Commercial Banners for every season!

The Christmas season may be gone but its the time to start thinking about how to improve your Christmas Decorations for next season. Banners for your street poles are a great and easy way to decorate for your city or business. Commercial Banners are made of high quality vinyl or marine quality fabric and hold up year after year, banners range in styles and there are styles for every season and holiday. Screen printed banners have a limited number of colors but are cost effective and will last many many seasons. Digital printed banners have a full range of colors and can be heavily customized so you can easily make a banner exactly how you want it.

Commercial Banners come is sizes ranging from 17" x 36-45" to 30" x 96"! Almost all the banners have the option of customization, you can change the image size and rotation, and can add or edit text/fonts and more. We carry the finest quality banner hardware as well so you can safely mount them.

Banners are a great way to spruce up a street or a parking lot and a great way to advertise your business. Please email us with the style, size, and number of banners you need and we will quote you a price!

Click here to see the banners we have available!

Christmas Light Contest!

We are having a 2 Christmas Light contests with prizes for you or your town! Please check the rules below and share with your friends!

City Decoration Contest:
We know a lot of cities need a revamp of their decoration so we're proposing this. Submit pictures of your Cities Christmas/Holiday Decorations and the city most in need of a sprucing up will win... 2 Large Commercial Lighted Wreaths & 1,000 Incandescent Bulbs for fixing decorations!
How to Enter:
Please Email us the following:
Your name. Your cities name. Address for City Hall. Phone number for City Hall. Name of person in charge of your towns decorations (If available). Attach a picture of your cities decorations.

---

Residential Contest:
So many of you go all out on decorating your homes and we want to help make your decorations light up the neighborhood even more! Submit a picture of your house all decked out in lights and decorations and the best looking decoration will win... 1 Large Commercial Christmas Displays
How to Enter:
Please Email us the following:
Your name. Your email address & phone number. Attach a picture of your decorated house.

---

*By entering our contests you give the right to use your submitted photos on our sites. However, we will digitally remove any personal information such as house number, license plate numbers on cars, etc so that anonymity is insured. If you do not feel comfortable with this, please do not enter.

Please email zach@aachristmas.com for all entries.

LED Snow Drop Lights

We have these great animated Snow Drop Led Icicle lights available and ready to ship!

Each string has 5 LED Light Drops, Each Drop has 48 Chasing LED lights and is 12" tall, Snow Drops are Spaced 5' apart with 30' Total String Length, Includes Transformer to power sets and Add on sets.

These sets are great for hanging on gutters and look really cool strung in trees! Snow drop give the look of snow falling and water dripping. They are really cool and popular sets that more and more people are adding to their home decorations. Please visit the site or call us!

http://www.aachristmas.com/vpasp/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=392

--

Zach

NEW 10% off coupon code!

That's right, we are now taking 10% off online orders when you use the code SAVE at checkout. Enter the code in the block pictured below when you are checking out, it's on the same page as your billing and shipping information.


--
Zach

Magnetic C7 and C9 clips

New!

We are proud to be offering the newest in clip technology, Magnetic Clips! These clips will securely attach a C7 or C9 socket to any Ferrous metal (ferrous = magnetic). These clips hold the socket in a vertical (seen left) or horizontal fashion, so you can easily decorate on a magnetic surface without using adhesives, staples, or nails.

Metal surfaces have always been a tricky party of holiday decorating, adhesives and sticky pads may leave residue or mar the finish. And of course nails, staples, and screws are going to leave holes in the surface. You need to be sure that the metal you're going to decorate on is magnetic, simply take a household magnet (pull one off the fridge) and see if it will stick to surface, if it stays put you have a surface perfect for these clips.

Most metal siding and gutters are made with aluminum, which IS NOT magnetic.

Our Magnetic Clips are available for both C7 and C9 bulbs in packs of 25. Click Here to check them out on the site.

--

Zach

10% Off Online Orders & No Minimum Online Orders!

That's right, we are now taking 10% off online orders when you use the code AACC4U at checkout. Enter the code in the block pictured below when you are checking out, it's on the same page as your billing and shipping information.

We also no longer have a minimum order amount, so you can buy 1 box of bulbs or or 1 string of lights if that's all you need! We are trying to give customers more options for the products we sell.

