The Story Of My Lights

An accountant by trade (and what pays the bills), I've always loved quirky art and funky night lights and what a great combo they would be together!  The idea for my lights came many years ago but it wasn't until last December 2016 that I realized that I wouldn't be searching the internet to find cool night lights to buy....that I would be the one making them!

To this day, every time I go home to NY for a holiday, I go to the Village and look for cool knick knacks that you couldn't find anywhere else (as well as knock-off purses, fake jewelry and a Rolex that would look pretty real if it wasn't for the misspelled name).  About 10 years ago I found these awesome night lights that had caricatures and random art designs. The only thing I remembered about them was that they were square and were not only a light but a piece of art.  Years after the bulb burnt out of these night lights, we never threw them out because they still looked great, even if there was no light coming through them!  I searched the internet many times trying to find them, as recent as last December when I literally had a light bulb go off when I realized 'they can't be that hard to make!'.  That was the start of my adventure.  I spent December 2016 figuring out what materials were involved and started having art made and purchased from Etsy sellers or Clip Art I found on the internet. I was very fortunate that I had clients from my 'real' job that each had expertise in some kind of lighting and were so amazingly generous with their knowledge and advice.

At this point I still had no idea how these lights were put together.  I had all my materials and art ready to go....if only I didn't have the small problem of not knowing how to actually make them!  That is when the second light bulb popped into my head and I was able to visualize exactly how to make them...and now I'm up to 100 designs!

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I thought to myself 'these things are going to FLY off the shelves'!  Well, I quickly realized that my dream of selling hundreds of these lights in the first month were grossly overstated!  I did my first event in February 2017 in the freezing, pouring rain while wearing a spring jacket and standing the whole time because it didn't occur to me to bring a chair!  I was all prepared with my 2 bins full of 80 lights.  A friend the night before told me 'maybe just bring ONE bin'.  But I had visions in my head of swiping people's credit cards left & right and having lots of cash in my pocket.  How many did I sell that first event?  ZERO. Hello Marie...meet reality!  I learned to adapt and come down to reality and attended as many flea markets and shows as I could.  I am proud that I am able to donate a portion of every night light sale to my favorite charity, Semper K9!!  I am fortunate that I am as stubborn as the two loves of my life, my 2 mini bull terriers!! Giving up is not in our nature.  While I of course hope that one day I will be in lots of stores and sell a huge number of lights, for now I can be happy and excited with each sale because I love the thought that something that I hand made and think is beautiful will end up in someone's house!! Thank you for visiting my site.