How to Make an Ugly Christmas Sweater Applique

Classic ugly Christmas sweaters are almost always overdone.

The ugly Christmas sweater is such a cliche, some families and groups actually hold contests to see who can find the worst one. If your local thrift shops fail to produce a suitably horrible sample, create your own with a plain sweater by making an ugly applique. You can easily attach this example of bad taste and clashing color with Velcro, making it even tackier by not being a permanent installation. You may win the contest, but you won't ruin a perfectly good sweater doing it.

Things You'll Need

• Felt
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Sequins and glitter
• Jingle bells
• Shiny trim
• Velcro dots

Instructions

1. Cut out the outline of a Christmas tree in two pieces of green felt. Use a green that's not very Christmas-like, such as olive or sage. Make the tree shape look as if you ran out of felt and had to finish on the second piece. Glue them together into one larger felt applique outline.

2. Decorate the tree with layers of glue, glitter, sequins and unmatched trim. Search your local craft store for random bags of trim ends at a discount price, and mix them all up on the tree. You can tell people it's an ode to your family holiday tree with its eclectic ornaments collected over the years.

3. Open the Velcro dot pairs and glue three of the hook halves on the back of the tree. This will be enough to keep the applique on the sweater but not enough to make it look like a professional job.

4. Cut out outline shapes of bells, wreaths, stockings and other random Christmas items. Decorate each one with some glue and glitter and add a Velcro dot hook half on the back of each one.

5. Lay the sweater on your work table with the front facing up. Center the tree applique on the front of the sweater, then move it slightly below and to the left. Press it down onto the sweater surface.

6. Stick the smaller appliques onto the sweater, surrounding the main tree piece. Don't place them evenly; bunch some of them up and space others out in random intervals.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to find felt colors for all the appliques that are almost, but not quite, holiday colored.