2013 Planet Christmas (Mini) Convention

2013PlanetChristmasMini, a photo by ladybugfalcon on Flickr.

John and I are up in Celebration, FL this weekend for a mini convention called "Florida Planet Christmas Mini Convention." We are learning about the future of Christmas light customization...DMX and RBG devices. These two technologies allow users to control millions of colors at the pixel level. Imagine making every bulb a different color! Then imagine fading all those colors slowly into other colors! Imagine violet, peach, aqua lights! That's where we are heading and we're proud to be among pioneers of this great industry. We even gave a small presentation about photographing your Christmas lights. Download the file.

We also learned a few software tips, like "paste to foreground" in the software. I realized I need to download the latest version of the LOR software and it's only about $20 (I thought it would be $100).

We learned about adding a new element to the display....water. We learned how to set up a DIY mini version of the fountains at Bellagio. Well, maybe not that fancy.

We won a raffle!...$140! That will almost pay for one of hotel nights :)

Electrical Upgrade at Copeland Christmas

Over the past few days, we've had an electrician here at Copeland Christmas upgrading our system. He had to begin at the existing breaker panel. Then, he ran lines from the main breaker panel through the roof. Of course everything is being done "to code" so ran the lines inside conduit.

All those ceiling lines come out the eave, down the side of the house and into a brand new 125 amp subpanel (the large gray box). Then, Richie installed 6 new quad outlets for our Light-O-Rama boxes.

In the garage, we asked for several new outlets on each side of the garage. They look pretty good.

We couldn't be more excited and highly recommend this local guy Richie Neu (Palm City).

Next week, Richie is coming back to give us a few more outlets around the exterior, he's gong to hard wire the boat lift motor, and he'll clean up some exposed wires the previous home owner left us. We just love all this new power!

2013 Easter Decorations

I know it's way too early to set up for Eatser, but I did anyway. :)

I just love how these snowy Christmas Trees can be left out all year long! We took off the silver Foxes from Christmas and added glitter carrots and glitter easter eggs and they are instantly Eastery. I got a few new things at Pier 1 this year (which goes against my usual rule of only buying holiday decorations after the holiday on clearance).

2013 Display Theme Ideas

I've been toying with the idea of having the 2013 garage display theme be ice. That's a pretty broad theme, so I can hopefully refine it a bit more in the upcoming months. I really like carving those 4x8 sheets of polystyrene. I'de love to have icicles made of styrofoam and lights drip off the roof. We could do a garage backdrop that's a myriad of teal, blue, white, and navy. The inside of the house can be traditional Christmas colors...red, green, gold, silver. And inside, I think I'd like to set up the Disney Village set.

In years past, we've done themes such as "Night before Christmas", "Christmas Caroling", "Santas Workshop" etc in the garage. So, this year, I'd like to use blue and white LED bulbs, black lights, and soft pink floods to illuminate the scenes and make them look frosty.

I pulled some images from my "Christmas Inspiration" folder (which is a catalog of about 5000 images). Here are a few that inspire me.



I especially love the hanging penguin display. I think this is exactly what we need in the garage.

2013 Wreath Project

I decided to bring back the Wizard of Oz Annalees for the 2013 display! I'll do some tiny blue gingham bows again, and also one large bow. I like white lights. I'm still not sure how to bring in the yellow brick road or the Emerald City, but I feel close to solving that dilemma. I think all the supplies should be pretty easy to find. Yay!

Big Bows for the 2013 Display

Can't wait to see these big Bows on the dock posts next year! Also got a bunch of extra wide jute ribbon for a themed Christmas tree.

New Stuff for 2013 Display

We picked up this piece. For about 75% off! Can't wait to see it hung in the dining room next year!

Tropical tree ideas

Thanks
Danielle

Sent from my iPhone

Spinning Christmas Tree

I set up the camera with a very slow shutter speed to capture the rotating Christmas tree here at Copeland Christmas.



Here's what the tree looks like when it's stationary. Pretty cool.

After Christmas Shopping

A few days ago, we got the entire inside of the house all packed away. Here's a few photos I snapped of some after Christmas sale items I bought.

The santa face was $6 at Stein Mart....a deal.

The Wizard of Oz lights were an eBay purchase. I think they were only $20 inc shipping. Since they are Adler, I think that's a really good deal. I can't wait to put up my WOO tree again next year.