Building my own ws2801 string

AceoStar:
Or this looks close too Full Colour RGB LED Module | Freetronics but 10 per LED seems kinda steep.

That is exactly the same thing as what I created. And yes, $10 per pixel is very steep in my opinion. Mine came out to just a little over $1 per pixel. Like I said, you could just take a regular 3mm through hole LED, bend the bottom 3-5mm of the legs at a 90 degree angle and solder that to the boards I created. You just need to sort out the red, green, and blue pads and the cathode goes opposite (on any one of the three pads.) Not that hard to do.