Ugly Christmas sweaters have become one of the most playful parts of holiday dressing. The whole point is to forget about understated good taste for an evening and embrace blinking lights, pom-poms, tinsel, oversized reindeer, dangling ornaments and as much Christmas cheer as one sweater can possibly hold.
Even better, you don’t have to buy a special sweater that you’ll wear once a year. An inexpensive thrift-store knit, an old sweater from the back of your closet or a basic sweatshirt can become the foundation for something much more memorable.
Whether you’re getting ready for an ugly Christmas sweater party, entering a contest at work or simply want something ridiculous for the family Christmas photo, these DIY ideas range from wonderfully simple to gloriously over-the-top.
🎄 What You’ll Need to Make an Ugly Christmas Sweater
You certainly don’t need every craft supply in the store. Start with the sweater and choose decorations according to the design you want to make.
- An old or inexpensive sweater or sweatshirt
- Sheets of red, green, white and brown felt
- Pom-poms
- Tinsel or lightweight garland
- Ribbon and bows
- Plastic Christmas ornaments
- Jingle bells
- Sequins and large buttons
- Fabric glue
- Needle and thread
- Hot glue gun, if appropriate for your sweater
- Fabric paint or fabric markers
- Pipe cleaners
- Battery-operated miniature LED lights
- Safety pins for temporarily positioning decorations
- Scissors
- Cardboard to place inside the sweater while decorating
A trip through your existing Christmas decorations can sometimes provide most of what you need. Leftover ribbon, mismatched ornaments, old bows and scraps from other holiday projects are perfect candidates for an ugly sweater.
If you enjoy making your own decorations, you might also find inspiration in our Easy DIY Christmas Ball Crafts.
🦌 1. Light-Up Nordic Reindeer Christmas Sweater
The sweater pictured on this page offers wonderful inspiration because it already has a traditional Nordic winter pattern with large white reindeer. Colorful Christmas lights and shiny baubles turn the otherwise handsome winter knit into something much more outrageous.
You can recreate the same effect with almost any patterned Christmas sweater. A dark blue, gray, black or red knit with snowflakes, reindeer or other winter motifs works especially well.
Instead of using ordinary plug-in Christmas lights on something you’re wearing, use a lightweight battery-operated LED light strand. Arrange the strand in loose curves across the front of the sweater, as though someone has accidentally tangled you in the Christmas tree.
Secure the wire at several points with loose hand stitches, ribbon loops or another removable method that works with your sweater. Keep the battery pack somewhere comfortable and accessible, such as inside a small fabric pocket sewn near the hem.
Finish the design with a few lightweight plastic baubles attached around the lights. Red, gold, silver and green ornaments provide the colorful, chaotic look of the photograph without making the sweater unnecessarily heavy.
The result is particularly good for an evening party because the lights become part of the joke as soon as the room gets a little darker.
🎄 2. Wearable Christmas Tree Sweater
Why stand beside the Christmas tree when you can become one?
Start with a green sweater and create a loose zigzag of tinsel from the shoulders toward the waist, gradually making each row wider so the entire front resembles the triangular shape of a Christmas tree.
Small pom-poms can become ornaments, while sequins or adhesive rhinestones create a little extra sparkle. Attach lightweight plastic ornaments if you want the sweater to move and jingle while you walk.
The finishing touch is the star. Cut a large yellow or gold star from felt or glitter foam and attach it close to the neckline.
For a truly ridiculous version, add battery-powered lights through the tinsel. You’ll essentially be a walking Christmas tree, which is exactly the sort of commitment an ugly sweater contest deserves.
🔴 3. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Sweater
A Rudolph sweater is easy to recognize and doesn’t require complicated crafting skills.
Use a brown, tan or neutral-colored sweater and cut a large reindeer face from brown felt. Add oversized white-and-black felt eyes and an enormous red pom-pom nose.
The antlers are where you can have some fun. Make flat antlers from dark brown felt or create three-dimensional ones using pipe cleaners wrapped in brown yarn or felt. Position them above the reindeer’s head so they stretch dramatically across the chest.
A few tiny jingle bells around the neckline can become Rudolph’s collar.
If subtlety has somehow crept into the finished design, attach miniature bows, snowflakes or ornaments around the reindeer until the problem has been corrected.
⛄ 4. Melting Snowman Sweater
Not every Christmas sweater needs to be perfectly symmetrical. In fact, a melting snowman looks funnier when everything is slightly out of place.
A pale blue, gray or black sweater makes a good winter backdrop. Use three large pieces of white felt to create the snowman’s body, but deliberately arrange them as though the snowman is slowly collapsing.
Add black button eyes, a felt carrot nose and a scarf made from an actual strip of tartan ribbon or fabric. Place one stick arm higher than the other and scatter a few white pom-poms around the bottom as “melted snow.”
You can even attach a small sign reading “Some assembly required.”
This design works especially well if you like funny Christmas sweaters but don’t necessarily want lights and decorations dangling from every available inch.
🎁 5. Christmas Present Sweater
This may be the easiest last-minute idea of all.
Choose a solid red, green or white sweater and wrap wide ribbon vertically down the center and horizontally across the waist, just as you would wrap a Christmas present.
Where the ribbons cross, attach the biggest bow you can find.
A gift tag pinned near the shoulder can say “To: Santa”, “Do Not Open Until Christmas” or simply your name.
