Lighting Glass Blocks and Bottles

One trend that is going strong and looks to continue to do so is Lighting Glass blocks and Wine/Champagne bottles. How you go about making these is really only limited to budget and/or tools available. You'll need to have some sort of drill bit or hole saw designed to cut glass, diamond bits are a good choice.

You'll clean the bottle or block and be sure to remove any labels (if you so choose), tape off the area you're wanting to drill with some duct tape and mark where you're going to want to drill.

Now, you can use a hand drill, but you've got to keep the object steady, it's better to go with something like a Drill press and have some sort of jig made up to hold your bottle or block perfectly still. You may want to use some sort of lubricant (WD-40 oil or something similar) to keep the glass from shattering.

Once you've drilled the hole that you're going to fish the lights through, remove the tape and rinse the bottle to remove any tiny bits of glass.

Once you've done all that your bottle is ready for lights! We carry 3 different styles of lights at this moment are perfect for this style of craft! Click here to go to our Mini Light page Our 15, 20, and 35 count light strings are great for this stuff because they have a small bulb count and don't have a end connector. That means lower heat and no clipping off plugs! We have a variety of wire and bulb options that will work for any style of craft and any color glass, not just white/clear or green glass! We also have LED battery lights which would work well for these Glass projects and would not limit you to placing these items by a power outlet. Click here for Battery Operated LED sets and Here for Cases

Plug up your light string when you're inserting them, why? The biggest reason is so that you don't loosen the bulbs and kill the string and saves you from having to redo it. The smallest bit of preparation saves you from giving yourself a headache.

Once your lights are in and working, decorate any way you see fit. Some people light to put on rub on transfers, or bows, or paint. Just be sure to take your time and have fun with it!

We have a large selection of lights perfect for this and will soon be carrying small count LEDs strings that would work great for this style of project. They should be in in the next few months.

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Zach
All American Christmas Co.

Mini Christmas Lights

Mini Lights are arguably the most common of Christmas lights available on the market today. Theres a handful of names for them (twinkle lights, fairy lights, miniature lights, tree lights, the list goes on) and year after year regardless of the popularity of LED Christmas lights, Mini Christmas Lights always come out on top.

We do get questions about these lights on a fairly regular basis.

How Many Sets Can I Plug Together?
The rule we go by is 3 sets, or no more than 300 bulbs. Typically 300 mini light bulbs is about 1 amp (or 110 watts) and you're best not to exceed that in one continuous run of lights, if you do then you run the risk of two things blowing fuses or blowing bulbs. Neither of those two make for a good decorating project, so we suggest making custom light power strips (click here to learn how!). This rule of 3 (or 300) is good for any style of mini light product; strings, icicles, curtains, nets, the list goes on.

Can I clip the plug off of the end if I don't need it?
WE NEVER RECOMMEND CUSTOMIZING A LIGHT STRING! This is a question you always have to answer carefully, because if a set has JUST TWO (2) wires going into the female plug, yes you can so long tape each wire off separately. If your set has more than two (2) wires then no, you shouldn't clip the plug off. PLEASE NOTE, we never recommend doing this because you're putting yourself at risk, and we of course will not be held accountable for any warranty or replacement for a customized string. So if you can get by without clipping the end plug, please do so. Or look at our No End Connector (NEC) sets as an alternative.

What does "End Connector" mean?
This is probably the second most common question we get and the answer is quite simple, think of the "Beginning" of a string as the plug that goes into the Wall, the male plug. The "End" of the string is the opposite end of the string were there is (or isn't) a female plug. The majority of 50 to 100 bulb count light strings have a end connector so you can connect sets "End to End". Our most popular Mini light strings have to be our "No End Connector" sets, these sets only have the male plug at the beginning of the string and end with a bulb instead of a female plug. NEC (no end connector) sets are perfect for crafts and decorating where you don't need and/or want that plug at the end of a string.

If one bulb burns out, do the rest stay lit?
Yes, almost all of the sets in production now come with a shunt. A shunt keeps the power flowing through the bulb even if the filament is burnt out or broken. All of our mini lights have this feature, and we hope that those old days of burnt bulbs killing strings are a thing of the past. Now remember, if a bulb is loose or twisted it WILL cause the string to not light, regardless of the filaments condition.

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Zach
All American Christmas Co.

Christmas Lights.org

A new site we've been working on for a while is finally up and running. What we plan on doing with this site is to provide as much general (and technical) information on products as possible. Building a sort of Online Christmas Light information database, helping the general public get a better knowledge of how LED Christmas Lights work, or how many Mini lights you can string together. Be sure to check it out!

Christmas Lights.org

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Zach

New Battery Powered Christmas Lights

We've been slowly, but surely, expanding our selection of battery powered LED Christmas lights sets to have one of the largest LED battery powered sets online. The old Battery powered Christmas light strings were something of a novelty, they were usually a very poor construction, had dim bulbs, used large "C" size batteries, and the battery life on some sets were less than 6 hours. So, you get a relatively inexpensive set of lights that runs on some of the more expensive batteries that you've got to replace after just a few uses, is that really shopping smart?

Enter LED Battery Powered sets, these sets come in a variety of bulb styles (Concave, M5 and Short M5) and really ramp up the quality compared to those old incandescent bulb sets. These sets use the more common "AA" batteries and can be run for 20+ hours before they've started to dim (and even then, they are still lit). Sets start around 13 dollars, and while that is higher than even a normal set of mini lights all the benefits of the leds will really add to the value of these sets.

These sets come in all your standard LED Colors; Pure white, Warm White, Multi Color, Red, Blue, Green, etc... And some colors come with a White Wire option.

Battery Powered LED stringers look great for Weddings, Parties, Proms, or anything other special occasion. Not only are they great for the above mentioned lighting applications but they are awesome for craft projects. So many people are doing the Glass Block and Glass Bottle light craft projects and these sets are PERFECT for this type of craft. LEDs generate no heat, the batteries allow you put the craft practically anywhere, and the bulbs wont come loose and rarely , if ever, burn out.

Click here to check out all of our Battery Christmas Lights

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Zach

The Benefits of Timers.

Timers are a great way to control your holiday home lighting. By setting up times for your lights to burn you'll use less energy and cut back on those high electricity bills and extend the life of your Christmas Light sets. Timers range in style from the simple analog to programmable digital models. The number of outlets also will vary between models, from one to six.

Timers let you set your light displays up to only turn on when the sun is going down. Simply set the time when you want your sets to come on and when you want them to turn off. Let's say you want your sets to come on at 8 o'clock am and off at 2 o'clock pm just set the "ON" setting to 8pm and the "OFF" setting to 2 am. With our analog style timers you can do this for a couple times a day. Our digital timers however allow you to do multiple timed events for individual days. Our heavy duty digital timer have 14 on and off settings per day, so that's a total of 98 settings per week, that's a lot of control. They are easy to use and program and normally retail for under 40 dollars.

These are a easy and relatively inexpensive way to keep on top of controlling the burn time of your lights. Unless you want to plug them up and control them yourself throughout the day, invest in a timer and take the hassle out of plugging all your lights up at night!

Click here to see our timer section!