A ceramic studio that got tired of one bulb, one color.
Sacred Flame Ceramics is a small studio in the United States. We slip cast, we punch, we fire, and we sell at shows. Magic Light Kit came out of our own bench, because the lighting parts available for ceramic trees had not really changed in decades.
The usual setup is a single light source inside the tree, with plastic pegs or twist lights carrying that light out through the holes. One color, no dimming, warm all evening. Plenty of people still prefer that, and a tree that glows the same amber every December is a good tree. But if you cast your own, you want to decide what it does.
So we built a kit that gives every bulb its own LED. 125 of them, each holding its own color, run from the controller on the string, a 24 key IR remote, or the app over Bluetooth. They run cool, and the caps stay clear because the LED does the color work. Then we cut a punch tool to match those caps, because sizing holes by eye at the greenware stage is how good pieces get ruined.
We are not trying to replace vintage trees. We use ours. This is a kit for people who make trees and want more range out of them, and for anyone with a finished tree who wants color they can change.
Our print poster. The starburst callout came first and became the mark we use across the site.
Straight answers, from one maker to another.
We tell you what it will not do
These bulbs are larger than traditional twist lights, pegs and pins. On some finished trees a hole needs carefully enlarging, and that takes a diamond edged bit. Brightness is also whole tree only, not per bulb. We would rather say all that up front than take a return we do not accept.
We sell what we use
Every kit we list is a kit we have installed in our own greenware. The photos on this site are our trees, shot in our yard.
Small studio pace
Orders leave in 3 to 4 business days. When we are at a show that week, the box still goes out on time because it is packed before we load the van.
No account for anything
The app talks to the string over Bluetooth. No sign up, no login, no cloud account holding your tree hostage in five years.
Words we use a lot
Greenware. Clay that has been cast and dried but never fired. Soft enough to punch. This is the only stage where the punch tool belongs.
Bisque. Clay fired once, no glaze yet. The piece has shrunk, so holes that fit before firing may need a check, or a light pass with a diamond edged bit.
Twist Lights. The industry name for this bulb category, sized Small, Medium and Large by stem diameter. That is what our kit is.
Pin Lites. A different category with a thinner stem. Not compatible with this kit, and worth checking before you punch a whole batch of trees.
Twist cap. The clear faceted housing that twists onto an LED and gives you the bulb shape. Clear only, since the LED makes the color.
Addressable. Each LED can be told its own color, instead of the whole string sharing one. Brightness is still a whole tree setting.
Extension tree. A tree built from stacked sections for extra height. One kit covers it. Leave slack LEDs between sections so they still come apart.
One of our own trees, fully capped, next to the box it came out of.