'Look Inside the Reindeer' Sweater

Christmas is about celebrating time with family and friends, that means a lot of parties going on around the Holidays. I bet every one of us will have at least one ugly sweater party this year, and what's a better way to impress everyone than making your sweater by yourself? Your cousins and friends definately will be amazed, while grandma and grandpa will never tell something's not right with this lovely reindeer sweater you just made yourself. This is how you make a nice sweater with a naughty twist hidden on it.

For this you will need:

Plain colored jumper (any color will do)

Grey, white, beige and black felt fabric

Small patch of furry fabric (I cut mine off the old faux fur coat)

Small mirror

Fairy lights with batteries

Thread, needle, pins

Now let's start our project!

On a thick paper draw a simple reindeer body, head and horns and cut them out. You'll need two body parts, one head and two sets of horns, but you can just simply cut one of each and reuse them on the other side. Then pin them on the felt fabric and cut them out. Pins are quite necessary here, without them paper will move back and forth while cutting and we definitely don't want uneven parts. When all parts are cut out, arrange them together and make adjustments, if needed.

Now its time for additional reindeer parts like face and paws. I did them without paper stencil, just eyeballing until it looks good. Now you're ready to build the sweater. Start with front side and arrange the reindeer in the middle.

Start by molding fairy lights wires in a shape of a horn and check if those tiny lights are in every part of the horn, then do it on the other horn. Keep in mind to leave 3 mm space between seams around the horn so you can easily sew them later. When you're happy with light arrangement, carefully pull out the horn and place it on the lights and pin them with needle pins. You will definitely understand better from the pictures next here.

Place the battery box at lower side of the belly and place needle pins all around the seams. Now it's time to sew our deer up. I did a simple stitch seam by hand and it worked fine, but with sewing machine result would be much neater. If sewing is not your thing, you can use hot glue gun, but be careful around the lights in the horns. Leave a small opening near the battery box, so you can easily switch on your lights when needed. When sewing is done, turn the lights on and check if everything works nice.

At this step you just place all the back pieces on the back side of the sweater and sew them down. Use needle pins just like before.

Place a small mirror on the felt and cut out a round form just as in the picture. Glue the mirror down the lower part and fold the upper part over the mirror. Then glue on a fluffy fabric and press firmly, so it sticks good. Now glue this tail on the middle of a reindeer butt and press firmly.

Now it's time for your imagination! Decorate your sweater and reindeer itself by adding felt snowflakes, bows, ornaments and everything you can find in that large Christmas decor box in the garage.

And this is it! Your ugly sweater is ready to be shown off! For friends: ask them "Have you seen what's inside the reindeer? Look, I'll show you!" and then turn your back and ask to lift up the tail! They will be surprised to see their faces in a reindeer butt. For grandma: better just show how pretty lights have you sewn in the horns by yourself! She'll like it, I can guarantee!