Monday, November 14, 2011

How to Put Christmas Tree Lights on a Christmas Tree: Part Six

Are Micro Lights Right for Your Christmas Tree?
Micro lights  -- also called "rice" lights -- are very tiny, very delicate lights.  I have been able to find them in both LED as well as incandescent. They are energy efficient and don't throw off a lot of heat.  They also don't give off a very large "aura" (or halo) of light but  provide little pinpricks of intense color. They are smaller versions of the miniature lights and lower in voltage.
I found a lot of conflicting information regarding micro lights.  Some websites say that micro lights are for indoor lighting only, but then I found some micro lights that were indoor/outdoor.  I found some information that said micro lights have no end to end connectors and some that said micro lights can be "stacked" -- which means plug into plug -- up to 20 strings.  I found some micro lights that were good for 3000 hours of glowing and some that were good for 12,000.  All the ones I studied stated that if one bulb goes out, all the rest of them stay lit. Yay!

Most of the micro lights suitable for Christmas trees are in strings with 35 lights, 50 lights and 100 lights. The wires on micro lights are thinner which makes them easier to hide, and so far I've found them with wire colors of green, white and silver.  On most of the strings, there is at least 20" inches of lead in wire -- wire without lights.  And there is a variety of spacing between the lights, from 2" up to 3.5".  Several of the "Christmas tree lighting" websites recommend them for smaller projects, like windowsill or mantel displays. Some micro lights even come with a battery pack, which makes them ideal for wreaths and kissing balls. I wonder if they could be used to adorn an "ugly" Christmas sweater? 

Micro lights come in a wide variety of colors such as: white, white frost, blue, red, green, gold, pink, purple, amber, yellow and multi-colored. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi miss Bee

    Do you have any links to share to purchace the rice lights? I bought the luminera candles lights and want lights for my tree that won't overpower them yet still be able to see my ornaments. Thank you for any help!

    ReplyDelete