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.

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?
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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!

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!

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Zach
All American Christmas Co.

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.

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Zach

Happy Halloween!!

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!

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Zach

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.

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Zach

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!

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Zach

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.

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!

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Zach

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

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Zach

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.

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Zach

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!

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.

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.






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Zach

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.


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!

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

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.

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Zach