Supplies
Found at Walmart:
-Sparkly buttons
-Fabric stars
-Red ribbon
Found at Michaels:
Christmas presents
Christmas lights
Green pom poms
Found at Goodwill:
Long sleeve with repetitive snowman and Christmas tree pattern
Things I already own:
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Hot glue refills
Matches
Embroidery thread (can be found at Michaels)
Small glass beads (can also be found at Michaels)
Paper shopping bag (can be found at any grocery store)
Optional:
Bow
I started out at Goodwill to originally find a regular ugly sweater, but the ugliest I could find was this one. So I got the idea to ugly it up myself.
What I did first was cut slits up the sides of the shirt. You want to fold the shirt for each snip, and snip it about an inch away from the seam line (if there is one). If there is no seam line, just lay the shirt flat and cut about an inch away from the edge.
Cut all the way up to the armpit.
Next, you want to take the ribbon and measure two arm lengths worth to make sure you'll have enough. Better to have too much than too little!
Starting at the armpit hole, insert the ribbon through the first two slit holes. make sure each side is even.
Next, you're going to weave it down the shirt through the slits.
You should have extra ribbon at the bottom.
Using that extra ribbon, tie a bow. Cut off the ends to make them even.
Next, carefully light a match and burn the ends of the ribbon so it doesn't fray.
The edge of your shirt should look like this.
Next, put the shopping bag inside the shirt. This is so no glue soaks through to the other side and ends up gluing your shirt together.
Take the green pom poms and start gluing them onto the shirt for your Christmas tree. If you want a large tree, I'd suggest buying 8 packages. I bought four and was able to make a small one.
I took my gold colored glittery buttons and glued them as the trunk of the tree.
Then I opened up my stars and took a big gold one and a small gold one and glued them together, then glued them to the top of the tree.
If you do what I did for the next step, this is going to take you some time. Take some embroidery thread or thin string and put it on the tree to get a good idea of how much you'll need.
Cut it and then begin stringing on some beads for a garland-looking design. Make sure to knot one end so your beads don't go falling off. You can use colors like red, gold, yellow, silver, or blue. I tried using gold, yellow, and some reddish ones. Make sure to be constantly laying them on the tree to see where you want to string on your Christmas lights. After each light addition, glue it all down so that it doesn't move. You can see buttons in the second picture. Ignore those until the next step.
Next, you want to open your buttons and lay them on your tree (like above) to get an idea of what pattern you'd like. I always like to make sure that everything is distributed evenly so that there are no bare spots anywhere. Once you arrange them, begin to glue them down.
Next, you want to take out the Christmas presents. Glue them down by the trunk of the tree.
I realized that when doing all this, I ended up slanting my Christmas tree. So if you don't want this, be mindful of what you're doing! Haha
Here is where the bow comes in handy. Since I had some extra ribbon, I made my own by looping and gluing. Then I took a remaining red button and glued it in the middle. I then cut some ribbon and glued it across the shirt. I added my homemade bow to it by gluing it down.
Here is the finished shirt!
Ugly Christmas Sweaters come in all different shapes, sizes, and designs. This one was just a creation of my own. You can copy it if you'd like, or you can go to a local craft store, Walmart store, Target store, etc. and find different craft supplies for different ideas of your own. The whole goal is to make a sweater that looks obnoxious, flashy, gaudy, etc. There really is no limit to how extreme you can go. And hey, if at any time you are making your sweater and think, Oh no, I messed up! just remember, it's supposed to be ugly! So make mistakes, because it only adds character!
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