Door Menorah

Four holiday decorations from FamilyFun

Kids will love this decoration because it's interactive. For each day of Hanukkah, children can "light" a new candle (safe for even little kids to do). Designed to be thin enough to hang between a storm door and an exterior door, this menorah definitely adds a fun new twist to the holiday. If your family celebrates Kwanza, our directions adapt easily for a kinara. Just adjust the number of candleholders to seven and make the candles from green, red and black paper.

MATERIALS

32-ounce plastic yogurt container
Scissors
2 cardboard egg cartons
2 yards of string
Low-temperature glue gun
Paper towel tube
8 toilet paper tubes
Gold acrylic paint
9 sheets of blue construction paper
Tape
1 sheet of yellow construction paper
Hole punch
10 orange pipe cleaners

1. Discard the yogurt lid, and cut the container in half lengthwise (a parent's job).

2. Cut two egg cartons lengthwise making the hinged sides slightly wider (a parent's job). Discard the sides without hinges.

3. To create nine candleholders, trim 1 inch off the end of one carton and 2 1/4 egg cups off the end of the other carton.

4. Fit the open end of the shorter section over the open end of the longer one to create a row of nine egg cups.

5. Thread the string through the inside of the carton, and let it hang out an equal amount on each side.

6. Glue carton sections together, and then glue them shut.

7. Glue the bottom of the yogurt container to the carton (make sure that it's centered and that the egg cups are inverted).

8. Cut the paper towel tube down to 6 1/2 inches. Fit the toilet paper tubes over the egg cups, placing the 6 1/2-inch tube in the center. Secure the tubes with glue.

9. Paint the menorah with gold acrylic paint and let dry.

10. To make the removable candles, roll and tape each piece of blue construction paper into a tube that fits inside the cardboard tubes. Cut off the ends so that eight are 8 inches tall and one (the shammes, for the center) is 10 inches tall.

11. Cut nine flame shapes (each 2 1/2 inches tall) from yellow paper. Make sure the bottom of the flame is wide enough so that it won't slip through the blue tubes. Punch a hole in the bottom of each flame.

12. For each flame, thread 1 1/2 inches of a pipe cleaner through the hole in the flame, bend it down, and twist it around the remaining pipe cleaner. Place the flame at the top of the candle (with the pipe cleaner inside the tube) and bend the bottom of the pipe cleaner so that it hooks the bottom of the tube. The taller candle requires two pipe cleaners for its wick.

13. Punch a hole 1 inch from the top outside edge of the tubes farthest to the left and right of the menorah. On the left side, thread the string that you let hang out in step five through the hole and up through the top of the tube. Repeat on the right side. Tie the ends of the string together, and you're finished.

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