There are approximately three stages to decorating a Christmas tree.
First, you carefully arrange the lights.
Then you hang the nice decorations.
Finally, someone produces a battered cardboard box containing a glitter-covered pine cone your child made eight years ago and insists it goes front and centre.
But those personal decorations are often the ones we end up keeping forever.
And with printable transfer paper, you can take personalisation considerably further.
Names, photographs, children’s drawings, handwriting and your own artwork can all potentially become part of a completely unique Christmas decoration.
Here are some ideas.
1. Make a Family Name Bauble
Let’s start simple.
Create a design containing your family name and the year:
THE WILLIAMS FAMILY
CHRISTMAS 2026
Add stars, holly, snowflakes or another festive illustration and transfer the finished design onto a suitable plain bauble.
You could make a new one every year and gradually build a collection.
2. Baby’s First Christmas
Personalised first-Christmas decorations have become a Christmas staple for a reason.
Instead of buying a pre-designed one, create your own containing the baby’s:
- Name
- Date of birth
- Birth weight
- Photograph
- Initials
You could even incorporate a scan of their tiny hand or footprint if you have one.
Years later, it’s considerably more meaningful than another generic snowman.
3. Turn a Child’s Drawing Into a Bauble
This might be our favourite.
Ask your child to draw something Christmassy.
A reindeer.
Santa.
The family.
Something that is allegedly an elf but looks suspiciously like a potato with legs.
Photograph or scan the picture, clean up the background if necessary and reduce it to an appropriate size.
You’ve now turned their artwork into a Christmas decoration.
Make another one next year and you can literally watch their drawing skills develop through the decorations on your tree.
4. Put a Photograph on a Christmas Decoration
Family photographs don’t have to live exclusively inside frames.
A favourite photograph could become part of a personalised bauble or suitable flat Christmas ornament.
Think:
- Wedding photographs.
- New babies.
- Family holidays.
- Children growing up.
- Pets. Lots and lots of pets.
For suitable smooth surfaces, inkjet waterslide decal paper provides one way of transferring detailed printed imagery onto objects that obviously can’t go through your printer themselves.
Because attempting to feed a Christmas bauble into the paper tray is unlikely to end well.
5. Make a Pet Christmas Bauble
Let’s be realistic.
Someone reading this has already decided their Labrador deserves his own Christmas decoration.
Create a simple portrait with the pet’s name underneath.
You could use a photograph, turn the photograph into an illustration digitally or create a silhouette.
And if this is your pet’s first Christmas with the family, add the year.
BUDDY’S FIRST CHRISTMAS — 2026
Buddy won’t appreciate it.
You will.
6. Preserve Someone’s Handwriting
This is where personalised printing becomes something more than simply decorative.
Imagine you have an old Christmas card from your grandmother containing:
Love always, Grandma x
Photograph or scan the handwriting and isolate those words digitally.
That actual handwriting could potentially become part of a Christmas keepsake.
The same could work with a parent’s signature, a child’s first attempt at writing their name or a short handwritten message from someone important to you.
It’s difficult to buy something that personal from a shop.
7. Create a Memorial Christmas Decoration
Christmas can make absent family members feel particularly noticeable.
A personalised decoration can be a subtle way of keeping someone part of the family Christmas.
It could include their name, photograph, handwriting or simply a date and small symbol associated with them.
It doesn’t need to be elaborate.
Sometimes the simplest designs mean the most.
8. Make Matching Baubles as Gifts
Here’s another possibility for people who enjoy making their Christmas presents.
Buy a set of suitable plain decorations and personalise each one for a different person.
One design.
Different names.
Suddenly you’ve created individual gifts without having to invent an entirely different project for everybody.
They could also work particularly well as stocking fillers or additions to gift wrapping.
Waterslide or Rub-On Transfers?
The best method depends heavily on the decoration you’re using.
For compatible smooth surfaces, waterslide decal paper can be useful for detailed photographs, illustrations and graphics.
For other suitable surfaces, dry rub-off transfer paper can create a different effect where the design appears more directly integrated with the object.
Baubles can be made from glass, plastic, wood, ceramic and numerous coated materials, however, so never assume every transfer will work on every decoration.
Test an inconspicuous area or spare bauble first.
Print on Ordinary Paper Before Using Transfer Paper
This little trick can save a surprising amount of frustration.
Print your design onto normal paper.
Cut it out.
Hold it against the bauble.
You’ll immediately discover whether the name is too large, the photograph is too small or your beautiful elaborate Christmas illustration wraps halfway around the back.
Once you’re happy with the size, move onto your chosen printable transfer material.
Start With Plain Baubles and Make Them Yours
You don’t necessarily need expensive decorations.
In fact, inexpensive plain baubles are ideal because they’re essentially blank canvases.
Add a name.
Add a photograph.
Add a child’s drawing.
Add handwriting from someone you love.
Using products such as Gecko Paper waterslide decal paper and dry rub-off transfer paper, you can turn an ordinary Christmas decoration into something that exists nowhere else.
And twenty years from now, when half the expensive decorations have disappeared, there’s a good chance the wonky reindeer your child drew in 2026 will still be hanging on the tree.
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