--
Zach

New Mini lights cases!

We have greatly expanded our Mini Light case selection on the site. We now offer almost every single mini light string spacing on the market!

Spacings Available:

• 2.5"
• 3"
• 3.5"
• 4"
• 4.5"
• 6"

Where are the 8 inch you ask? Well not many people carry the 8inch anymore and most all of ours are limited to the stock we have on hand.

Now you can easily get cases of mini lights for your decorating project. It's perfect for decorating your home, business, yard, anywhere you need a lot of mini lights! Cases come in both green and white wire, and most cases have every color option available. All the mini lights we carry have shunted bulbs, whats a shunt? Well in a nut shell if a bulb burns out the shunt keeps the electricity flowing so the string doesn't go dead. Now, a shunt will not ever fix a light string that has a removed/loose/twisted bulb, if one of those things happen the string will indeed fail to light. Our Christmas mini lights strings feature 22 gauge wire (except our commercial mini lights which have 20 gauge wire) which is thicker and heavier duty than the wire you'll find on strings from hardware and department stores. Out mini lights are built to last, we've sold countless mini lights for decorating and craft projects from year and only choose the highest quality light strings on the market.

Check out our mini lights page to see all the great mini lights we carry!

--
Zach

Ultra Thin LED Battery Sets in stock!

We have just got a wide selection of Ultra Thin LED sets in stock! These sets are some of the coolest light strings period, these sets run on 3 "AA" batteries, have 18 Miniature LEDs on bendable wire.

The LEDs on these sets are Surface Mount LEDs and are typically directly on circuit boards in computers, electronics, toys, etc. But the are soldered to the wire and covered in a drop of silicone, they are vibrant, bright, and perfect for a multitude of decorating projects.

These sets are perfect for craft projects such as lighting Glass block and Wine bottles. You can even decorate costumes (perfect for Halloween and theater productions)! These sets are great for decorating greenery, the small wires are easy to hide and disappear at a distance. Putting them in garland looks great and they are perfect for table centerpieces.

We are happy to now carry more colors, we have Pure White, Warm White, Amber, Red, Green, and Blue available and ready to ship! Order early last season we sold out these sets in a few weeks and once they are gone we may not be able to get any more until next season.

Click here to visit the site.

Halloween light strings and displays

Halloween is almost upon us and many of us like to decorate our homes with spooky lights and decorations. We have tried to have a large selection of lights, displays, and decorations for Halloween. We have Painted Orange C7 and C9 bulbs that will look great on Black wire, which you can decorated around your house and yard with. We carry Orange lights on Black wire for our mini lights which are great for decorating trees and bushes and decorating inside the house as well.

Our line of Displays includes some very cool Halloween light displays. We offer many styles of displays lit with both incandescent lights and LED lights. There are Jack o lanterns and pumpkins, bats, witches, ghosts, haunted houses, tombstones, to just name a few of the types of displays we offer.

We also have specialty light strings! Pumpkin lights, Scare crows, and more. Please visit the site and check out our Halloween section of the site!

Click here

--

Zach

Adding speakers to a musical Christmas controller.

We've gotten some calls about out newest musical christmas controller, asking if you can use different speakers with the unit or add more speakers.

You can use a different speaker, the stock speaker is 8 ohms and we recommend matching the ohms. The bottom of the controller unit has a speaker out that is has a phono plug (RCA plug) jack so you will have to either have a speaker cable with that type of connector or make your own like we had to do in our office.

I used a old guitar cable which had bad 1/4" plugs but you can use cable with a positive and negative wire (even just normal 18 gauge wire will work, but may not sound the best), I wired up a solderless phono plug to the wire (I recommend soldering the wires if you plan to use this cable for multiple seasons) and stripped the other end so I could clip it into the back of the shelf stereo speaker I was testing.

I tested out the stock speaker, just for a comparison of the sound quality, plugged in the new speaker and it worked like a charm. Not only was the larger speaker better sounded but louder. The stock speaker is by no means bad, but the better the speaker the better the sound quality of course.

The other big question we get asked a lot is if the unit has a Line out. A line out is used to send the audio signal to another amplifier source of some sort. This unit does not TECHNICALLY have a line out. I have not tried using the speaker out as a line out, and I do NOT recommend this method. The speaker out is a powered output, meaning, it sends the powered signal from the units amp to the speaker and is not like a Line out.

