Friday, January 7, 2011

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!
--
Zach

Thursday, December 30, 2010

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!


Monday, December 20, 2010

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.

Monday, December 13, 2010

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!


--
Zach

Thursday, December 9, 2010

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

Monday, November 15, 2010

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

Thursday, November 11, 2010

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

Thursday, October 14, 2010

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

Friday, September 24, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

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!

--
Zach

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

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

Monday, August 30, 2010

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

Thursday, August 26, 2010

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

Monday, August 23, 2010

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

Thursday, August 12, 2010

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 fact
s 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

Friday, July 30, 2010

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

Thursday, July 15, 2010

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

Friday, July 2, 2010

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

Monday, May 24, 2010

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

Thursday, May 20, 2010

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

Monday, May 17, 2010

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

Monday, March 22, 2010

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

Monday, March 15, 2010

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

Saturday, February 27, 2010

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.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

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

Friday, February 5, 2010

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.

Monday, January 11, 2010

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

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

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

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

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

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! As a way of saying thanks to our customers we are offering a 5% coupon on all online orders. Enter the coupon code Turkey2009 during checkout to get the discount on your order. We are running this sale until Dec. 5th so order early to make sure you get your lights delivered well before Christmas rolls in!

Please note that this offer is only valid on online orders only.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

New Long Lead Craft Lights and LED Craft Lights

We are now carrying two lines of Craft Mini lights, we have a 12" lead and now a 36" lead. These 36" Mini Light craft sets come in both a 20 bulb count set and a 35 bulb count set. All the options you would expect are here, all standard colors, and both white and green wire. But the really selling point of these strings is the long lead, sometime a foot of wire just isn't enough for a plug on craft projects. Adding another 2 feet may not seem like a big improvement, but when you're trying to hide wire and use less extension cords, it is! Let's use some underscores to prove a point, The first row is 6 underscore lines and the second line I just copied and pasted 3 sets of 6 so imagine the first line is 12" inches and the next line is 36"...big difference, huh?
______
__________________


We have these sets in cases of 25 and individual sets and they are ready for immediate shipment! These sets have a 3" inch space and 8' total length. We are determined to bring our customers the most options available and our craft lights have to be our most popular product line!

Speaking of options, we now have 2 sets of LED lights that are perfect for crafts! These new sets are a 25 Light set with Warm White Concave style bulbs and come in both Green and White wire. They have a 6' total length with a 3.5" bulb spacing with a 24" lead wire! These are the perfect mini light alternative, you can go green and make some killer looking crafts...all at the same time!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Ultra Thin LED lights

We love our LED battery powered sets, they are perfect for decorating parties, for holidays, weddings, and crafts. Last year I even used some battery powered LED lights inside a jack-o-lantern for some cool effects. But until recently the most exciting thing to happen to battery powered lights lately was the availability of more bulb styles, which is...kind of boring. Well, that all has changed with the introduction of Ultra Thin LED lights.

These are some of the coolest lights I've ever seen. We got our cases in and pulled out a set. Well right off the bat we knew these tiny sets were something special, their packaging is about 3 inches wide and 1 inch deep. After removing the set from its packaging we pop in 3 AA batteries and boom, all of 18 small LEDs light up and are very bright for as small as they are. The picture to your left makes these bulbs look like they are about half an inch long, in reality they are about the size of a uncooked piece of rice. The wire itself is not insulated rubber wire but stiff wire that has been coated with a form of paint for insulation. It's easily bent and twisted but doesn't feel brittle or that it's going to snap into pieces after bending the wire a couple times. We ran a test in house to see how long they'd last on 3 AA batteries, and they ran almost continuous for around 48 ours easy.

Again it's hard to imagine how small these bulbs really are so here are some pictures of them next to some common items. You can see how much small it is when compared to a dime and even the tip of a ball point ink pen, and see how small they are laying on a ruler.




Click here to check out these cool sets on the site!

--
Zach
All American Christmas Co.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Happy Labor Day, we like to call it New 20's Day!

So when you're a family business trying to do all you can to keep your website up to date sometimes you have to work on holidays, but hey, it's good for the customer right?!

We have a new line of 20 mini light cases, they are just like our other 20 light sets but instead of being limited to Clear and Multi colored sets, we now carry a full line of colors! Amber, Blue, Green, Teal, Read, Yellow, and Teal and now ready for drop shipment! They are packed 25 sets to a cases and are priced just like our other sets.

Check them out and start getting crafty with these new Mini light sets! Click here to view.

