How to win your ugly Christmas sweater contest

With all of the festive holiday parties coming up – and all of the mandatory ones – you may be looking for a funny outfit to spice up the party. Look no further than the ugly Christmas sweater. Whether you are a professional artist or have no artistic ability whatsoever, DIY ugly sweaters are the perfect holiday craft for you. They are meant to be ugly, after all.

Professional wrapper
For this DIY, you’ll want to grab any sweater of your choice and a few dozen bows. Even though the bows can stick on the sweater when you peel off the film, I would suggest super gluing or hot gluing the bows onto your sweater to ensure that they do not fall off during the party. If you are feeling extra festive, add bows to every inch of the sweater, front and back, including the sleeves. This simple sweater idea is sure to be a hit at your next holiday gathering.

O Christmas tree
Grab a simple sweater, some fuzzy green fabric and a few strands of silver garland. Sew or hot glue the fuzzy green fabric over the sweater to create the tree texture. Next, glue the garland around the shirt like you would wrap it around a real tree. Hang some plastic ornaments – not glass as they could fall off and break – on the sweater in any shapes and sizes you prefer. You could go for a color scheme here or just choose ornaments that you like. Complete the look by cutting out a felt star and bobby pinning that onto your hair.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer

For this festive look, you’ll need a brown sweater, some felt strips in black, white and brown, and a light up red nose. Start by cutting out two eyes – two long, white ovals for around the pupils and smaller black ovals for the pupils. Next, hot glue those together to create two deer eyes. Cut out a black oval nose and a pair of brown antlers. Lay out the anatomy of the deer on your sweater, then super glue it into place. You can choose to leave the antlers a little floppy and 3D or secure the entire thing down. Either way, your reindeer is ready to wow your fellow party goers when you light up his nose.

Florida Christmas

Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean you have to give up your sunglasses and flip flops. For this Christmas sweater idea, cut out a palm tree using green and brown felt and piece it together with hot glue. Next, attach a Christmas bulb light strand onto your palm tree. If you want to get really creative, you could also cut out some other tropical icons, like a bright pink flamingo, a fun pineapple or a beach chair. Voila, your Christmas in Florida sweater is complete.

Spell it out

When all else fails, there’s no shame in keeping it simple. If you are running low on time or you are simply feeling lazy when it comes to your ugly sweater creation, just grab a sweater and a fabric marker. Write out “This is my ugly Christmas sweater” with your marker and let it dry. If you want to add a little something more, consider some festive doodles of mistletoe, snowmen and Christmas lights.

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