The simplest solution is to go to a electronic store or most department stores electronics sections have a Y splitter cable from your audio source. This allows you to plug the Y splitter into your mp3 player then one side of the Y you can connect to the controller unit and the other side you can send out to an separate external amplifier. So you have your signal coming to the controller to control the lights and the other signal powering a external speaker source.

I hope this helps clear the air about this new unit. Thanks! Click here to see the controller on the site.

--

Zach

Faders are back.

We are happy to be offering a new Fader. Our previous fader was very popular and the future of it's production is up in the air. In the mean while our new 2 channel Fader is in stock and ready to ship.

This Christmas light fader offers two channels, rated at 2.5 amps each. That's 750 mini light bulbs per channel, so one fader unit can handle quite a few lights. The box has a Speed knob, the unit fade slowly between the channels or go fast enough to simulate a flicker effect. This fader has a tab to fasten it via screw to a wall, but we recommend always protecting them from the elements in some way.

These Christmas Faders are only 34.97 are perfect for adding some movement to your Holiday decorations! Check out the site for even more info. Click Here

--
Zach

Options for Icicle Lights

We are constantly trying to expand what products we carry and I admit that the plethora of similar products can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. This is true for our Icicle lights. Icicle lights are staple during the Christmas season, easy to decorate with and great looking. We have carried Icicle sets for years and are constantly trying to keep the widest selection of lights available.

In efforts to bring the most options to the table we have expanded our standard 100 Count Icicle lights. We now carry 3 different styles of just the standard 100 count sets on Green and White wire.

ICICLE-100-GW-C

• Our Preferred Set! 100 Clear Icicle Lights on Green Wire - 8.5' Lighted Length with 5" approximate spacing between drops - 18 Drops- Longest icicle drop is 22.75" - 6" Lead and 4" Tail
• These sets are THE BEST for decorating. The short leads allow you to have less wire between sets which makes putting these sets up on a gutter or around your roof so much easier.

ICICLE-100-GW-C-LL

• 100 Clear Icicle Lights on Green Wire - 5' Lighted Length (7' in total length) with 3" approximate spacing between drops - Longest icicle drop is 15.5" and shortest 7.5" - 24" Lead and 4" Tail - All drops are approx.
• These are the sets we've carried for years, they are reliable and good looking sets. They are perfect if you need a longer lead on your set if you need to bridge gaps without having to black out lights.

ICICLE-100-GW-C-Long Drops

• Newest Set! 100 Clear Icicle Lights on Green Wire with Extra Long Drops - 9' Total Length with 6" approximate spacing between drops - 18 Drops- Drops range in length from 15" to 30" - 4" bulb spacing on drops - Bulbs clip to wire for a uniform look - 5 sets End to End
• This is our newest icicle set. It has many advantages over previous sets we've carried. It has the same short leads, long Icicle drops, clips on the sockets to keep the bulbs pointing towards the ground, and you can plug 5 sets end to end (That's over 40 feet of lighted length on one run)

Most of these come with Clear bulbs on either White or Green wire. Please visit the site if you're interested in checking out our entire selection of Christmas lights. Click Here.

--

Zach

New Products On The Way

We are getting in new products very soon. Stay tuned for new Icicle lights and new LED lights. I will post new products when we get them in stock. Stay tuned to the blog and the site for new products and decorating ideas!

--
Zach

Banner Programs

We carry a full line of Commercial quality banners on the website www.allamericanchristmas.com
Banners are great for cities, downtowns, parking lots, businesses, or parks. We offer a wide variety of banner styles as well, Spring/Summer, Fall, Winter, Christmas, All Seasonal styles, Patriotic. We also can have banners custom made with your own design ideas, our manufacturer can change just about everything about the banners except for their preset sizes.
Here is what is customizable:

• Image Position, Rotation, Size, and Cropping
• Change Color of Art Elements and Backgrounds
• Text Alterations
• Mix and Match Stock Design

Our banners are Digital Printed on heavy duty 18 oz vinyl or Screen Printed on Marine acrylic fabrics. These high quality banners will last many seasons with proper storage!

