DIY Ugly Sweater Christmas Garland

When did we all decide to stop wearing ugly Christmas sweaters ironically, and switch to wearing them sincerely? Either way, I love a good ugly sweater during the holidays. The tackier, the better, in my opinion! I have my own that I whip out for parties, decked out in kittens and distractingly noisy jingle bells. I decided to celebrate this kitschy theme by making a decorative garland out of mini little sweaters. Turns out, shrinking things only makes them cuter, not uglier!            

I as a full-grown adult had a blast making this ugly sweater garland, but it’s also a great projects for kids. All you have to do is provide a few pre-cut sweater shapes, and little hands are good to go to work.  

Materials

• Felt in a variety of colors
• Scissors
• Hot glue (or white glue if making this project with kids)
• Twine, string, or ribbon to form garland
• Decorations such as paint, pom-poms, sequins, rhinestones, glitter, and pipe cleaners

Step

You will need a few ugly sweater shapes in felt to begin. To keep my shapes roughly the same, I traced a sweater shape on a piece of paper and used that as a template for my other shapes. To create a nice sweater shape, keep the arms of the shirt shorter than the shirt itself, and don’t forget a scoop for the neck!

Step

The rest of this project is pretty straight-forward… you just decorate! Cut pieces of felt and glue them to the sweaters – like a stocking, present, tree, or star shape. Glue pom-poms to collars and cuffs for extra fluff. Pipe cleaners are great for creating shapes as you can bend and manipulate them into pretty much anything. A little glitter paint goes a long way, too, in ugly-fying your little sweaters.

Luckily, this is an ugly sweater garland, emphasis on ugly. So don’t fret over the details. The kookier and weirder, the better. 

Once all your lovely little sweaters have dried completely, string them together with a big of twine and hot glue on the backs of each piece. Hang, and admire your craftiness. 

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I just love tiny things, and had so much fun making this tacky Christmas sweater garland while I listened to holiday music. Sometimes you just have to whip out that hot glue gun and a bag of rhinestones and get to crafting to make it really feel like Christmas.