Saturday, December 15, 2012

Day 15: Pretty-Ugly Sweater DIY

This is totally not a download, but I thought it would be a fun DIY to share...

My husband's office is planning an ugly sweater party this year, and they are now so ubiquitous I had a feeling that our local Salvation Army would be totally picked-over in the ugly sweater department. I was right, but—I got a great tip from one of the employees: buy a semi-ugly sweater, then deck it out with stuff from the dollar store. Guaranteed winners that way, he said. Turns out this guy was totally on to something! So, I picked up a generic red sweatshirt (pre-pilled). If I had a re-do I would have probably just picked up one of these bad boys new since the prices are comparable.


I went on the hunt for raw materials at  the 99 Cents Only store. Ohhh, my head was spinning at the possibilities after scoping aisle after aisle of cheap holiday decor. I decided on a poinsettia theme since I love flowers, and settled on the idea of doing a "pretty" ugly sweater (ugly outweighing pretty by a long shot). I popped the heads off of all of my flowers and snipped the backs so they were easily hot-glued.


Then, I laid out my flowers to figure out placement, and decided to do a bib-style embellishment.


I hot glued like a madwoman, stood back, and looked at my results. It was good, but more is more when it comes to ugly sweaters and I needed MORE. Sequins to the rescue!


I glued on metallic sequins in a random cascade and admired the hideous beauty of my creation.

I hope this gives you some ideas for your own ugly Christmas sweater creation! Just remember: no matter what you do...you can't go wrong!

5 comments:

Sharon said...

That is awesome Julia!

Unknown said...

I was lucky enough to find an ugly Christmas shirt at a local Goodwill for $1 that was as long as it was wide
So hideous. Your sweater is truly a "pretty" ugly sweater.

Muffin said...

this is so awesome! did you win?

Unknown said...

My husband needs an ugly sweater this Tuesday. I am SO excited by this inspiring sweater! :)

Jill said...

Except that you will still look gorgeous in this!