How To Create An Ugly Sweater

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I don't recall ever making an Ugly sweater. I don't remember ever wearing one either. This year I've noticed a ton of people talking about the Ugly Sweater – even Macy's has their own design line of Ugly Sweaters. I have enough old gross sweaters from the 80's in my memory, I don't know that I want to wear one that is worse on purpose! However, my son was participating in spirit week at his school last week and Wednesday was Wear and Ugly Sweater day. So what do you think we did…. yes, we got crafty and made our own fancy ugly sweater.

Making an Ugly Sweater with a football theme

I shouldn't really say "we". My son had asked if we could make the sweater and then the evening got busy and by the time anyone remembered, he had been snoring for hours. So, I stayed up and made this lovely creation. Do not adjust the color on your monitor, that candy cane really is orange and blue. My son is a HUGE DENVER BRONCOS FAN, and I was out of normal felt colors… so football sweater extraordinaire was the result of my "gotta get it done" improvising. Go ahead, ask me what the 25 stands for – on this CHRISTMAS sweater!

To put this all together, I used the fabric pieces I cut with good scissors and then glued everything using a fabric glue. That's it. Nothing super fancy.. the glitter, that's what makes it fancy schmancy!

The footballs are faux leather – pleather – the kind you use to cover outdoor furniture. Everything else is felt. Except the gold, that's good ol' glitter glue!

Here's some detail of the tree…

Ugly Sweater Christmas tree with a Football theme

I don't have any fancy stencils or templates to share with you. I really did wing this one at about 1am… so the fact that I remembered to take photos is a bonus! I think that's part of the point. Some of these manufacturers sweaters I have seen are kind of on the edge of cool rather than ugly. Are you thinking that means ugly sweaters are going to become another hipster trend… or are we already there?

Side note about creating something not so attractive… It's a really weird conflict to hear the "yeah, that's really ugly" for something we put a lot of effort into. I think it's a compliment – it's supposed to be ugly, right?

So you don't want to make your own ugly sweater? You have a couple options.. go buy one. There's even one at the Official Denver Broncos Team Shop last time I looked. You can also download and print out my Ugly Sweater printable gift tags and hold that up every time someone asks you where your sweater is. Or.. do like the rest of everyone and just pin some junk on your sweater and call it a day!

More Ugly Sweater Party Ideas

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