We also carry all the mounting hardware, our banner brackets are perfect for securing banners to light poles, street lamps, or anywhere else you'd like to start a banner program.

Here are some facts about our brackets:

• Certified to 80 MPH Wind loads
• Member SGIA
• Preferred choice of banner installation professionals
• One bolt "Sure-Lock" tension adjustment
• Rust-proof cast aluminum
• Easily custom colored
• Solid fiberglass arms

Visit http://www.allamericanchristmas.com/shopsite/banners.asp to see all our banners and email us if you're interested in getting a quote on banners! Thanks

--
Zach

Hanging Lights for a Wedding

We get asked how to hang lights fairly often, and seeing as how most lights sold during this part of the year are used for Weddings and parties I thought I'd give some helpful tips for hanging lights!

If your venue has a drop ceiling then you can very easily hang lights! Simply use some string or zip ties to secure the wire to the metal frame. The image below shows how you can simply loop around the frame of a metal drop ceiling.
If the walls of the venue are drywall or fairly smooth you can use the Command adhesive hooks available at any local department store. They can easily hold a light string so long as you use a couple hooks to disperse the weight.Another option for curtain lights is making a frame. This can be done with wood or PVC. Just use two upright 2x4s or PVC pipes with some sort of base, connect the two with a horizontal piece, attach lights, then overlay sheer fabric to hid the frame. You can always paint the frame white so it's hidden better behind the fabric.

If you'd like to browse all the lights we recommend for weddings, click here!

--
Zach

Using Net lights for Curtain light alternative.

Net lights are a style of mini light and LED light string used, typically, to lay on a large area for quick coverage. Many people use net lights for covering bushes and shrubs around their homes.
We are always trying to help people think up clever ways to use our products and recently we were helping a bride with an alternative to curtain lights for her wedding. We suggested hanging net lights behind sheer fabric.

Hanging Curtain lights is nothing new, and I've touched on it quite a few times, but not many people know the Net light trick! Below is a image of how a hung set of Net lights will look. You can hang them on a frame or on a wall for great effect! Our net lights come in 4 foot by 6 foot for our LED nets, and our mini light nets come 4 foot by 6 foot and 4 foot by 8 foot. Between those two size options you should be able to cover a large area with very little work, just hang, let the wire relax so the net looks good, and you're done!


Click here to check out our Net Lights!
--
Zach

Wedding decorations with Battery Powered LED lights

Now, I touch on this subject just about every other blog, BUT there are just so many wedding happening I thought I could lend some more insight. Weddings, likes so many of us know, don't always happen in churches. They can be in a field, large civic centers, plantations, homes, just about anywhere people can gather can be the venue for a wedding. While all of these sound like great places for a couples "special day" they can sometimes have a definite lack in the number of power outlets. Let's face it, fields usually don't have power outlets for a P.A. and with christmas lights beginning to become a staple at weddings we want to show that you don't need a wall outlet to light up your event...just a couple AA batteries.

Battery powered LED sets are great. There, I said it, they are awesome. They give you the same brightness and look as sets that plug into a wall but they can just for over a day on 2 AA batteries. We carry a variety of bulb styles for battery powered LED sets, Concave, Short M5, and M5. All of these work great, and we've had 1 set break on a customer in the 4+ years we've been selling them.

• Concave - Our favorite, they have a simple style bulb that has the widest viewing angle, bright colors, and have a small bulb.
  
• M5 - The look of classic mini lights only faceted. Simple long skinny bulbs that work great and add the perfect touch of light to a decoration.
• Short M5 - Just like M5s just with a much shorted length.

All of these Battery powered sets work great for any application and would be the perfect addition to your special day. Click here to view these LEDs By the Set or
By the Case

New Music Christmas Light Controller!

