Want to give your Christmas tree a high end look? Here’s how to make easy ornament clusters using pipe cleaners – a simple and cheap Christmas decorating hack!

There are two ways to decorate a Christmas tree: anything goes, hog-wild, or refined and fancy.

We have both types of trees in our house.

Every year, we get a live tree for the living room and let the kids go wild decorating it however they want. Do I move a few ornaments up after they go to bed? Sure. But, we mostly let it be how they want it.

Our second tree is all mine to decorate. It’s a faux tree and I like to use silver and rose gold ornaments on it lately. Sean calls it my “classy tree” (no comment on what that makes the kids’ tree…)

Anyways, this year I tried a new method of clustering the ball ornaments before hanging it on this tree.

And oh my goodness, I will never hang ornaments another way.

So without further ado, let’s talk about how to cluster ornaments on your Christmas tree!

What are clustered Christmas ornaments?

Clustering your Christmas ornaments just means bundling them up in sets of 3 (or 7, if you’re Rory) and hanging them all together.

There is no scientific reason to do this. It takes longer and is more work than just hanging them up.

It just gives the trees a bit of interest and draws your eye really nicely. I think it gives the tree a more high end look!

And, while it is more work, it’s still pretty simple to do.

I will say that I prefer this method for simple ball-style ornaments and would not use it for character or shaped ornaments. I added a few individual larger shaped glass ornaments separately to this tree.

How to cluster ornaments on a Christmas tree

Here’s how easy it is to cluster ornaments on your tree!

Supplies needed:

• Ball style ornaments
• Pipe cleaners (I suggest dark green)
• A Christmas tree

Steps to hang clustered ornaments:

Step 1: Sort your ornaments

I used 3 ornaments for each cluster. I chose 1 larger ornament and 2 smaller accent ornaments. If your ornaments are all the same size, consider doing 1 “fancier” one and 2 more basic ones.

Step 2: Prep a pipe cleaner

Grab a pipe cleaner. You will have to mess around with it a bit and decide if you want to use full pipe cleaners and trim them or cut them in half in the beginning. It just depends on the size of your ornaments and tree branches.

Step 3: String on the ornaments

String 3 ornaments on the pipe cleaner, into the center.

Step 4: Twist

Twist the pipe cleaner to bring the ornaments together in a cluster. I do 2-3 twists for a tight fit.

Step 5: Twist on the Tree

Place on the tree branch and twist in place. It’s worth noting that I think these look best on TOP of the branch and not hanging below.

Step 6: Repeat

Repeat to use up all of your ornaments or cover your tree!

I just love how these turned out and how easy they were to put together!