In December, my Mom and I decided that we wanted to start collecting vintage Christmas ornaments and do a vintage Christmas tree theme.  My Mom loved the Midsummer Night’s Dream Christmas tree theme I had designed and created for her, but I had started to notice that when we were out thrifting she was increasingly drawn to vintage 60s Christmas decor from her childhood.  The funny thing is, I’d started to notice vintage ornaments too – something I never really considered collecting because I always thought they were too fragile and worn.  Suddenly I had a new appreciation for the patina and handcrafted nature of vintage ornaments…

Our Growing Vintage Ornament Collection:

We didn’t officially start a vintage Christmas tree theme until mid-December, but the thrifting gods were on our side.  And my Mom was so excited about it!  Luckily I had already thrifted some vintage ornaments for myself.  I lent her my finds and kicked the treasure hunt into high gear!  Here’s a peek at the original (very small) vintage ornament collection I thrifted during the fall:

This is the photo I sent my Mom (with the addition of red trims and red fringe I had in my craft stash – plus the metal tinsel from my tree), reassuring her that even if we didn’t find anything else we had enough:

Luckily I managed to find FIVE boxes of vintage ornaments for only $75 (from a lovely woman, around my Mom’s age, selling her family’s ornaments).  I promised her that they would continue to be cherished.  My Mom doesn’t have any ornaments from her childhood and seeing this packaging – and of course, the beautiful and delicate ornaments inside – made her so nostalgic!

There were many beautiful little hand-painted vintage ornaments in this lot.  While I previously didn’t appreciate the imperfections of vintage ornaments, now I love the little details – even the fact that one of these vintage glass ornaments is very obviously not completely round!

After our amazing haul, I thrifted quite a few boxes of solid colored vintage Christmas balls like this:

The magenta/green striped ornament, the little pink indent ornament, and the larger aqua and gold indent ornament, in the photos below, were all found in random bags of ornaments at the thrift store.  I don’t know HOW they survived being chucked into bags with heavy wood ornaments and all kinds of junk, but it was such a fun scavenger hunt to find them:

Vintage Christmas Ornament Tree Theme:

With all of these new finds (plus some other non-vintage thrifted ornaments and ornaments we already had to fill the gaps) we were able to create a surprisingly FULL vintage Christmas ornament tree theme in the nick of time!!

When is the Best Time to Shop for Vintage Ornaments?

I’ve learned that the fall months (as early as September) seems to be the best time to thrift ornaments in general – I was surprised by how MANY packs of ornaments (vintage and non-vintage) I found in September/October.  But really, if you’d like to get into collecting vintage ornaments it’s fun to be on the look out year round.  In the spring and summer, you can check yard sales and estate sales.  I find that places like Etsy and eBay seem to have ornaments available year round, so you can space out purchases if, like us, you have a smaller budget for vintage ornament collecting.  On FB marketplace, locally anyway, people only really seemed to list them for sale in November and December.

Where to Find Vintage Ornaments?

Vintage ornament were typically priced very high at my local thrift stores and antique stores.  For price, I found my best luck was in those grab bags from the thrift store, where some older ornaments slipped through.  For volume, buying the lot from Marketplace was really a score!  This is one of those collections where you have to always keep an eye out and scour antique stores, thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales, Etsy, eBay, and local classifieds.

How to “Fake” a Vintage Christmas Tree Theme:

If you don’t have a lot of vintage Christmas tree ornaments, but want that vintage Christmas tree aesthetic, here are some tips:

1. Add newer ornaments in vintage colors
2. Thrift older ornaments, even if not truly “vintage,” for the patina
3. Supplement with vintage reproductions
4. DIY vintage Christmas ornaments
5. Add tinsel and/or garland to “fill” out the look

Add Newer Ornaments in Vintage Colors:

Because we don’t have enough vintage Christmas ornaments to create that really full look, we faked it!  To start, we used every single one of the beautiful DIY alcohol ink ornaments we had made for the previous tree theme.  They aren’t vintage, but they’re colorful and glowy and the perfect filler – plus I loved reusing what we had.

