Ugly Sweater Party Invitation Set with RSVP, Voting Ballot and Champion Award in Christmas and Winter Versions

Three sweaters hang from wooden clothespins across the middle of this ugly sweater party invitation: a green one with a white snowflake and a candy-striped sleeve, a cream one with a Christmas tree, and a red one with a reindeer face and a mustard polka-dot sleeve. “Ugly Sweater Party!” bursts above them in chunky red and green letters, with “Bad sweaters. Great company.” underneath. A thick border of white snowflakes and red and gold diamonds frames every card, the way a Fair Isle knit pattern frames a sweater yoke.

Christmas or winter

The set comes in two themes, each in its own folder. The Christmas folder has the tree and reindeer sweaters and pine trees around the edges. The winter folder swaps them for a big red snowflake sweater and a pair of mittens, with loose snowflakes in place of the trees, so the cards carry no Christmas or religious imagery at all. The headline, colors and border stay the same in both.

Each theme has English and Spanish pages. The Spanish cards carry their own headline and translated text throughout, from “Malos suéteres. Buena compañía.” on the front to “¡Cuenta conmigo!” on the reply card.

Running the contest

The back of the invitation, “The Knitty-Gritty”, sets the rules before anyone arrives: wear your most gloriously terrible sweater, thrift, borrow or DIY one, and number it at the door. The ballot then does the work.

1. Give every sweater a number as guests come in.
2. Hand each guest one 3.5 x 4.5 inch “My Vote” ballot. It has a single line for a sweater number and a reminder not to vote for yourself.
3. Count the ballots. Most votes wins, and the host settles any tie.
4. Write the winner’s name, the date and the host on the 5 x 7 “Officially Terribly Stylish” award.

Ballots print four to a sheet, so one page covers four guests.

Writing or typing the details

The print PDFs come with blank lines for the date, place and RSVP, ready for a pen. For typed invitations, open the Canva link, make your own copy and edit there. The photo layouts have an empty window marked “Your Photo”. Delete that label, add your picture and crop it to fit, since the window does not snap the image in for you. Download the finished pages as PDF for printing or as a JPG for the 1080 x 1920 phone version.

Paper, cutting and folding

The PDFs have 0.125 inch bleed and crop marks. Set the printer to actual size with any shrink or fit option off, and cut on the crop marks rather than the outer edge of the color. Invitations print two to a sheet. If you print backs, match a portrait front with the portrait back and a landscape front with the landscape back, and run one sheet first to see which way your printer turns the page. The thank-you card is 8.5 x 5.5 inches flat and folds to 4.25 x 5.5, with “All knit. All heart.” on the back and “Thank you!” on the front.

Holding a sweater contest at work? Pair this set with our company Christmas party invitations. For a quieter night in, the Christmas pajama party invitation is built around cocoa and a holiday movie instead.

Questions

Can I type our party details into the printable PDFs?

No. In the print PDFs the date, place and RSVP lines are blank rules for writing by hand. To type them, edit your own copy of the Canva template and export the pages you need as PDF or JPG.

Can I change the "Ugly Sweater Party!" headline?

No. The curved headline, the knit border and the sweaters are fixed artwork. The Spanish pages use a separate headline, "¡Fiesta de suéteres feos!". The slogan, the event details and the wording on the smaller cards can all be edited in Canva.