Glass Christmas Ball Ornaments, 3 in Set of 12 with Glitter Finish

Description

A set of twelve glass ball ornaments, each 3.1 inches across, finished with glitter and hand-applied paint in a mixed palette. Twelve three-inch balls is roughly what one side of a six or seven foot tree takes if you are spacing them properly, so treat this as a set for a tree rather than a set that finishes a whole tree on its own.

Why glass

Glass is thin, and it refracts. A glass bauble with a light behind it throws small points of colour onto the branches around it; a plastic one of the same colour absorbs the light and sits there. That difference is the entire case for buying glass, and it is easiest to see on a tree lit only by its own string lights, where the glass picks up the nearest bulbs and multiplies them.

The tradeoff is obvious and worth stating plainly. These break. Each ball weighs about 0.07 lb and the walls are thin. If you have a cat that climbs, a dog with a working tail, or a child under about four, hang these on the top third of the tree and put something shatterproof at the bottom. We stock shatterproof sets for exactly that job.

Finish and palette

The supplier describes the set as multi-colour, combining glitter, painted detail and plain glass across the twelve pieces. Because the decoration is applied by hand, small variations between balls are normal, and they are part of why a mixed set reads as less machine-made than a box of twelve identical ones.

Three inches is the traditional middle size. It is large enough to be a real ornament rather than a filler, and small enough that twelve of them do not crowd a branch. Mixed with a smaller filler bauble and one or two larger statement pieces, this size does most of the work on a tree.

Storage

They arrive in a divided 10.6 x 7.1 x 3.5 inch box, and the box is worth keeping. Glass baubles stored loose in a plastic tub do not survive many seasons. The set weighs about 1.2 lb packed.

Shipping

Handling is 1 to 3 business days and transit is 5 to 9 business days from our US warehouse. The last order date for Christmas delivery is Monday December 7.