The Key to an Epic Ugly Sweater

By Rachel Scarlett

A short post about ugly sweaters!

I assume you are all familiar with the popular ugly sweater parties nowadays? Really they have turned into wear-the-tackiest-Christmas-garb-you-can-find parties. The best ugly sweaters are the ones that are found in thrift stores. The ones that were legitimately made by a company in one era that look absolutely ridiculous in this one.

BUT you can also MAKE one to battle the tackiest of sweaters. I think there a few key ways to achieve epicness with your old plain sweater. They are repetitiveness and telling a story. Throwing a bunch of dollar store items on an old sweater is most effective when done with some order in a repetitive pattern. However the way I am going to show you is telling a story, and maybe you don't think this one is epic but maybe it can give you some inspiration ;)

As you can see I chose a favorite Christmas movie and made a scene that was telling a small part of it. Really I was inspired by some faux fur I had and I really wanted to use the crazed Abominable Snowman. I mean what's more tacky than fur on a sweater? By the time Christmas comes in the movie, everyone unites together and it's a happy ending with Rudolf leading Santa through the storm and a happy Abominable Snowman topping the Christmas tree!

The Abominable Snowman himself was made by roughly cutting his body parts out of fur and his hands are dollar store pipe cleaners. The star he holds is cardboard covered in glitter and he stands atop a mound of cotton ball snow.

His face is glittered foam from the dollar store and random googly eyes I had. His ridiculous teeth are plastic pearl beads.

I believe the fur used for the reindeer was from a caveman costume my mom made for my big brother almost 20 years ago... the old fur was starting to separate from the fabric.... pretty tacky. The antlers are more of those pipe cleaners from the dollar store and the reins are just one long continuous ribbon. And as you can see, I used different sized googly eyes for each reindeer.  

Rudolf with his foam sparkle nose....

Snow made from cotton balls and the tree is made from tinsel garland from the thrift store with an old ribbon I had. I glued on some beads that look like Christmas lights but they're hard to see. 

To make this sweater a little more lively, I continued the reins onto the backside to a simple picture of Santa's sleigh. The sleigh is a combination of that glittered foam and pipe cleaners, and the snowflakes are just foam- also from the dollar store.

I definitely could have taken things to a whole other level by making a waving Santa from the sleigh, adding better and more visible ornaments to the tree, and perhaps a banner of 'Merry Christmas' on the backside above the sleigh.

Happy Ugly Sweater Making!!!