Christmas Decoration Madness
Monday, January 18th, 2010
I have never been much of a Christmas decorator. Last year I bought a few metal stars to hang in my windows but otherwise I have almost nothing. This year I noticed a computer Christmas decoration contest over at Sweclockers.com, sponsored by Alina Systems. As I dislike my computer pretty much and the prize was a crazy machine it was not hard to decide to participate. I began looking for decorative items a week or so prior to actually trying my hand at it. In total I went to three shops to get everything I figured I could have use for. Then after the Christmas craze I spent a day decorating, shooting and de-decorating my computer space, on the 26th. I had a vague plan in my head so I went at it without hesitation, but much was made up on the go. You can see a time-lapse of the process and the end result in the video below.
Here is a detailed list of what items I used for my decoration.
- 2x small metal stars with bulbs inside
- 3x extension power cords
- 3x power strips of different sizes
- 3x rolls of masking tape with different widths
- Roll of yellow string
- Battery powered RGB LED figure; inside the gingerbread house
- Smoke machine; to add some atmosphere
- Winter themed candle holder with four red cups with lit candles in them
- 1x 12m outdoor light chain with 480 lights
- 2x 8.7m indoor light chains with 144 lights each
- 2x RGB LED USB lines with eight santas on each
- 1x large paper star with a bulb inside
- 2x 2.0 m green/silver fuzzy garlands
- 2x 2.5m green glitter garlands
- 3x 4.5m glitter garlands entwined (gold, silver, red)
- 4x 4.5m silver glitter garlads
- 5x large chocolate santas
- 8x small chocolate santas
- 9x chocolate eggs
- 3x chocolate bombs
- 60x+ Christmas tree decorations clumped together
- 2x soft santa dolls
- 3x seven candle electrical stakes
- A bunch of cotton under the gingerbread house
- Advent candlestick holder with four red candles
- Battery powered golden bell
- Christmas coronal with a red bell
- Christmas crib with Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, three wise men, shepherd, three sheep, a cow and mule and a well.
- Electrically lit church
- Electrically lit poinsettia
- Embroidery saying “God Helg” (Happy Holiday)
- Gingerbread house
- Programmable LED sign saying “GOD JUL!” (Merry Christmas)
- Real live Christmas tree with decorations and lights
As you might have noticed in the video I removed it all the same night, mostly as the heat from the lights were undoing the masking tape that held them in place, and melting the chocolate figures, so it was all falling apart anyway. The result of the contest as not been published yet so there is nothing to report on that front. I’m not even sure if my entry is even considered as I freely interpreted “decorate your computer” into the entire computer space, and really, the computer alone was not roomy enough!
Update: Longplay won the contest with his gingerbread creation :) Well deserved I have to say. I wish I had been less stressed out so I could have been more creative, this time around I got to rely on the overkill-spam tactic, which apparently did not work :x I will try to keep this in mind for future entries, meaning more planning and probably less work!
Update2: Hah! Apparently I got a posting over at the site, awesome! ^_^ Oh, and with that link I just created an infinite Internet loop.
