It seems pretty complicated to me. Someone put a lot of time into developing it. I put a lot (for me) of time into trying to figure it out. I’m pretty much at a loss when it comes to programing languages. This is written in Perl and I don’t know what all the symbols mean, but I got enough of an idea of how it works to use it.

I have the cart looking like one of my pages so the customers feel at home when they get to that page. I’m happy about that. And it works! The first jewelry box that I sold using it was subtracted from the inventory. Hooray. That was one of the uses that I got it for. The other was discount coupons, and that worked also. 20% off from now until the 22nd.

Just one thing left to do, or at least one major thing. When you click on an item that is out of stock, it takes you to a page with only a header and the rest is blank. If I click on an item that is not listed, it takes me to a page that says the cart is empty. That’s what I want to happen when the item is out of stock. I have to work on that. It might take me a while to figure out how to do that. More to come.

I have been using PayPal, and it’s working well. But someone asked me the other night if I would give a group a discount. I can’t do that with the PayPal shopping cart. Also, I’ve been worrying that I would sell one of my jewelry boxes twice. That wouldn’t be very good. I try to get every sold jewelry box or other item marked as sold as soon as I can, but one of these days someone is going to add an item that has already been sold. So, I could use some software that would stop that.

I think I might have found what I need. I have asked on WebProWorld if any one has any feedback about paypalshoppingcart.org. With it I can just use my own buttons and PayPal and it will let me do much more. I’m hoping that it gets good marks from the forum. 

Anyway I got Cherry, African Mahogany, Padauk and some Canary Wood. It looks nice with some good grain. The African Mahogany looks a lot like Walnut with a swirly grain. The Padauk is a little different than what I’ve used before. The grain is still straight, but the wood is wildly streaked, with the colors ranging from a very light reddish hue to almost black. The African Mahogany is a light chocolate color with the grain anything but straight. The Canary Wood is yellowish with streaks of red running through it. It’s beautiful and I think it will look very nice when finished.

It pretty much drives me crazy trying to figure out how to cut all of the wood up to turn it into jewelry boxes. It all looks so nice, and only some of it can be on the outside of the jewelry boxes. What I mean is, it’s all on the outside, but only part of it is on the front and back of the box. The rest of it is an end or edge showing. Even though it shows, it’s almost like a filler, and I have to decide what goes where. I feel badly about relegating a nice piece to show only its side.

I took all the boards and cut them pretty much in half. One half I re-sawed and planed and the other half I just planed. Then I cut it all up into 6-8 inch pieces. I like some symmetry to my bandsawn jewelry boxes, and the thickness I try to keep to a little less than 4 inches, so it takes me a while to group it all together. But, I did it. I got 7 large and 2 small soon to be boxes. I’ve glued 3 together so far. The rest I’ll do as my clamps are freed up. By tomorrow I should have a few blanks to use my band saw on. Then I need to decide which design for which blank. Oh well, I really do enjoy this, but it’s tough sometimes.

I also acquired some more of the white dimpled fiberglass. So I think I’ll make the box bigger and stronger. When I finally get it done, I’ll have to take a picture of it and post it. I don’t think I’ll have to make a giant light box to do so, but you never know.

I also wrote about my bandsaw which I just love using.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

I had a lot of trouble with the header. I was trying to match the one on AlteredWood. While trying to make it work in more browsers than just IE, I changed the header image to include the pages background image. What a difference that made. After getting all of the navigation from the original site up there, matching and working in all my browsers, I took it down. I thought it should have a simpler look.  Now I just have a simple link to AlteredWood. And it’s not even in the header. It’s just in the sidebar listed under, you guessed it, links.

Anyway, the trouble I had was that I was trying to use the background image on the page and space down the header photo and the navigation from the top. It would look good in IE, but not in any other browser. I think I tried everything, but couldn’t figure it out. I finally Photoshoped the background image and the header photo together and am using that as the header image. Since it’s only one object, it’s a lot easier to align. That’s probably something that everyone knows or there’s a better way that I could use, but it makes me happy to come up with a solution.

I’ve also added business card holders. Each one will hold about 125 cards. They are made using laminated hardwoods with the front and back less than 1/8″ thick. Of course they have rounded edges. I have made them in a few different shapes, and I’m sure that there are more shapes I can come up with. They will be a great stocking stuffer.