Have you ever worn an ugly Christmas sweater?! I know it’s a common joke, but they are soo fun!!
For many years, I wanted to celebrate Christmas with my whole family dressed in ugly Christmas sweaters, and for many years they said no… until 2 years ago, when I finally convinced them that it would be fun! Somewhere along the way I managed to also convince them to make the sweaters ourselves.
So how did we make them? At first glance it might seem daunting, but turns out it was really easy, and I will explain step by step so that you can enjoy the fun of making an ugly Christmas sweater as well!
Choose the sweater
First, get sweaters for everyone! There are plenty of options for plain sweaters that are very cheap, and all you have to do is pick the style. There is a pretty wide range of fabrics to choose from, but since I was living in a very tropical weather at the time, we went for lighter cotton sweatshirt and they ended up being great to work with.
Choose the color
After you have a style of sweater, choose a color. We opted to get the same color sweater for everyone, but you could easily get a variety as well. We all picked red. You could also get white, green, or even blue if you wanted to swing for a more Hanukkah friendly version.
Get Decorations!
When it comes to decorations for the sweater… The Dollar Store is your best friend!
One trip to the store was enough! I bought everything that I thought could be used:
- Pipe cleaners
- Ribbons
- Christmas decorations
- Garlands
- Pom poms
- Bows
- Bells
- Little stuffed animals
- Buttons
- And of course, a hot glue gun and tons and tons of sticks.
*I do have to recommend getting more than one hot glue gun and a couple pairs of scissors if there are many of you, that way you don’t have to keep waiting for someone to use it.
I also did a trip to Joann’s where I found felt, feather boas, and even a small string of light bulbs that actually light up. Michaels and Hobby Lobby also have some fun things you can put on your sweater.
Go crazy and have fun!!
We all got together and kinda made an event out of it! It was so much fun!!
We different decorating stations setup around the house. We were all decorating our sweaters and letting our creative juices flow, while the Christmas tunes played on the speakers.
My dad decided to do a reindeer “Throwing up Christmas”. He drew a reindeer with its mouth open on a dark brown piece of felt, then cut it out, and glued it to the sweater. He used some pipe cleaner to outline the reindeer and then some lighter colored felt to make antlers… but the piece de resistance came when he glued tons of little ornaments coming out of the reindeer’s mouth! He was super excited and loved his creation.
My brother decided to also draw on the felt; his goal: building a fluffy felt version of his puppy. He didn’t go with a Christmas theme but it was adorable to see the pup on my brother’s chest.
My mom drew an adorable Rudolph reindeer on felt, and tangled on his horns a string of stars and some Christmas balls. And of course for his red nose, she used a red Christmas ornament.
My husband decided to do the iconic Grinch’s hand, holding a string of actual Christmas lights. It was soo fun! He took some white plush fabric to do the white cuff, and with the neon green boa he managed to create the Grinch’s hand. It was a pretty awesome sweater, and definitely one of a kind. We loved it so much!!
I decided to do a Christmas tree using a green garland. All I did was create the shape of the tree and then I just glued tons of decorations, stuffed animals and a cheap blue garland for the tree’s ribbon. I even went beyond the decorations and styled my sweater a little bit. I cut a whole on each arm to show my shoulders and put some bows on each shoulder.
It was a bit heavy in the front but I loved it so much!!
It was a very different Christmas Eve dinner, we usually dress nice and elegant, but everyone loved it and everyone enjoyed the process of making their own sweater.
An ugly sweater is much more fun when you make it yourself!!
Let me know if you have ever made Christmas sweaters! I would love to see your pictures!!