These DIY Christmas sweater ornaments are the perfect Christmas craft for kids of all ages to make during the holiday season. Children can colour in our free printable black and white Christmas sweater template however they like to create their very own Christmas sweater designs {no sewing needed!}.
As a bonus these ornaments are also a cute keepsake you can bring out to decorate the Christmas tree with each year.
DIY CHRISTMAS SWEATER ORNAMENTS
Christmas sweaters are traditionally more popular in the Northern hemisphere where Christmas occurs in Winter. Christmas themed jumpers, crew neck, roll neck and turtle neck knits that feature Christmas themes like Santa, reindeer, snowmen, Christmas trees and presents are all collectively known as Christmas sweaters.
Christmas sweaters that are particularly gaudy with tacky images or over the top embellishments like sequins, glitter, bells or tinsel are known as ugly Christmas sweaters. The trend of ugly Christmas sweaters came about in the 1980's, when let's face it tacky and gaudy was in fashion. Now lots of people have ugly sweater parties at Christmas and try to outdo each other with the ugliest Christmas sweater.
We don't have a chance to wear Christmas sweaters where we live in Australia because it's usually 35C+ {95F+} and the middle of Summer here, so we decided to create some Christmas sweater ornaments instead. It's up to your kids if they want to leave them as traditional Christmas sweaters, or turn them into ugly Christmas sweaters.
Supplies to make DIY Christmas Sweater Ornaments
- Scissors
- Hole punch
- Ribbon or string
- White cardstock or paper
- Pens, crayons or pencils
- Embellishments {optional}
- Christmas sweater template
- Laminator {optional}
If you want to make your Christmas sweater ornaments pop even more you can add some fun craft embellishments after colouring them in. Items that would work well are glitter glue, small stick on gems or tiny pom poms. Please note you won't be able to laminate ornaments with any embellishments added.
HOW TO MAKE DIY CHRISTMAS SWEATER ORNAMENTS
1. Print out the Christmas sweater template. If you don't have cardstock you can use white paper and then laminate them once they've been decorated {as long as no embellishments have been stuck onto the paper}.
2. Colour in and decorate the sweaters. It's easier for children to colour in the sweaters before they're cut out, that way if they go out of the lines it won't matter. My 10yr old coloured ours and came up with the colour combinations on her own.
If you're using paper and want to laminate the ornaments to make them more durable, laminate them now as an entire sheet. We printed ours onto white paper then laminated them for durability.
3. Cut out the individual sweaters. If you're doing this craft with younger children they may need help with this step.
4. Use a hole punch to make a hole just down from the neckline.
5. Loop ribbon or string through the hole so the ornament can hang onto the tree. I used approximately 20cm of ribbon for each ornament. If you don't have ribbon or string you can use twine or a pipe cleaner.
6. Hang finished sweater ornaments on the tree. You could also string them into a Christmas garland.
A great way to repurpose these ornaments is to send them to family and friends as Christmas gifts. Have your child write their name and the year, or their age, on the back of the sweater so they can be kept as a keepsake. You can also keep them as part of your Christmas decorations each year.
DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLE CHRISTMAS SWEATER TEMPLATES
To make your Christmas sweater ornaments, you'll need the free printable Christmas sweaters template that includes 6 different Christmas sweater designs. Click the download template button below to download the template. This will take you directly to the PDF that can be downloaded to your device and printed.
Please note that this free printable Christmas sweater template is for personal or classroom use only and may not be shared electronically, uploaded, or sold on any platform. If you would like to share or feature this craft in a blog post please link back to this post directly.
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