Hanukkah, Hanukkah, come light the menorah … or in this case, make one!
Hanukkah – the Festival of Lights – begins tonight at sundown. Sophie I started celebrating a few days early by making our own paper menorah out of – wait for it – toilet paper rolls. I was inspired by a similar idea from the Creative Jewish Mom blog. I varied things slightly, but here’s what we ultimately made.
Here’s what you need:
9 toilet paper rolls (1 for the pattern and 8 for the candles)
1 paper towel roll (for the shamash)
blue and white construction paper
yellow felt or construction paper
gold glitter
glue gun
The first thing we did was cut out nine candle flames from the felt. I gave Sophie the important task of putting glue on each flame and dousing them with glitter. Have I mentioned there is glitter all over my house?
Next, get your toilet paper and paper towel rolls ready.
Cut a candle pattern with one of the rolls, like this.
I then proceeded to use this pattern to make candles out of the remaining toilet paper rolls. I did the same with the shamash, but made it taller since it is the most important candle that lights the others. I took it a step further and used the patter on blue and white construction paper to glue over the toilet paper candles. You don’t have to do this. But I liked the blue and white.
By the way, I had to do most of this cutting work. But if you have kids who are slightly older than Sophie and can follow a pattern with scissors, by all means, have them do it!
Once the candles were ready, we used a glue gun to affix the flames. Sophie helped with this part as well. She’s good with the glue gun.
Once that final task was complete, we lined up our menorah candles to admire our Hanukkah craft.
I like this picture because of the sun shining off Sophie’s hair and my golden boy, Romeo, in the background. He looks so regal.
So there you have it — a fun Hanukkah craft for one of the eight crazy nights! Happy Hanukkah!