Utah County Mom: No-Sew Ugly Christmas Light Up Sweaters for Kids

I love these no-sew DIY ugly Christmas sweaters for kids because they’re cute and easy so anyone can make them and my kids love them because they light up!

I took a trip to our local thrift store and picked out two sweaters in my girls’ sizes for just $2 or $3 each.  The I bought

THESE

light up strings, felt from the craft store,

heat n bond sticky back velcro

, googly eyes and two ridiculous-looking embellishments for their headbands from the floral section of Hobby Lobby.

For the present sweater, I just cut out a square of polka-dot felt and added a stripe of purple felt using Heat n’ bond.  Then I used Heat n’ bond to attach the top half of the present (more on that below) to the shirt and hot glued the bow on.  I then hot glued the lights on.

MAKE SURE YOU PUT SOMETHING LIKE A CUTTING BOARD OR WAXED PAPER BETWEEN THE FRONT AND BACK OF THE SHIRT BEFORE YOU HOT GLUE SO YOU DON’T HOT GLUE THE WHOLE SHIRT TOGETHER.

It’s not as hard as it sounds.

For the reindeer sweater, I cut out the shapes I wanted and used Heat n’ bond to put the whole reindeer together, hot gluing on the googly eyes.  Then I used Heat n’ bond to attach the top half of the reindeer to the sweater and used a hot glue gun to glue all the lights on.

The reason you only attach the TOP HALF of the graphic is because you want to hide the battery pack under the bottom half.  I then put one small piece of Velcro at the bottom to keep it shut and that battery pack hidden.  (See above)

For the headbands I just hot glued the things I got from the flower section to a headband we already had.

We got so many compliments on these and my girls love them.  My 3-year-old kept saying “thank you for making this for me mom, you’re the best mommy ever.”