Craft Lights! Perfect for bottles and glass blocks.

We here at All American Christmas Co. are proud to carry the best mini light and LED craft light strings. For Mini lights our 20 count and 35 count light strings both are made with only one plug, we call these sets No End Connector sets (or NEC for short). These light strings have the male plug with up to 3 feet of lead wire (wire from the plug to the first bulb) and they end with a bulb instead of a female plug. So with these sets you cannot plug them end to end, which makes them great for decorating glass blocks or bottles.

Our 20's and 35's, as we call them, come in a variety of bulb colors with all the standard mini light colors being represented. These lights come on both Green and White wire. These strings are relatively short so you wont have a mile of wire inside your craft project, or have to have lights hanging outside the craft either, using sets that made for this type of project will help make a cleaner looking end product! Our 3 foot lead sets are great because you don't have to use and extension cord to plug the craft in in most instances!

We have a couple options for LED craft sets, we have two 25 light count sets that come on either white or green wire with Warm White leds. The sets are NEC and are a low power & long life alternative to mini lights. They have a higher upfront cost but are going to last over 10 times longer! We also have battery powered LED sets, they will last Approx 30 hours with 3 AA batteries, and would be great for decorating without having to worry about a wire running down the wall.

Click here for Mini lights & LED Craft lights!

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Zach

2011 Bulb Sale Happening Soon!

We are going to be putting all of our Replacement bulbs on sale for cities and businesses very soon. Cases of C7 and C9 bulbs in both Incandescent and LED styles will be highly discounted. Customers will be billed in Late Fall 2011 and products ordered will ship Late August/Early September 2011.

This sale is going to help cities and business get bulbs for replacing burnt out or damaged bulbs that are used in Holiday Decorating. Check our last blog to learn more about restoring displays!

Email or Call us to learn more about the upcoming sale!

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Zach

Restoring your Christmas Displays

The Holiday season can put some major wear and tear on Christmas Displays. Bulbs break and burn out, UV rays wear our plastic, Clips come loose or break and after multiple seasons your displays may look a little lackluster. Wear and tear is a natural thing and happens from use and even when you move them to storage. We get calls on a regular basis if we do restoration work for displays, we have brought old displays to life. We completely restored a intricate angel tree topper for Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN. But typically it's cheaper for the customer to do the restoration themselves.

If the display just needs bulbs replaced we suggest ordering all new bulbs, old bulbs don't burn as bright as new bulbs and it's obvious once the displays is on a lit that certain bulbs are new and some are old. We sell both Incandescent bulbs and LED, LED bulbs will cost more up front but save you money in the long run because they use such little power and their hard plastic bulbs are much harder to break.

Displays that are lit with Mini lights or small LED usually use Sculpture Clips to attach the sockets to the metal frame displays. These clips can come loose and get lost or break. If you're missing clips we have three different sizes in Black and White that are perfect for fixing up your Light displays. They come in 1/8", 3/16", and 1/4" sizes. The size of a sculpture clip reflects the size of the opening that will clip on the displays frame. You can easily measure your displays frame diameter with a crescent wrench and a ruler, simple slide the wrench onto the frame and tighten it down, slide it off them measure the opening and viola you have your size.

If you are lighting your display with C7 or C9 bulbs you will have to use 18 gauge wire with sockets on it. Replacing this wire is a fairly simple job. Remove all the existing wiring, and if you are so inclined now is the perfect time to wire brush and paint your frame ( a couple coats of a quality spray paint will work fine, just allow it to dry fully before wiring). There are a couple ways to secure the wire/sockets. You can use electrical tape to tightly wrap the sockets and wire to the frame, but always cut the electrical tape with scissors or a knife, pulling the tape causes it to stretch and after time it shrinks back to normal and will come loose. Another option is using zip ties. Both of these methods will take a long time so be patient and don't rush! The more you pace yourself and do it right the longer before you have to do it again!

I hope this gives you some insight into how you can go about restoring Christmas Displays!

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Zach

Planning ahead for Christmas!

When it comes to getting decorations for a city or town the key word is preparation. If you wait until September to order Pole decorations, Large Displays, Banners, or Holiday Signs you're going to be too late! Cities have started to get in touch with us on getting pole decorations. Since most cities and business still have some of their decorations still up it'll help you get an idea of what needs to be updated or replaced.

In our small town after the snowflakes we provided our main streets have already had bulbs burn out or get damaged so you can easily get an idea of how man bulbs your going to need for the next season. Many old pole decorations can easily be spruced up with new lights or switching to LED replacement bulbs. Making the switch to LED may be expensive but considering the long life of LEDs and the low power consumption it is a great option. A standard C7 Christmas bulb uses 5 watts where most LED C7 bulbs use .96 watts! So if a display has 150 bulbs with Incandescent lights will use 750 watts of power and LED will use 144 watts, which is a staggering about of electricity saved! Below is a difference between a Incandescent and a LED bulbs.

If you have an idea about replacing your downtowns Pole Decorations or adding new displays to your existing collection you can shoot us an email or give us a call. We have access to the largest Display manufacturers in the United States, so if you can dream it we can build it. We can help you design custom pieces, Welcome signs are a great type of displays to put at the entrance to your city or business, You can have a Welcome message and add a couple displays on the sides to tie it in. In Sparta, TN we made a Welcome to Sparta sign with an Acoustic guitar and Musical Notes because Lester Flatt (A bluegrass guitarist and songwriter) was born here. So you can see how something simple as a few displays could really speak volumes about your town or business.

Have any questions? Give us a call or email us!

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Zach