The Cheap Way to Update Christmas Ornaments, According to TikTok

Some households use Christmas tree ornaments as markers of major events — mementos of marriages, births, new homes, and vacations dangle from every branch. They’re nostalgic, eclectic, and rarely match — and that’s their charm. Others, though, see Christmas trees as an opportunity to flex their interior design skills — and for those tree decorators, expenses can add up with new colours and themes being rotated in every year. There’s an easier way and more affordable way to change the colour and style of your globe ornaments, though.

A hack making the rounds on TikTok right now promises to help you make your tree decor any colour you want on the cheap: All you need is standard round ornaments with detachable tops, regular-sized balloons, a pair of scissors and other crafty decorative elements you may want to dress up the final product.

Use your scissors to cut off the mouthpiece of the balloon (the dangly little part you blow into). Do not, however, actually blow into the balloon at all — instead, wrap the deflated balloon around your ornament and twist the edges together at the top before screwing the ornament’s top back on. You can trim a little at the top if you need to, but because of its elasticity and small size when deflated, the balloon should fit right on. Here’s one TikTok tutorial to show you how easy this is in practice:

From this point, you can add rhinestones, glitter glue, or whatever else you want to customise the newly-hued bulbs. At the end of the season when you’re ready to put the tree and decorations back in storage, you can simply pull the balloons back off — or leave them on for added protection against breakage, and then switch them out for a new colour next year.