Kelly Hoppen warns against this mistake when decorating your Christmas tree

Interior designer Kelly Hoppen warns against a common mistake people often make when decorating a Christmas tree. She shares her simple tip to ensure your tree looks balanced this festive season by following a simple method – the rule of three.

Christmas decorating is in full swing, and if you still have yet to deck the halls, Kelly Hoppen is stacked with brilliant tidbits of Christmas tree tips. She has taken to Instagram to show fans how to decorate a tree, demonstrating where to ideally place baubles to achieve balance.

In the Instagram reel, she begins by saying that most people's concern when decorating a Christmas tree is not knowing where to place various-sized baubles. Oftentimes, we make the mistake of just placing them thoughtlessly, but that tends to result in a tree that looks lopsided –⁠ but this simple trick aims to help avoid that.

'If you think about three decorations, you want to put one here (to the side), one here (towards the centre), and one there (to the adjacent side)' she says as she points around the demonstration tree.

'So you're going to balance out the tree by doing that,' she says as she places the ornaments around the tree accordingly. 'And if you use that method, but do the bigger ones at the bottom, and as you go up they go smaller and smaller,' she explains. This is the trick for those who may be unsure of how to place their ornaments and need a simple formula to follow.

'If you do the threes, it really works.' Kelly also advises that after every three ornaments placed on the tree, step back and take a good look. 'If you don't have a method and you just hang the ornaments, you'll look back at the tree and it will look really imbalanced.'

Learning to step back to take a good look is a tip taken from many artists and designers. It's oftentimes that we become so engrossed in what we're doing at a detailed scale, that we forget to see how it looks in the bigger picture.

So, whether you've opted for an artificial Christmas tree or a real Christmas tree this year, keeping this tip pertaining to the rule of three in mind will ensure your tree looks up to scratch for the festivities.