UPDATE! The white wire will be in stock in two weeks. Looks like my excitement in new lights got the better of me.

--
Zach

Monday, August 31, 2009

LED Craft lights

Finally, the long wait is over. We have in stock our very own, custom 25 light count Wide Angle LED light sets with No End Connector! They are $9.99 and have all the massive benefits of LED while giving you the same convenience that the 20 and 35 light count mini light sets.

Some of this sets benefits are, Low power consumption (2.4 watts a set!), No heat, Warm White bulbs (simulate incandescent bulbs), 2 foot power lead, No end connector (great for crafts!), Wide angle bulb to evenly spread out the light


Here is the difference in color between incandescent mini lights and warm white led craft lights

These sets may be more up front than the 20 count and 35 count mini lights, but they are going to outlast those other sets for many many seasons. If you're making crafts for yourself or for someone else these sets will also really help you save on electricity, 25 ct LED Craft sets pull 2.4 watts a set, but a 20 mini lights pull 9.6 watts a set, that's 1 watt for every 2 bulbs!

Head to our craft section or led page to check these sets out, or click the links below
Click here!

--
Zach

Friday, August 21, 2009

Icicle light sets and bulbs

Growing up it always felt more like Christmas when I would start to see the houses in my hometown being lit up with icicle lights. It's funny how something so simple as lights around a roof line can really put someone in the Christmas mood. Why icicle lights are a great Christmas light decoration? Well they are easy to install and they are look great once the wire settles out and the drops straighten. Just hang them properly on your gutters or under the roofing material and they will look great all season, just don't be lazy try and to take them down before Valentine's Day.

All American Christmas Co. has a full line of Icicle lights available to let you decorate you home or business exactly how you want. Our traditional incandescent bulb Icicle Lights come in a variety of options, which include:
  • Green or White wire color
  • 100, 150, or 300 bulb counts
  • Clear, Red,Green, Blue, Purple, and Multi Colored Bulbs
  • Random Twinkle, Dripping, and Color Changing Effects on certain strings
  • Commercial Quality Heavy Duty Icicles
These icicle light sets are great for just about any application, where one might use icicle lights anyway. The different bulb counts let you decorate with more control over the number of bulbs. The colored bulb sets let you stand out from everyone else, or match a color motif you may already have. The Random Twinkle and Dripping sets give you some motion so you aren't just with static lights if you don't want some movement on your sets. The color changing sets again add some movement and the ability to change the color of the strings back and forth with a controller.

We also carry a line of LED Icicle lights. These LED Icicle sets have a M5 Bulb style and come in Pure white, Warm White, Multi, Blue, and Wave Colors. Wave sets change from Pure White to Blue, inside the bulb itself. We also carry a new screw in C7 base Icicle bulbs, these bulb sets are great if you are outlining your hows with C7 LED bulbs. Every couple feet or so throw one of these cool looking (pardon the pun) into a socket to simulate the look of icicles hanging from the roof.

If you have any other questions pertaining to our selection of Christmas icicle lights, head over to the website and take a look around and send us a email if you need.

--
Zach

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Sport Rope Light Signs, Just in time for football season!

Just in time for football season! These signs are lit with high quality rope light and are Licensed Logos by the NFL, MLB, and NCAA! These are great for use indoor and out to let people know what team you root for!

Some more specs from the manufacturer:
  • A unique, cost-effective alternative to Neon signs
  • Display indoors or outdoors to show your team spirit
  • Wall and ground mounting systems included
  • Durable rope light with 1" bulb spacing, shaped and mounted on a steel frame
  • NFL/MLB/NCAA licensed
  • UL Listed

Click here to see what all sports team signs we have in stock!

--
Zach

Saturday, August 1, 2009

New 35 light count colored mini lights!

We finally received our shipment which had all our specialized Christmas Mini Light strings on it, so our stock is replenished and we have some new products for sale.

Our 20 count and 35 count have been our best selling sets all summer! We're happy to say we're adding 2 new color sets to the 35 light count White Wire sets, Blue and Red! Sure, white wire strings with colors is nothing new, but it is for our 35 light strings. These sets will surely make their way into countless craft projects, parties, weddings, and holiday displays.

More information on our 35 light count sets:
Approx. 3 Inch Spaced 35 Red Mini Lights on White Wire - Stackable (Male) plug with No End Connector - 12" Distance from the male plug to the first bulb - Approx. 9 ft in length

Click here to check out the new mini light strings we have in stock.

