How to wire Christmas lights with LEDs to use for Arduino Project? First things first, I am new here and this is my first post. So if this is in the wrong place I apologize and please just let me know.

I am a programmer that is getting into working with an Arduino compatible board, so my questions are 99% of the time with the hardware side and not the software side.

I just went through a tutorial on how to connect LEDs in parallel to a shift register so that I can control each LED individually. 

My project goal is to make a Christmas house for a family member that will use some predefined songs to blink the lights to. So what I am actually looking for suggestions for is how to make a string of LEDs (5mm) that I can hook up to a small house without it looking messy. I was thinking I could maybe use 2 wires to run along the + and - of all the LEDs and then maybe there is some kind of connector I can use to split the 8 LEDs off to their respected hookups on the shift register.

Any good ways of doing this and keeping the metal unexposed?

I thank you in advance for your answers and your time!
Here is a string of Stripleds operated from a CPU 12V supply with built-in double-sided tape under the hand rail in one of my homes. Red downstairs and blue upstairs.

Now define your input and output attributes to modulate the current.