Holiday Lightshow Music controller and Timer with Speaker and 10 Songs
Includes: Control box with approx. 4' power cord & Speaker with approx. 15' attached wire. 2 Ground stakes

Product Features:
Energy Saver Timer Settings
On
Off
Dawn to Dusk (plays from sunset to sunrise)
or 2, 4, 6 or 8 hours (starts at sunset and plays for the statement amount of hours)

Easy-to-Use Control Box Function Settings
All On: all the connected items are on
Song Loop: plays all the preprogrammed songs
AUX: unit is on standby unless an MP3 player is connected
Effects: lights are on, but sound is off
Song Skip: moves to the next song 10 preprogrammed holiday songs

Built In Song List:
Deck The Halls
Oh, Come All Ye Faithful
Nutcracker Medley
HARK! The Herald Angels Sing
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Bell Carol
Jingle Bells
Christmas Medley
Religious Medley
God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman

6 built-in power outlets; each rated for 1.25 amps - just plug in the lightshow items and you're done Replaceable 8A 125V UL fuse - helps guard against overloading

MP3 player compatible - customize your holiday lightshow experience by playing your own music; just turn the setting to AUX and plug in your own MP3 player

Control box measures approx. 10"H x 10"W x 5" deep
Speaker measures approx. 8-1/4"H x 5"W x 5-1/2" deep
ETL listed Made of plastic and electronics Runs on AC power

For indoor/outdoor use

Patriotic Holiday Lighting

The term "Christmas lights" typically conjures up images of large pine trees lit up with miniature lights and houses lined with bulbs and icicle light sets, but we here at All American Christmas Co. think of "Christmas lights" as a label for a style of product and not a specific seasonal item. Since July 4th and local elections are in full swing we thought we'd do a write up on how lights and strings could be used to decorate for patriotic events and holidays.

Lighting for these type of holidays is really pretty simple! Mini lights are probably the easiest way to decorate, we offer Red, White (Clear if you want to be technical), and Blue lights on white wire. We currently don't offer a pre made Red, White, and Blue mini lights string with all the different color bulbs, but with a little patience you can make them pretty easy! Mini lights can be strung around tables, windows, doors, a porch, anywhere you can attach/hang them!

Led's come in a variety of styles that would look great for a patriotic party/even as well! These Star shaped LEDs look great and would be perfect for decorating. LED sets are great for use year after year, they last up to 50,000 hours and bulbs are incredibly hard to damage! Our battery powered LED sets are great for table decorations, or for lighting outdoors where there may be no immediate power sources. Battery powered LED sets last 9 times longer (if not more) than mini light battery powered sets!

Our Starlight spheres have a patriotic option as well, we have a 7.5' Starlight Sphere with a American flag theme we also have standard Spheres which you could hang together for a great look on your porch or hanging from the ceiling. You can mix and match sizes and colors for a great staggered effect. Spheres have a separate string for hanging so as long as you can find a hook of some sort they hang super easy!

Be sure to visit the site www.aachristmas.com and check out all the great products we have!

--
Zach

How to and Product Info videos

We are currently working on developing videos of products and step by step how to's on making custom products we explain so often over the phone. Seeing a video of a controller or specialty product in action speaks louder than words on a page Just being able to see how simple some of the products are to use will, hopefully, instill confidence if purchases of that product. We want to showcase our chasing controllers, our musical controllers, chasing mini lights, twinkle lights, repair and testers, projector, and other specialty products.

For our how to videos we want to show to set up products properly, how to make custom items, how to modify products for different uses. We have years of experience of hands on use with our products and the boss has years of experience with professional installation of everything from mini lights to gigantic commercial decorations. So we hope we can offer some insight into how to make you're light strings and projects come to life with ease.

--

Zach

Terminating a C7 or C9 light string

We get calls, quite often actually, about how to end a light string without a plug. There are a few main ways to seal off the end of a light string, Electrical Tape, Liquid Electrical Tape/Insulation, or Heat shrink.

Electrical tape is the most convenient and fastest but sometimes in the weather it can shrink and unravel if not applied properly.

• Always Cut Electrical Tape - Use scissors or a knife to cut your tape, pulling/tearing the tape stretches it and will lead to it shrinking in the weather
• Separate both wires and wrap individually, then together. You don't want to risk a short across the exposed wires.
• Wrap tightly, but again, do not stretch the electrical tape.

Liquid Electrical Tape/Insulation is a great alternative. You can paint, or dip the end of the wires into the can. Be sure to follow all the instructions on the can/container! For better results we recommended doing multiple coats, but be sure to let each coat dry in between applications.

Heat Shrink is a personal favorite of mine. It's safe, long lasting, and looks great. Be sure to use the proper size, in my experience the small the better.