Friday, July 24, 2009

The elusive colored 20 count Mini Light string!

A customer of ours was in need of something that we at All American Christmas Company consider an oddity, a 20 count light string with colored lights. Not Multi colored mind you, just a string of one consistent color. Now one might think, "Hey, I can just take this old 100 count set, jerk the bulbs out, and put in this 20 set!" and you would assume that it would work...well, it will not work. We hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is a very simple explanation for this, bulb voltages. Most all 50 count and 100 lights strings use a very standard 2.5 volt mini lights bulb, however mini light strings with smaller bulb counts use bulbs with higher voltage. 35 count sets use 3.5 volts and 20 lights use 6 volt.

This is why one just can swap bulbs for sets, you can't go mixing or changing the bulb voltages. If you are curious as to what your light sets have check any documentation or labels that come with the sets. If you have any sort of paper work in the box or poly bag then it should have some indication of bulb voltages.

Back to colored sets, none of our distributors have 20 count minis that come in anything beside clear and multi. Sure there may be someone out there that has them, but the big names in the game that we go through sadly do not. There is one "work around" but it takes extra sets and some patience, our multi colored have Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and Pink. Normally our 20 count multi sets have 4 bulbs of the 5 colors on one string, so you can take 5 sets you can mix and match the bulbs to make 5 sets of complete colored sets. And before the wheels start turning, no we don't do this. It's about as simple as stacking Lego bricks, so you shouldn't worry.

Another question that we get asked is if you can clip the wires on a set to shorten it. No, it'll screw with the voltage of the set itself, and it's better to work around it than kill the string and have to buy another!

--
Zach

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Banner Programs

On our commercial site, www.allamericanchristmas.com, we have just completely revamped our banner sections. The new categories are Spring/Summer, Autumn, Winter/Holiday, All Season, Patriotic, and Junior Size. These 6 different sections mean that you can get the prefect banner for your city, town, business, or where ever it may be you want to hang banners. These new high quality come in Screen Print (up to 4 colors) and Full Color Digital Prints. On the Digital Prints everything can be customized, you change the font, the colors, sizes of images, and so on. The ability to customize means that banners can be perfect matched to your needs! All banners are made on high quality fabrics that will hold up season after season.

We can also create custom banners from customer artwork or ideas so that logos and images can faithfully be represented. We can help you design and actualize your ideas.

There is a new line of hardware for these banners, these high quality mounting kits will securely hold your banners season after season.


Please visit our other site to see all the banners we have to offer. Click Here

--
Zach

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The different types of plugs for Christmas lights

There are quite a few different types of plugs that you'll find at the end of different light sets. Some are just manufacturer preferences, some are specific for types of lights, and some are designed to meet electrical standards of the sets themselves.

For most mini lights you'll find fused male plugs, fused plugs have a small electrical fuse inside the plug (usually protected by a sliding door) so that if there is an overload in the wire or problem the fuse takes the hit, not the bulbs. Fused plugs are also found on low bulb count C7 and C9 stringers sometimes. You can usually spot if a plug is fused because the plug itself is rather large and will have some sort of door for opening the fuse compartment.

For small bulb count mini lights you can sometimes find stack plugs. Usually mini light strings with 35 or less bulbs come with this style of plug so you can stack the plugs for craft projects. The male plug has a female connection on the back so you can stack the plug with other plugs.

Some style of Christmas lights have detachable or specialized plug that allow you screw multiple sets together. Some rice lights (ultra rice sets) have this type of separate power plug and all the Commercial quality LED sets have specialized removable power plugs.

--
Zach

Monday, June 22, 2009

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.

--
Zach
All American Christmas Co.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

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.

--
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


--
Zach

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

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

--
Zach

Friday, June 5, 2009

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!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Chasing Lighting Controllers.

Since we started our site we've always tried to give customers the most affordable ways to control their lights at an affordable price. We work with one of the best lighting controller manufacturer in the country to bring reliable and functional Christmas light controllers to everyone.

Our Chasing controllers come in a variety of options. We have a preset controllers (shown on the left), on these controllers you simply plug your lights in and set a chase speed. These controllers come in 2, 3, and 4 circuit options with either a metal or plastic enclosure. To operate these sets you plug in your lights, power up the box, and use the small speed dial to set the speed at which you want your outlets. We've handled these for years and I can't think of a single instance of one of these being faulty from the factory, they are a quality Made in the USA controller that will last year after year.




