ornaments for christmas tree

The cheerful and magical essence of the holidays inspires a series of hand-painted ornaments made with love and dedication in Uzbekistan. Mansur Nurillaev's set of three dried gourd ornaments comes in a green base hue, with little red and white leafy details adorning each accessory for a cute look. On top of that, they have polyester loops in a golden tone, allowing you to hang them anywhere.

For the design of this three-ornament set, Huancayan artisan Daniel Vargas has carved ascending flowering vines against a red background on each dried mate gourd. Mate forms part of the same creeping vine family as pumpkins and melons. The Andean community of Huancayo has a strong mate burilado, or "engraved gourd" legacy, wherein the mate fruit is dried and then engraved with unique designs using a buril, or "burin".