• Separate the wires and heat shrink individually. Leave excess on the end so that the end of the wires do not touch. I leave enough to fold over after first shrink process
• Hit it with a heat gun for a few seconds
  
• Fold the ends of the excess heat shrink down after you shrink it onto the wires
• Slip a larger piece of heat shrink over both wires, making sure you keep the folded heat shrink down
• Hit it with heat gun and you should have a nice looking, well protected tip of your wire.

I hope this gives some insight as to how we make custom light strings and how to properly terminate a C7 or C9 Stringer.
--
Zach

Easter Lights

Easter is April 4th this year so for those of us that go all out with the decorations there is just a little under a month left to get your decorations. We carry a selection of yard displays and lights that are perfect for the easter holiday. Our displays feature easter bunnies, eggs, flowers, Happy Easter signs, but we also carry many religious displays that would be perfect for decorating a church or home for this holiday. We have a selection of Crosses that would be perfect for the Easter holiday.

Many of our opaque (painted) C7 and C9 bulbs have a soft glow that's perfect for decorating; the pink, purple, teal bulbs have a very pastel appearance. String these bulbs on white wire for a very festive look. Or use C9 bulbs on a green wire with a large spacing and place them on your lawn to look like hidden easter eggs. The only limit to how one can decorate is ones imagination.

--
Zach

Party and Prom lighting!

Spring is on it's way and now isn't really the time were most people think to themselves, "I should put up some Christmas lights!" But if you look around this time of year "Christmas" lights are all around us, we see them at restaurants, bars, at parties, in shops, and for specials events an occasions. High School Proms are a great place for hanging lights, you can light table center pieces, lighting around windows, light trees, hang (or make) swag lights for the ceiling.

Creating a ceiling full of light strings is very popular for Proms, Weddings, and other Special Events. To get an idea of how many light strings you'll need you need to know the Length of the room, the Width of the room, approximately how high the ceilings are, and how far apart you want to space your lights. Typically you want to space your swags 3' to 5' apart, it sounds nice to really keep your strings close but that increases your number of strings and sometimes be too much visually. You'll want to use a bulb spacing of 4"-6", using longer spacings help you get more feet per string and less power sources. Mini lights can typically only do 3 sets end to end, so keep that in mind. We always recommend using our bare 18 gauge wire and quick-connect plugs to create your own custom power strips that you can run along a side wall to provide power for your strings. And remember, going Green with LED lights can let you easily decorate a large space with less power. LED lights use less than 20% of the power of your typical Mini lights, so you can connect more sets together and run less power cords for a cleaner look.

The sky is the limit with decorating for any occasion, never limit yourself to just mini lights. Sphere lights add an extra bit of dimension to your lighting. Twiggy or Rice lights are small lights that are great to hide in greenery. Flicker flames are a great way to simulate a candle, without the fire hazard! The options are endless.

--
Zach
American Christmas Co.

Commerical Christmas Trees

2010 is going to be a big year for All American Christmas Co., we are expanding our selection of commercial products starting with Commercial Christmas Trees. Here are some facts about our Large Commercial Christmas Trees:

• Sizes range from 12' to 100'
• Mini Lights, C7 bulbs, or LED bulbs lighting options

Different construction styles:

• Branch
• Panel
  
• Ice Light
• Chain Trees

Click here to view what trees we currently have listed. These high quality trees are perfect for both indoor and outdoor applications. Commercial Trees are used in Shopping Malls, Downtowns of Cities, Churches, Driveway Entrances, Rooftop Displays, Drive-Thru Parks, Business Lobbies, the uses are endless. If you don't see exactly what you're looking for email us, we have access to some of the best tree manufacturers in the country and we can get the tree you need built to your specs. You can pick the style of build, the color of the foliage, the size, and the type of lights. Despite their higher up front cost, we recommend lighting all trees (commercial or otherwise) with LED lights. For Example, a 14' tall tree lit with C7 Bulbs has a total wattage of 3,120 (26.04 total amps) and the same tree only lit with LED bulbs has a total wattage of 599.04 (4.992 total amps). With LED you'll use just 20% of what you would with C7 bulbs, you don't have to use as much power which also helps when getting electricity to these large trees.

If you have any questions please check out the website or send us a email. We hope to add even more trees in early 2010. Thanks for reading.

