Stories
DIY Ugly Holiday Sweater: Fireplace Edition

By Jessica Pruitt and Amelia Gotobed, Buffalo Exchange HQ
If you have an ugly sweater party on your weekend agenda but you’re still fresh out of holiday cheer, our annual DIY ugly holiday sweater is to the rescue! You can always buy a pre-made sweater at your local Buffalo Exchange, but if you want to win the prize for the coolest, craftiest sweater, we recommend making your own. For this year’s sweater, we’ve crafted a festive fireplace. Forget Netflix’s Fireplace For Your Home – this holiday season, it’s all you!
What You’ll Need
Before you start, you’ll need to gather your supplies. We found a red sweater at Buffalo Exchange and the rest at the craft store. If you don’t want to purchase a new sweater, you can cut costs by recycling any color sweater from your closet. We spent a total of $30 on this project and about 30 minutes making it.
Supplies:
- Red sweater
- Felt squares (1 each in black, brown, red, orange and yellow)
- Tinsel
- Mini Stockings
- Mini picture frame ornaments
- Green poms
- Mini red poms or mini red bow
- White fabric paint
- Hot glue gun & hot glue sticks
- Scissors
Crafting your DIY Ugly Holiday Sweater
Step 1: First off, create your fireplace out of felt. Round out the corners of a full sheet of black felt for your background. Then, draw out your flames on your red, yellow and orange felt in different sizes and cut them out. Hot glue the pieces together and then hot glue the whole thing to your sweater.
Step 2: Make two logs with your brown sheet of felt by cutting out strips and rounding the edges. Use the brown felt to create a long rectangular mantel for your fireplace as well and attach it all to the sweater.
Step 3: Time to decorate your mantle! Add your tinsel, faux picture frames and miniature stockings and hot glue it all on to your sweater. Don’t forget to fill your frames with adorable/hilarious photographs!
Step 4: Next, craft your wreath. Lay out green pom poms in a circle and hot glue them directly onto the sweater. Use the smaller red poms to make an upside down triangle at the top for a holly berry effect.
Step 5: Using the white fabric paint, decorate your stockings (optional) and add your brick effect.
With a sweater like this, you’re sure to make a blaze at your ugly sweater party this weekend, so get cracklin’! Crunched for time? Not to worry – you can also stop by your local Buffalo Exchange for a ready-to-wear holiday sweater that’s sure to light up any room.