Five ways to decorate with vintage ornaments

Do you love vintage ornaments as much as I do? I cannot get enough! So today I want to share a few ideas for decorating with them besides hanging them on a tree (though that’s a great option too). These suggestions can be used for displaying any type of ornament, but I think they’re especially cute for vintage ornaments.

Hanging from a garland. Man, I love a good garland. I’ve hung ornaments from live garlands on my stair banister…

…and this year I hung some in pink and red tones from a pinecone garland in my daughter’s room. That’s one of my biggest tips for maximizing the look of vintage ornaments: Group them based on color. They really sing when you do. The small tree in my bedroom is dressed in blue and green ornaments, and it looks much richer than when I use reds and pinks too. But we weren’t talking about trees, were we? Moving on…

On a wreath. For this wreath, my sister bent a wire hanger into a circle, wrapped it with silver tinsel, then strung a hundred ornaments on it, right through the ornament topper. If she decides she doesn’t like the ornaments on a wreath someday, they’re easy to remove—no glue damage to deal with.

Displayed in a bowl. This is stupid easy but looks great. Fill a big bowl or a hurricane lamp with ornaments. Done.

As a gift topper. If you have ornaments to spare, use a few to dress up gifts for someone special. I might like the ornament on top better than whatever’s in the box!

Tree toppers in candle holders. This is my favorite new idea. For years I’ve been collecting vintage tree toppers; it’s fairly common to find these alongside boxes of ornaments at estate sales. I’ve always wanted to display them, but I’m not a fan of Christmas-tree toppers on trees (which is weird, I know). I thought about just standing them up on the mantel, but their bases aren’t strong or straight enough to stay steady on their own. So they’ve mostly sat in boxes…until this year!

I saw a few photos online and in a magazine where someone much smarter than I used candle holders to secure the tree toppers. Man, was I excited to pick up that idea!

I bought these candle holders at the dollar store, and when I find a few more, I’ll put the rest of my tree toppers on display too. I secured these ones using poster tack.

Do you collect anything fun at Christmas? Opening my “special boxes” of vintage ornaments is one of the highlights of the season for me (who am I kidding? I pull out those boxes throughout the year just to take a look, ha!). •