Choosing the Right Christmas Light Clips

The holidays will be here before we know it and it will be time to hang those lights again. We know that is only August and it might be a little early to start thinking about your holiday decorations, but you can never be too prepared. Hanging Christmas lights on your roof and windows can be time consuming and frustrating. Especially, being at the top of a ladder and just barley being able to reach that last light to get it just right. Why not try to hang your lights like the professionals by choosing just the right Christmas light clips for your decorating project. Let us give you a few tips for choosing.

Clips for C7 and C9 Lights

A lot of people like the look of a traditional C7 or C9 Christmas light bulb for their home holiday decor. If this is your choice of bulb you will need a clip that can hold a the larger bulb and to set the light in the direction you choose. The best clip for this application is an all application light clip because it can be on gutters, shingles, allows bulbs to  be hung in different directions on gutters or shingles and has folding tabs for a tight grip.Use one clip per bulb for a clean and straight roof line.

Hanging Lights on Shingles

A shingled roof can present a unique problem if you do not have the right clips to hang your lights. Shingle tabs will easily slide neatly right under your roofing shingles. They will stand upright to perfectly display your lights and will not damage your shingles. 

Clips for Icicle Lights

Icicle lights are a traditional look for the holidays. It always puts me in the holiday spirit when i see people in our town putting up there icicle lights. You have to be sure when you hang them that they are hung properly with the right clips, that way they look their best. Multi application clips will work perfectly for this application. These clips will hook onto gutters in a traditional horizontal position, where the icicle wire will run along the bottom of the gutter without sagging. These clips can also hold mini lights, C7 and C9 light strings, which allows you to hang your regular Christmas lights at the same time from the same clip. This will save space, time and give you a layered look. 

--
Hannah
All American Christmas Co.

Christmas Light Clips on Sale

We are blowing out all our most popular christmas light clips! Prices are knocked down and we are still offering 10% off any online order of $40 or more so stock up know and save.

All American Christmas Co. carries a variety of clips for hanging / mounting lights to a variety of surfaces. All in One and All in One Plus clips allow you to put lights quickly around your roof or clipped to gutters and hold a number of bulbs. Our icicle lights offer fast icicle light string installation (just remember to take them down before valentines day people!). Our Shingle tabs (seen on the left) are great for holding C7 and C9 bulbs under shingles and if you use a parapet clip you can easily outline a building with just some silicon adhesive!

Check out all the Christmas light clips we have to offer and stock now!

--
Zach

Light Clips

There is a plethora of ways to affix your Christmas lights to your home these days. Generally in a residential situation you want to use a clip that is not permanent and will not leave evidence that you had Christmas lights up.

To the left, you can see an All in One clip in use; it slides right under the shingle on your roof. IT can also be used on gutters or wherever else you can securely clip it. It can hold C7, C9, mini lights and even some LED lights. The brother to the All in One is the All in One Plus; it’s similar in appearance but has a couple more features that gives it that Plus status. The clip that goes around a gutter or on top of a shingle has an extra hook for hanging wire. For example, if you were using the All in One Plus on your gutters for C7 bulbs and wanted to hang icicle lights as well, you could do that with this one clip.

There are several multi-use clips, such as an omni clip, and are very popular because of the large number of uses. Although clips with just a single use are great if you don’t need all the extra bells and whistles. Shingle tabs, bi-axle clips, icicle clips and s few others are all single use clips. They generally only hold one or maybe two type(s) of bulb.

Most clips don’t require any sort of permanent installation. The c-clip, the parapet clip (which works with the shingle tab clip), the mini light adhesive clip, the quick clip and some others do require some sort of installation that can be permanent. Some clips use a double sided adhesive pad and/or nailing down. This might pose a problem for those of you not wanting to put holes in your siding or roof line. In most cases the clips that require a permanent installation are more for commercial uses or year round lighting.

Check out our selection of lights clips.

Hannah
All American Christmas Co.
www.aachristmas.com
www.allamericanchristmas.com

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!

--
Zach

Light Clips...

There are a plethora of ways to affix your lights to your home these days. Generally in a residential situation you want to use a clip that is not permanent and will not leave evidence that you had Christmas lights up.

This is a ALL IN ONE clip in use, you can see how it slides under shingles on your roof. It can also be used on gutters, or wherever else you can securely clip it. It can hold C7, C9, Mini lights, and even some LED lights. The brother to the ALL IN ONE is the ALL IN ONE PLUS, it's similar in appearance but has a couple more features that gives it the PLUS status. The clip that goes around a gutter or on top of a shingle has an extra hook for hanging wire. For example, if you were using the ALL IN ONE PLUS on your gutters to hold C7 bulbs and wanted to hang icicle lights as well you could with this one clip.

There are other multi use clips, such as the omni clip, and are very popular because of the large number of uses. Clips that have a single use, like Shingle Tabs, are great if you don't need all the bells and whistles.

Single Tab Clips, Bi-Axle Clips, Icicle Clips, and the like are all single use clips. They generally can only hold one (sometimes two) type(s) of bulb. Most of these clips don't require any sort of permanent installation, some clips do. The C-Clip, the Parapet Clip (which works with the Shingle Tab clip), the Mini Light Adhesive Clip, the Quick Clip, and so on do require some sort of installation that can be permanent. Some clips use a sticky double sided adhesive pad and/or require nailing or screwing down. This can pose a problem for those not wanting to put holes in their siding or roof line, but in most cases these clips are uses for more commercial or year around lighting.

I hope you've learned a little something about Christmas Lights clips, head over to our Clips page to see our entire selection of clips.
--
Zach Broyles
All American Christmas Co.