It’s that time of year! This year we have a one year old, and although he wont be lighting candles, he will definitely be more present in the twinkles of the lights from our menorah. To celebrate this, we decided to create a Hanukkah themed craft, (one most of you have probably seen floating around the internet), the Menorah-Saurus Rex. This project was insanely easy and will be treasured for years as we take it out. It’s also so stinking cute that we might keep it in the nursery year round!
Supplies for Menorah-Saurus Rex:
• Plastic dino
• Spray paint
• Nuts/bolts (hex nuts)
• Superglue
We used plastic dinos we found in the dollar bin at Target. I’ve also seen them at Wal-Mart. If you have any laying around your house, you’re already one step ahead! The only caveat is that the dino needs to be sturdy enough to stand up.
We originally decided to use craft candle holders for each candle, but it became so heavy that the dino fell right over! So, instead, we used small hex nuts and bolts that were less heavy and fit birthday candles. I feel like I should definitely include that this was something we wanted to do as a novelty decorative piece, it isn’t our actual family menorah.
To create our Menorah-Saurus Rex we used superglue and spaced out 8 candle holders (hex nuts), as well as 1 for the Shamash, which we put on the dino head.
After letting this dry for 2 days we rubbed off any of the superglue strings and began to spray paint. Spray painting is the hardest part because it must be done in coats and it is very temperamental with plastic. We spray painted ours in a diaper box to cut down the fumes.
Make sure you let yours dry fully before touching it!
Once dry, we put it on our dining room table where it sits as I type this, and although it’s a spray painted plastic toy, it looks absolutely beautiful. It reminds us that we created something together that we will celebrate with later this month.
Once our dino was complete, my husband practiced counting the candle holders with our son, rolling his chubby, sweet little hand over each hex nut. As a one year old, he doesn’t yet grasp the importance of the menorah- and the connection it has to our faith. However, we make it important as a family to create Jewish experiences and a Jewish home. As years continue, we will look back at our funny little Menorah-Saurus Rex (and this post) and remember how fun this project was to do as a family. Together as a family we illuminate things in each other, and we help find the light in our darkness, which is a true allegory to the importance of Hanukkah itself.
Hope you enjoy creating this project as much as my family did!
