Christmas tree decorations & baubles

Choosing the right Christmas tree decorations 

Christmas tree decorations tend to fall into two groups, and most trees want both. The first is the glass baubles, which arrive in sets. There is a round shape in two sizes, an elongated teardrop, and a set of smaller assorted shapes that give a more luxurious, eclectic look. Much of that glass is mouthblown, with a fine ripple running through the surface, so it catches light unevenly and gives a tree depth rather than a flat shine. These are what do the work of filling out the branches.

The second group is everything bought one at a time and chosen deliberately. Papier mâché baubles, shaped by skilled artisans and hand-painted with stripes, swirls, holly or a sleigh. A stoneware bird, bell or pine cone under a speckled glaze applied by hand. A felt reindeer, robin or rocking horse brought to life with hand stitching. A candy cane or festive jumper worked in beaded wool. Fluted glass bells, antique bronze leaves and a string of brushed brass bells sit quietly enough to repeat across a tree but stay distinct enough to notice.

Colour runs across both groups rather than within them. Merlot is a deep traditional red, Apricot and Rose are softer and warmer, and Blakeney Blue, Flax Blue and Teal bring in a cooler register. Slate is a smoky grey that sits alongside both glass and metallics without competing with either. Picking one or two as a base and letting the character pieces play against them gives a more coherent tree than trying to match everything.

How our Christmas baubles and hanging decorations are made 

Each material behaves differently once the lights are on, which is the real reason for mixing them. Mouthblown glass transmits light rather than only reflecting it, and the ripple texture means no two pieces throw it back in quite the same way. That is the difference between luxury Christmas baubles and a shatterproof multipack: each piece is shaped one at a time, so no two are identical. Stoneware does the opposite. Its speckled glaze is applied by hand and stops light dead, so a ceramic piece reads as a solid shape against a lit branch and gives the eye somewhere to rest.

Felt and beaded wool absorb light entirely, which is what makes them useful lower down where glass baubles would otherwise crowd. The felt designs are cut from natural felt and finished with stitch detail by hand, some of them in the Netherlands. The beaded pieces are worked over a wool body with a foam fill, hand-beaded rather than machine-embroidered, so the stitching sits proud enough to catch a shadow.

Papier mâché is the oldest technique here. Artisans shape each one over a mould and paint the design on afterwards, so the finish carries small variations from piece to piece. The metal pieces are the only ones with real weight: galvanised iron leaves finished in antique bronze, and brass bells strung on natural twine with a brushed, time-worn look. Both are worth placing deliberately.

How to mix Christmas tree baubles and decorations by size

Sizes are less uniform than they look on a grid. The large round baubles are the steadiest at 10cm each, with the smaller rounds and teardrops running between 8cm and 10cm depending on the colourway. The character pieces are larger and far less regular: most of the felt figures sit between 7cm and 12cm, a felt nutcracker reaches 19cm, and a string of brass bells runs to 25cm. Use that spread deliberately. The large Christmas baubles go deepest into the tree, close to the trunk, where they fill the shadow that makes a tree look thin. The mid-size baubles sit along the branch. The smallest Christmas tree ornaments go out at the tips, where a heavier piece would drag the branch down.

Weight follows the same logic. The galvonised iron leaves, the brass bells and the larger glass want a strong branch near the centre, while felt and beaded pieces weigh almost nothing and can go anywhere. Working outward in that order, rather than hanging things wherever there happens to be a gap, is what stops a tree from looking bottom-heavy by the time you reach the end of the box.