How to make a DIY Ugly Sweater

We attended my husband’s baseball team’s Christmas party last night and had a great time. He plays with a GREAT group of guys with equally amazing spouses/girlfriends/fiances, so it was great to see all of them together during the off season. As part of the party you had to wear an ugly sweater. Rather than going out shopping, my hubby and I got a little crafty with our sweaters and today I’m going to show you how easy and affordable it is to make a DIY Ugly Sweater that is TRULY as ugly as they come!

So this post kind of came as an after thought AFTER we put the sweaters together because they weren’t hard at all…so I don’t have step by step photo tutorials. But I will share step by steps that are EASY!

Christmas Tree Ugly Sweater (total cost less than $15):

Simple Ugly Sweater (from my husband’s closet)

$1 mini tree skirt from Target’s Dollar Section

Mini 20 count Christmas lights in red from Target $8

Mini green garland (15 feet size) $5

Mini bulbs from Target’s Dollar Section $1

Hot Glue and safety pins

1. Start by cutting your mini tree skirt in half and then hot gluing it to the bottom of your shirt.

2. From there, create the widest point of your tree and start hot gluing your garland onto the shirt. You’ll want to zig and zag your garland all the way up the shirt, making each layer a little shorter than the previous until you reach the height and width you desire.

3. This is the hardest part of all of it…the lights. We wound our 20 count battery operated lights back and forth the same way you apply the garland, but rather than hot gluing it, we used safety pins underneath the shirt to hold the lights on. This will take the longest time and some finageling, but you’ll get the hang of it. The battery pack needs to end at the bottom though, so you can shove it in your pocket…be sure that you make note of that or you’ll be sorely disappointed.

4. After your skirt, garland and lights are on…add your bulbs. We purchased 10 bulbs for $1 in the dollar section of Target and just hot glued them on.

5. Finally we topped the tree with a star using felt and hot glue and there’s your EASY Christmas Tree ugly sweater.

Pinterest contacted me recently and shared their staff trying to recreate this video…I thought I’d embed in my post to show you how they did! Who do you think did it best?!

Pregnant Ugly Sweater Idea

My ugly sweater required a little more finesse because my big round pregnant belly! So if you need a maternity ugly sweater I have an idea for you, as well!

Maternity Ugly Sweater:

Maternity Shirt (I used an old 3/4 sleeve black maternity shirt)

Small stuffed animal from Target’s Dollar Section $1

Elf Vest from Target’s Dollar Section $3

Got Glue

1. Target sells an elf vest that I took apart for my shirt. I started by cutting off the back of the vest so I just had the front. Then I cut the vest straight up the center.

2. From there I hot glued the top parts of the vest onto either side near my shoulders so I could see the best way to make it lie with my pregnant belly. And then…I literally had my husband help me hot glue the vest onto the shirt so that it fit my bump nicely (without doing it like this it wouldn’t have laid right on me). I wore a shirt underneath so I didn’t have to worry about getting burnt with the glue.

3. After the best was hot glued on, I deconstructed my poor little stuffed animal. You need it’s head/nack, two arms, and two legs. I then hot glued the stuffed animal onto my belly using the roundest part of my belly as the “body” of the animal (like it was peaking out from the abyss LOL).

Both shirts cost under $20 to make and took us about 2 hours. We weren’t out shopping Goodwill or thrift stores and I’ll tell you what…they were real head turners and NO ONE else had the same shirt as us! I took home first place for my shirt 😉

So there you have it! Two DIY Ugly Sweaters for you! Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!