--
Zach

Lighting Glass Blocks (Repost)

It seems like every day we get calls about people looking for lights to go inside Glass blocks, like the one shown above (image from www.homedepot.com). These glass blocks are usually used to make a wall or some sort of divider in a bathroom and can be found at places like The Home Depot. The way people put lights in these is really simple.

1. Get a pack of Glass Blocks
2. Get a Drill bit for drilling glass (1/2 inch is a good size)
3. Get some mini lights or LED lights that DO NOT have a end plug.
   
4. Drill a hole into the block where you would like to insert the lights.
5. Carefully push the lights into the block through the hole.
6. Plug them up to make sure you didn't loosen any bulbs during the install
7. If the lights work, you're done. Unless you want to wrap the block in ribbon , which is also popular.

These have been a very popular craft lately, we get a lot of calls and email asking about it. People use them for center pieces, gifts, and whatever else strikes their fancy. We have expanded our craft light sets to include both short and long lead wires and craft style LED lights that don't have end to end connectors. These LED sets are a perfect alternative to Mini light craft sets, they generate no heat, the bulb life is extraordinary, and bulbs won't come loose inside the blocks!

Click here to see our selection of mini lights and Click here to see our Craft LED Lights

--
Zach Broyles
All American Christmas Co.

Valentine's Day!

Our next big holiday coming up is Valentine's Day and we do have a selection of lights and displays to help enhance the day for your business, party, or just for someone special. We have some great heart and cupid displays that are perfect for hanging indoors and out. Click here to check out Valentine displays.

Our Red light white string mini light strings are perfect for decorating, mini lights come in a wide selection of bulb counts and spacings. 20, 35, 50, and 100 bulb count strings have a red bulb on white wire option and all have a clear bulb on white wire. Click here to go to our mini light page.

If you really want to go all out, our rose lights are great for decorating tables or any where that needs a little something to really make it special. They come in White, Red, and a Pink style with 10 bulbs on white or green wire. We really like these sets, they are high quality and don't look cheesy like most other decorative/novelty style light sets, which is really important on a special day like valentines day. Click here to find these sets on the site.

--
Zach

Storing Christmas Lights

The season has come and gone, but like many of us great procrastinators out there I'm sure many of you still have up your tree and lights. Here are some simple and easy steps on how to properly store your lights!

1. Take care when removing your lights. Don't just yank them down off the tree or the house. Take the time to do it right, you'll be glad you did next year.
2. Fix faulty strings BEFORE you store them. Taking the time to fix your sets now will save you the time, money, and stress next season! Invest in a tester tool or repair box.
   
3. Unscrew the bulbs. What is a sure fire way to make a knot in your light line and break bulbs? Not removing them before storage. Those little boxes we ship C7 and C9 bulbs in are really handy, don't toss them. Save your boxes and properly store your bulbs and they'll last longer.
4. Wind up your mini lights. Here is a easy tip on storing mini lights and other pre made light strings, take a scrap cardboard piece and cut it into a rectangle, cut a small slit on one side of the board and slip your plug into that slit, start wrapping your lights around the board without overlapping the wires, when you get to the end of the wire cut another slit and put the end plug or bulb into that slit.
   
5. Proper Storage. As with all your holiday decorations it's best keep them in a dry place and in a good container. Manly people use plastic storage boxes and they are a great way to go, get the kind with a lid that snaps or latches on.
6. Labels, labels, labels. Label those boxes! So many times I've misplaced decorations and or gotten out the wrong box when decorating.

Follow these steps and take time when storing your lights and next years decorating off without a hitch!

--
Zach

2010 is here! Time for a Sale!

It's been a while since we've updated the blog. Well we had a great season this year, thanks to so many people taking advantage of our coupons we had going on in the season. We appreciate all of the business that new and old customers had with us this year!

Now, we are having a end of the year sale. Click here to see whats on sale! We are selling Mini lights, LED lights, C7 & C9 Bulbs, Rice lights, Icicle Lights, Spheres and more! Some of these products are discounted up to 50% off our standard price! We are not going to have all of the products on sale permanently so order early and gear up for next season.

This next year we hope to really improve both aachristmas.com and allamericanchristmas.com, we hope to offer more of the large displays and products for commercial customers.

--
Zach