I thrifted multiple boxes of Candy Apple red Krebs ornaments to fill in the gaps because even if the patina wasn’t “right” the color was a pretty addition.  In the photo below, you can see the red ornaments and also some swirly blue glass 1990s ornaments I thrifted.  They aren’t vintage (well, I guess they are but they aren’t the right era), but they’re cute and have a fun “retro” vibe.

Thrift Older Ornaments With Patina – Even if Not Truly “Vintage”:

In my thrifting adventures, I found that older ornaments (from the 70s, 80s and even the 90s) often had that similar vintage mercury glass look or patina, without being truly of the era.  Newer glass ornaments are just made differently, but older ornaments in solid colors – from a distance – blend right into a vintage Christmas ornament theme!  So don’t overlook older, but not “mid-century vintage,” ornaments (like the pale pink ones in the photos below).

Supplement with Vintage Reproductions:

In my home, where I decorate with a lot of vintage/mid-century modern pieces, I am not a vintage purist!  I like to mix and match – and I’m often open to reproductions.  So, in my opinion, it’s totally fine to supplement with some vintage ornament reproductions.

Here are some gorgeous contenders (see these and more ideas HERE):

• Multi-colored Reflector Ornament Set
• Kurt Adler Early Years Glass Oval Ornaments
• Shiny Brite (NEW) Decorated Rounds
• Shiny Brite (NEW) Reflector Tulips
• Shiny Brite (NEW) Confetti Decorated Reflector Tulips
• Old World Christmas Hearth Ornament
• Old World Christmas Pink Poodle Ornament
• Old World Christmas Sleeping Dog Ornament
• Old World Christmas Vintage Stand Mixer Ornament
• Krebs Reflector Balls
• Mercury Glass Mushroom Ornaments

DIY Vintage Christmas Ornaments:

You can get creative and DIY vintage Christmas ornaments.  From mercury glass-effect spray paint to adding designs with a Cricut, there are many ways to add a vintage aesthetic to new ornaments.  I re-used the DIY starry night ornaments I made because I think the glittery little stars have a vintage vibe (you can see one in the photo below).  I thrifted some older, 1990s plain gold and silver ornaments that I plan to paint with glue/glitter and turn into “vintage Christmas balls” – and maybe I’ll experiment with more Cricut designs…

Add Tinsel and/or Garland to Fill Out the Look:

We also added every piece of twisted metal tinsel from my Christmas tree to my Mom’s, to help create a fuller look.  The silver metal tinsel really looked at home with all of those vintage ornaments!  Here’s how to make your own DIY metal tinsel, but you can also purchase it online.  The truly vintage metal tinsel looks so cool and I plan to adjust my tutorial to create an even more retro look.

How to Safely Storage Vintage Glass Ornaments:

Keep vintage ornament boxes!  If you ever want to sell vintage ornaments, the boxes can add a lot of value.  Plus the packaging can be so sweet.  BUT if you’ve thrifted bags of random ornaments and now have vintage ornaments in need of safe storage, I love these ornament storage bags.  I have 4 of the this bigger size that holds 4″ ornaments, but I also recently bought two of these smaller ones, that hold 3″ ornaments.  They keep ornaments so safe – you can add a little “nest” of tissue paper for vintage ornaments with very delicate paint and glitter.  Plus this ornament storage system makes it so quick and easy to put up and take down Christmas ornaments.  I highly recommend!!

I’m so excited to share our journey collecting vintage ornaments with you  – I regularly share my thrifting adventures in my Instagram stories if you’d like to see more finds!  You can watch a short video of the ornaments we found and the retro Christmas tree theme on Instagram as well (click here to view).

Blue Spruce Artificial Christmas Tree

P.S. the gorgeous Blue Spruce artificial Christmas tree was gifted from Seasonal LLC.  We got the 7.5 ft tall size (it also comes in a 9 ft).  I chose the blue spruce look because I thought it would really fun with my Mom’s freshly painted blue/green fireplace.