DIY Tacky Dog Christmas Sweater
It’s Christmas time which means it’s time for ugly Christmas sweaters to start making their appearance again. It seems like the ugly sweater parties have really gotten popular in the past several years. I just wish I would have known before my mom got rid of hers.
We were invited to our first tacky sweater party and I had to come up with something tacky to wear. As frugal as I am I didn’t want to go out and buy anything too expensive so I decided I would just make one. That adds to the tackiness right? There are several good ideas for DIY tacky sweaters online but this one caught my eye specifically.
It doesn’t get much tackier than wearing your pet’s face with a santa hat and we all know how much I love my dogs.
I figure I can’t be the only one looking to make a cheap/easy tacky sweater and a pet lover so here is how I did it:
Supplies Needed:
- Sweater you don’t care about – I got mine at the thrift store
- Large picture of your pet – I printed mine on regular computer paper
- Red Felt – I already had around the house
- White Fluff/Fur of some kind – mine was a strand of a white fur-like boa that I already had at the house
- Hot Glue Gun & Sticks – I used hot glue because I don’t sew at all
- Black Fabric Paint
- Jingle Bells
Here is how I did it:
- Put cardboard or something inside the sweater to help flatten the space and keep it from gluing the front of the sweater to the back
- Cut out the dog/pet face and hot glue in the desired location
- Cut out santa hat shapes from felt – I drew the shape with a sharpie first and then cut it out.
- Glue Santa Hat Felt onto sweater
- Cut Fur Boa for the tip of santa hats and Trim of Santa Hat and Glue
- Cut a piece of felt to fit under pet head for the “collar” and glue
- Once you have added all the pictures, felt, boa – take fabric paint and outline the faces, santa hat and collar just so it looks more finished and stands out more.
- Then go take a nap while it dries – that’s what I highly recommend as the “dry time activity”
- Once it’s dry, sew the jingle bells on the collar just with one or two quick stitches. This was the hardest part for me because I do not sew! In fact, I lost a jingle bell when I got home from the party so I obviously didn’t sew it well.
That’s all you do! It took me about an hour total so it wasn’t bad at all and probably only cost me $8 (sweater, fabric paint and jingle bells) because I had everything else already. I made a bow out of ribbon I had and tied it on a headband and wore jingle bell earrings to compliment the tacky sweater. I should also mention that this is probably a one-time sweater. Since I used computer paper it is not water proof so I had to make sure it didn’t get wet or rained on. You could probably use the iron-on transfer paper for a more durable solution. I hope you enjoyed my tacky sweater tutorial.
I actually won the girls tackiest sweater award at the party! The sweater was a HIT!
