6 Ridiculous DIYs That Will Win Christmas Jumper Day Hands Down

Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day is on 15 December, but do you have your jumper sorted yet? Nothing’s out of bounds. Except good taste. Maybe one of these can help…

1. Oh Tinsel Tree

Materials:

Mini green tinsel

Plain sweatshirt

Hot glue gun

Mini baubles

Gold or yellow felt

Safety pins

Brown felt

Sewing materials

Battery-powered fairy lights

Steps:

Lay a line of tinsel on the sweatshirt to create the widest part of a Christmas tree and hot glue it to the sweatshirt.

Work your way up the sweatshirt, zig-zagging the tinsel and making each layer a little shorter than the previous. Glue each layer down.

Tie baubles to various parts of the tree.

Cut a star out of yellow or gold felt and pin it to the top of the tree.

Cut a pouch (wide U) shape out of brown felt, and sew the top half to the bottom of the tree.

Wrap fairy lights across the tree, starting from the top and working down.

Place the fairy-light battery pack underneath the pouch material.

Sew the bottom of the “pouch” to the jumper, to close the battery pack into it.

2. Baby, It’s Warm Inside

Materials:
Plain red jumper

Tinsel

Safety pins

2–4 small stockings

Black, yellow, red, and orange felt

Fabric glue

Silver glitter glue

Method:

Lay out jumper so the arms are fully extended.

Pin one piece of tinsel across the body of the jumper and length of the arms.

Tie mini stockings to the tinsel – on the arms.

Cut out a black rectangle out of felt and fabric glue it to the jumper.

Cut out flames using red, orange, and yellow felt, and glue on top of the black felt.

Use glitter glue to create lines across the body of the jumper, to act as brick markings.

3. All That Sparkles

Materials:

Plain jumper

Tinsel

Safety pins

Baubles

Christmas tree star

Steps:

Starting at the bottom, wrap body of jumper in tinsel, using safety pins to attach into place.

Wrap the same colour tinsel around both arms of the jumper.

Attach baubles to the tinsel using safety pins.

Pin a star decoration to the sleeve of one of the jumper arms.

4. The Snowman

Materials:

A white jumper

Cotton wool balls or roll

A hot glue gun

Black felt

A scarf

Bonus: a carrot

Steps:

Teasing out the cotton wool to create volume, glue it to cover the entire jumper and leave to dry.

For the coal buttons, cut the black felt into three circles of equal size. Glue them one above the other down the centre of the jumper and leave to dry.

Wrap the scarf around your neck and hold the carrot up to your nose.

5. Stocking Around The Christmas Tree

Materials:

Striped jumper of your choice

Large Christmas stocking

A bottle of wine, or sweet treats

Fabric glue or sewing equipment

Battery-powered fairy lights

Safety pins

Newspaper to stuff

Candy canes, or other Christmas treats

Steps:

Sew or glue a Christmas stocking onto the front of jumper, and let dry.

Wrap fairy lights around the edge of the stocking, and pin into place.

Place the battery pack into the stocking to hide it from sight.

Add some newspaper stuffing to fill the bottom of your stocking, and pop your wine bottle in so it sticks out of the top.

For a kid-friendly option, replace the wine with sweet treats!

6. Let It Glow, Let It Glow, Let It Glow

Materials:

A dark, non-stretch sweater

EL wire kits with battery packs. For Santa, we used 1 metre of red and 2 metres of white.

2x AA batteries

Hot glue gun

Scissors

Chalk

Optional: Splitter to allow multiple wires from one battery pack

Steps:

Lay your jumper flat and lightly draw your chosen design with chalk. Try not to lift the chalk – a simple, single line will work best.

Without gluing, test the length of your wire by laying it along the chalk-drawn path. Make adjustments as necessary.

Making sure to leave enough length for the battery pack(s) to fit in your back pocket, find the start of the glowing portion of the EL wire.

Starting near the bottom of your design, glue the wire along the chalk line you’ve drawn, leaving it to dry securely every so often.

To hide the wire at any point, or to hide left-over wire, make a small slit with your scissors. Bring the EL wire inside the jumper and glue if needed.

Don your jumper, turn off the lights and wait for applause.

Photography by Lauren Zaser, Sarah Stone, and Dana Vogel.

Whether you fancy getting handy with your Christmas jumper this year or you’re going to stick to an off-the-shelf number, give a little back this festive season, for Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day on 15 December. Get together with friends, family, and colleagues – and make the world better with a sweater.

Sign up for your FREE fundraising pack at ChristmasJumperDay.org/register