I mashed the bowed bottom back…

Finally!

And now I can offer a much more definitive list of colors that will be available. :) All of these can be varied from light to dark, but here is the list of default colors:

Red

Orange

Tangerine

Yellow

Green

Forest…

Behold...

Yay! We got back from Atlanta with them a little while ago. :)

Damn things wound up costing an extra SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.

I think we got fleeced on that...it was like having to buy them twice...once in China, and once in the US.

But I'm still not going to charge more than I said I was, I'm just not going to be able to do this again probably. The…

It's been a while since I updated my progress, so I thought I should, since I have a minute to myself for a change. :p My partner and I finally got my dad all moved into his assisted living condo, and in a week, the big move into the new house can begin! I've been so tired and so busy. :(

But I'm taking a day off today. It WAS a good thing, but then I started working on the website again. Now I remember why I was glad to begin moving really heavy furniture, as a break from all this!…

I've given up on a website. I thought I could do it myself, but I can't. All I'm getting is frustrated.

I simply do not have the money to pay someone to make this website for me.

So all of this was for nothing.

And I'm a ****ing idiot.

It's just for practice, you understand...and since this lamp wound up being free, I just took it apart and learned how to replace the cord easily for painting or anodizing. :)

The first image is the way it arrived, then I (finally) got the top and cap off, stored the yellow glitter, and put a fluorescent blue/blue gookit. I still haven't rewired it yet though,…

Yay. :) Slowly but surely, I'm building up the colors I need. Spray paint is expensive. @_@

That's crimson, orange, and yellow gloss, metallic gunmetal, and metallic bronze. :) That brings my metallic colors up to 8, and the…

I just sealed the deal today. :) I signed the contract, and paid for the lamps with shipping included, all at once. I've bought cars...I've bought computers...I've never dropped that much cash at once before. :-/ Wow. Surreal. Better start selling some of these soon!

But I'm celebrating tonight. :) It's finally paid! the ball is finally set in motion. I think it's supposed to get here in 35 days? Most of that is in transit...I think they said it would be 28 days at sea? That means…

I wish I didn't have to say this, but...it looks like they won't sell these to me after all.

They sent me an invoice, but they said that if I didn't pay it all at once, there would be a $300 bank charge which I can't afford. I agreed to pay all at once, but before I could, they realized that Atlanta was NOT a port...that they would have to dump them in Savannah, and bring them by truck the rest of the way. Once they figured this out, they had to adjust the amount for the new shipping.…

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find spray paint around here. Seriously. A lot of places don't even carry it any more because of all the kids huffing it. :( Sad.

...And rather frustrating for me! I need that crap for like...you know...what it was INTENDED for? Anyway, here's what I've managed to find so far! That's red, blue, royal blue, purple, gold, and black...all metallic. :) The Krylon says it's safe up to 600 degrees F, but the other one says only 200. I think that kind…

So I've been steadfastly working on making a GOOD custom, DIY glitter lamp. Hearing people who know what they're talking about on this board say things like "Nobody has ever made an acceptable home-made glitter lamp" was disheartening. :( I thought it was going to be simpler than making a lava lamp, but it's just as complicated. I actually DID get a working lamp made, but it used tiny glitter, and what I'm wanting to use is much bigger.

After seeing that Chinese cylinder lamp that I…

I threatened to do it...and here it is. :p

Anyway, this will be a repository of things related to my ongoing modding efforts, and maybe I'll be able to update it as I go. I guess I'll go ahead and repost this:

I ordered 100 lamps to mod, and that's what they will look like...only they will be plain, silver aluminum when they arrive, with smaller silver…