Creating Your Own Festive Holiday Sweater

Hi everyone, Abby here! If you’ve been listening to the radio, or out shopping, you have started hearing holiday songs and seeing holiday decorations all over the place. I’ve already started receiving emails about shopping for holiday and party clothes! (Not that I’m complaining; I can use all of the reminders I can get.)

 

With the upcoming holiday season, it’s time to start planning (or searching for) a festive holiday sweater! If you don’t want to make your own, Goodwill Akron set out their collection of holiday sweaters on November 14. But if, like me, you’d rather make your own, read on for instructions on how I crafted this year’s festive holiday sweater (check out last year’s festive holiday sweater here).

 

Supplies needed:

  1. Sweater, sweatshirt or any top to decorate
  2. Needle and thread (feel free to sub hot glue and a hot glue gun for all of the sewing steps in the below instructions)
  3. Scissors
  4. Straight pins
  5. Decorations for your festive holiday sweater. I used: bells, studs, fake leaves, and felt cut-outs

 

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For this year’s sweater, I wanted to do something a little bit glam and a little bit rock and roll. I chose a sweatshirt I found at Goodwill on Waterloo Road as my base, and I started by cutting off the bands around the arms and the bottom of the sweatshirt. I toyed with cutting off the band around the neck, but decided against it when I chose to do a collar embellishment.

 

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Next, I cut up the middle of the front of the sweatshirt so I could wear it as a jacket instead of a pullover.

 

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Once all of my cuts were made, I laid out different options for collar embellishment and “buttons:”

For my collar options, I laid out a lace collar trim that I had available and another option with some studs (from an old belt). I decided on the studs to make my sweater a little bit edgier. The studs were easily applied to my sweater, as they just needed to be stuck on the collar.

 

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Next up, was to decide on “buttons.” I laid out bells for my first option and mini ornaments for another option. Because I had a “bell flower” already created, I decided to use bells for buttons. I sewed the bells on with needle and thread.

 

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Once I had my bell buttons sewed on, I cut and sewed on small lengths of yarn to act as the fasteners for the buttons.

Next, I sewed two felt snowflake cut outs on to the back of my “bell flower,” and then a pin on to the back so I could wear the flower on other tops during the season.

 

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Finally, I sewed a red felt ornament on to the back of the sweater for some added interest.

 

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To show off my new sweater, I decided to style it for a casual event, as well as a more formal event.

For my casual outfit, I paired my new festive holiday sweater with a flannel button-down, my DIY denim (from this post) and some silver wedges.

 

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And for my more formal outfit, I paired my new sweater with a hand-me-down button-down, a tulle skirt, silver tights and white booties.

 

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For those of you that missed last year’s festive holiday sweater DIY workshop, I will be hosting one again this year on Saturday, December 5. The best part, you’ll be able to get your festive holiday sweater decorated for National Ugly Holiday Sweater Day on Friday, December 18. See below for details on the workshop and for the link to register. Hope to see you there!

Date: Saturday, December 5, 2015

Time: 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.

Location: Waterloo Road store, 570 E. Waterloo Road in Akron

Happy Creating!

Abby