OK, I doubt I am the only Jew who is seriously disappointed by the Hanukah decor market. I mean, TJ Maxx has had Christmas stuff since before Halloween, and has NOT ONE HANUKAH thing. Never mind that Hanukah is like a whole month earlier than Christmas. But I couldn’t even find some ugly blue and white cupcake liners, let alone a cool menorah (or any menorah for that matter). Even on the interwebz, the selection of good, modern, interesting Hanukah stuff is really limited. With the exception of Jonathan Adler, who is making some rockin’ menorahs that I seriously cannot afford, the selection of stylish Jew-holiday decor is seriously lacking.
Whining over. I made my own menorahs. I found some inspiration on the internets and came up with a pretty cool idea. Some of you may remember Dinosaur Christmas from last year (I’m half Jewish, half Episcopalian). This is along those lines.
I bought a set of jumbo plastic jungle animals on Amazon. Then, I drilled 9 holes in them, in the places where I would want the candles to go. I used Sculpy to make the little candle-cuppy things. I tried to buy the ones for birthday cakes, but I could not find them. My cuppies are not very uniform, but they work well-enough and I didn’t have to spend any money because I already had the sculpy.
Here’s a close up of the little cuppy things stuck into the holes that I drilled. I used some gorilla glue to help the cuppies stay in place.
Then I spray painted these bad boys. Silver elephant. Gold giraffe. Awesome.
I am so happy with how these turned out. But, the candle wax pulls off the paint, so these may only be useful for one year. That’s OK though, because I am sure next year I will have another idea for making some DIY menorahs (and there are three more plastic animals that I haven’t spray painted yet. Gorilla menorah, anybody?).
More pictures.
There is still time to whip up one of these bad boys before Hanukah this year. So go get yourself from plastic animals. Do it.
Happy Hanukah!
Love,
Rachel
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