We also have a programmable controller that allows you to create your own chasing pattern. These controllers are typically larger and more expensive but you can create much more elaborate chasing sequences. These controllers are used to animated larger displays, lets say you want to make a snow ball fight for two light displays, these controllers will do just that. They work by either changing some wire jumpers or setting positions on Dip switches. By adjusting these connections you can get the lighting show perfect for your Christmas or any display. These controller have the ability to power 3 to 10 different outlets and the higher number of outlets the more options you have for different lighting effects. These controllers are also Made in the USA.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New Specialty lighting products

We've got a new handful of new specialty products coming and in stock. We got a selection of what is called Kringle Garland, Its a globe covered mini light garland set. It looks great for adding into greenery such as pine garland or wreaths. The sets are in two different cluster types, one with 3 globes, and one with two globes and one twinkle bulb. The twinkle bulbs are random and really look great and add some motion to a static piece. The globes have a iridescent look to them which adds to the look of these sets.

We have these sets in clear bulbs on green wire and multi color bulbs on green wire are coming soon.

We are also getting some new Micro and Ultra Thin LED sets. Micro LED sets have a very small LED bulb in a socket and feature 60 bulbs a set, our sets will be warm white on white wire. These sets are great for adding small points of light while decorating, such as parties or weddings.



Ultra Thin LED sets are a battery powered sets that have no large sockets but a small LED bulb thats part of the wire itself. This thin design lets you put light in areas where you wouldn't normally be able too. These sets run off 3 AA batteries, have 18 bulbs a set, they have a 18 inch lead and 4 inch bulb space. These sets are coming soon.

We're going to be blogging a lot more since I'm out of school for the summer. We've got some changes to make and improve our site. Stay Tuned.






--
Zach

Monday, April 20, 2009

Decorating with Curtain lights

As trends go, the use of curtain lights for Non-Christmas events has risen steadily over the past 3 years. The biggest use of these Curtain sets has for this non holiday use has been for Weddings and other Special Events. The most common way people use these for weddings is by hanging them on a wall or on a frame of some sort. Keep in mind that the weight of normal curtain lights (which are constructed like icicle mini lights) and Commercial curtain lights GREATLY vary in terms of weight.

Hanging Curtain Lights from your wall is, fairly, simple. If you have a drop ceiling then you can easily use a light weight wire or string and hang them from the ceiling grid. If you have walls you can drill or hammer nails into then you can very easily put some nails or hooks up. The biggest issue people run into is not being able to drill into a wall, or having concrete walls that have no drop ceiling you have a couple options. If you can hide it there is always heavy duty tape, duct tape of some sort comes in a variety of colors and even clear duct tape is now available. Some people have said they have used items like 3M's Command Line of adhesive hooks and hangers to hang these sets, you just have to make sure with any type of product that you can distribute the weight evenly. Nothing is worse than hanging your sets only to have not hung them properly and they come tumbling down in one section or the whole set.

Hanging them from some sort of frame is and easier option, so long as the frame itself can handle the weight. The frame or stand could be anything from just a couple pieces of PVC pipe made into a stand or frame of wood or metal. After you construct your frame/stand you can easily mount your sets, depending on it's constructing you can screw clips, mount nails, tape, zip tie, the list goes on and on. This can also allow you to hang some sort of fabric in front of your lights. This is a great way to set the mood and soften up the lights. Like in the picture below.

Curtain Lights
I hope this give you a little insight into hanging curtain lights. Please visit our curtain light section and wedding section for more wedding decorating ideas!

--
Zach
All American Christmas Co.
www.aachristmas.com
www.allamericanchristmas.com

Saturday, March 21, 2009

New LED sets for crafts!

So I've rambled and ranted about why LED bulbs and light sets are a better investment and so on, but every once in a while a new product shows up on the horizon and we get really excited in our office. We got a call from one of our suppliers/manufacturers about a new set designed for those people who need a LED for smaller scale and craft projects. After some negotiation with the factory and deliberation in our office we came up with a set that's going to be, dare I say, perfect for the niche it needs to fill.

Coming very soon is a LED light set that will have approx 20-25 Bulbs, 3-4 Inch Spacing, and no end connector and a extra long lead wire!!

...chances are you aren't as excited as we are, though, you should be if you are a fan of making crafts with Christmas lights. Imagine how you're Glass Blocks and Wine Bottles will look with these sets. They will generate no heat use very little power! The extra footage for the power chord means less extension chords, and the long life and reliability of these sets means less issues with customers. I could go on!

Stay tuned to the blog and I'll be sure to post when these great sets will be in for sale.

--
Zach