Beautiful mercury glass balls with a vintage look! I knew when I first saw this garland that I would actually be cutting it apart and using the balls as individual ornaments on my tree. While I was aware that other buyers had complained in reviews about breakage during shipment I was surprised to find one ball broken in half -- they were so very carefully packaged! Double boxed in fact. But since I had already intended to separate them it didn't bother me too much. Liked them so much I ordered an additional garland -- and it too had one shattered ball. When I responded to a query email asking what I thought of my purchase I saw that a partial refund (while keeping the item) is possible so I contacted Birch Lane, spoke to a wonderfully helpful customer service person and a partial refund for both garlands was arranged -- just like that. Unbelievable service in this day and age. I'll be checking Birch Lane more often in future!