I decided to make a 2D Christmas tree in 'apres ski' style. Also because I would waste too many LEDs if I wanted to make a garland around a round tree (1/2 of the led's would be behind the tree). Since the led strip is not that bendable, I had to cut and connect the led strip line by line. Before irreversibly starting to cut my precious led strips, I first made a plan.

This is the second time in my life that I have ever soldered. Someone told me that led strips were also the hardest things to solder. The copper plates are extremely small and the space between them is tiny. If you spill tin over another plate you can cause a short circuit, and once you start fooling around it's hard to recover. I also didn't have any spare strips lying around, so I had one shot at this. Fortunately I could borrow a soldering machine from someone, I also had special tin that sticks better to copper (flux tin or something).

First I practised on some old ledstrips I had laying around. Warning: professional solderers, look away.

After 120 points, these were the best succeeded:

Ididn't want to tie the led strips together difinitely, so I used cables with connector pins. In the end, my tree now looks like this:

All lights are now on 20% brightness because my power suplly is not providing enough power. Eventually I need a 5V 20amp power supply, but you can't find them almost anywhere.