> I'm sure you know but for others reading, 12v ws2811 are grouped in threes, so not individually addressable. 5v is, and when you're working at scale power injection isn't a huge deal as you'll be doing it anyway.

I haven't found this to be the case. All my lights use WS2811 chips, and are individually addressable. The 12v does have to be regulated down to 5v, but that's happening on the node anyway.

> Coro props (corrugated plastic, corflute) are a cheap and effective way to stand out from the crowd.

I'll add to this that if you have a 3D-Printer, you can do some neat stuff if you're up to designing it. I am in the middle of adding 16" snowflake props to my setup this year. It took a couple of revisions, but I've got them all setup and I'm just finishing the controller to drive them now.

It is a super fun hobby, and as averageRoyalty mentioned - it can be spendy.