For an extra layer of silliness, hang several smaller bows from the sleeves or cover the entire sweater with gift tags. You can even coordinate the wrapping-paper colors with a Christmas party outfit underneath.
The concept is simple, instantly recognizable and perfect if you suddenly discover that tomorrow’s office party has an ugly sweater theme.
🍬 6. Candy Cane Christmas Sweater
Red and white provide an easy starting point for an exaggerated candy-cane design.
Use strips of white felt or ribbon across a red sweater to create diagonal peppermint stripes. Then make several oversized candy canes from red-and-white felt and position them in different directions across the front.
Add peppermint-shaped felt circles, red pom-poms and white faux fur around the cuffs if you want to push the theme further.
A playful phrase such as “Sweet but Twisted” can be added with felt letters across the center.
This design has the advantage of looking extremely festive without requiring many bulky decorations, so it’s a good choice if you’ll actually be wearing your sweater for several hours.
🎅 7. Santa Stuck in the Chimney Sweater
For something a little more theatrical, turn the front of your sweater into a rooftop scene.
Create a chimney from red felt rectangles marked with white fabric paint to resemble bricks. Add two stuffed Santa legs sticking upward from the top, complete with black felt boots.
White pom-poms or fluffy batting around the chimney can resemble snow, while a black or navy sweater creates a nighttime background.
Add a crescent moon, stars and perhaps a felt reindeer watching the entire disaster unfold.
The dimensional Santa legs make this design especially funny in photographs and give it the sort of over-the-top quality that tends to do well in ugly sweater contests.
🎀 8. The “Everything in the Craft Box” Sweater
Sometimes the best ugly Christmas sweater doesn’t need a theme at all.
Begin with an old sweater and decorate it with whatever Christmas craft supplies you already own. Tinsel can go around the collar. Bows can cover the sleeves. Pom-poms can become ornaments. Bells can hang from the hem. Snowflakes can tumble across the shoulders while sequins fill every remaining empty space.
Add a large felt Christmas tree, gingerbread person or Santa in the center if you need a focal point.
This is also a fun family crafting project because everyone can have access to the same box of decorations and create a completely different sweater. There are no mistakes here. In fact, the less coordinated everything looks, the better.
✨ How to Make Your Ugly Sweater Look Even Better—or Worse
The secret to a memorable ugly Christmas sweater is usually dimension. Flat felt decorations are a good beginning, but bows, bells, pom-poms, miniature ornaments and tinsel give the design movement and texture.
Think about the whole sweater rather than concentrating only on the chest. Decorate the sleeves, shoulders and even the back. A strand of tinsel around one cuff or ornaments dangling from the elbows can turn an ordinary design into something spectacularly unnecessary.
Contrast also helps. Red and green are obvious choices, but electric blue, gold, silver, hot pink and multicolored lights can make traditional Christmas colors even louder.
Most importantly, don’t spend too much time trying to make everything perfectly aligned. Slightly crooked decorations and unexpected combinations are very much part of the charm.
🧵 Glue or Sew the Decorations?
How you attach decorations depends on whether you want to wear the sweater again in its original form.
If you’re sacrificing an old sweater permanently to the cause, fabric glue or carefully applied hot glue can make the project quick and easy. Put cardboard inside the sweater first so adhesive doesn’t seep through and attach the front and back together.
If you might want the sweater back after Christmas, hand stitching is usually a better approach. A few loose stitches can hold tinsel, bows, felt shapes and lightweight ornaments in place and can later be snipped away.
Safety pins can also work for temporary placement, although they should be positioned where they won’t poke or rub against you.
💡 Adding Christmas Lights to a Sweater
Lights can transform even the simplest sweater into an impressive party outfit, but a wearable version should be kept lightweight and uncomplicated.
Small battery-operated LED strands are much more practical than household plug-in Christmas lights. Secure the lights loosely rather than pulling the wire tight across stretchy fabric, and position the battery compartment so you can reach the switch easily.
Don’t cover the battery pack with glue or permanently sew it shut. You’ll want to be able to switch the lights off, remove the batteries and take the lighting system off the sweater when necessary.
If children are participating in the craft, adults should manage hot glue guns, batteries and electrical decorations. Button and coin batteries in particular should be kept securely away from young children.
🎉 Throw an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party
Once everyone has made a sweater, you have an excellent excuse for a party.
Encourage guests to arrive in their most ridiculous creations and create a simple photo area with Christmas lights, wrapped presents and garland in the background. Rather than choosing only an “ugliest sweater,” you can award different honors for categories such as most creative, brightest, most over-decorated and best homemade design.
A Christmas punch bowl, appetizer table and playlist are really all you need beyond that. The sweaters themselves provide plenty of decoration and entertainment.
If you’re decorating the house for the gathering too, our Christmas Decorating Ideas hub has more inspiration for turning the room into a festive backdrop.
❤️ Make It Ridiculous, Make It Yours
The best DIY ugly Christmas sweaters aren’t necessarily the most complicated. They’re the ones that make people smile.
Maybe yours is a beautifully knitted Nordic sweater hopelessly tangled in Christmas lights, like the one that inspired this collection. Perhaps it’s an enormous Rudolph face with a pom-pom nose, a three-dimensional Santa disappearing into a chimney or simply an old sweatshirt covered with every leftover decoration you could find.
There is really only one rule: this is not the occasion for restraint.
Raid the craft cupboard, rescue an old sweater and give yourself permission to make something wonderfully excessive. When Christmas comes around, sometimes looking a little ridiculous is all part of the fun.
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