"The Beacons Are Lit!" Our DIY Tree of Gondor Menorah

Happy Tuesday and Happy Hanukkah, hobbits and friends! Whether you celebrate or not, I think you'll appreciate this quick Middle Earth DIY:

A White Tree of Gondor Menorah! (Gondorah? :D)

I originally had grand plans of sculpting the tree, but the menorah part stumped me. (Ooooh, unintentional pun! Best kind!) So instead I layered a paper tree over our existing menorah, which is MUCH easier and also turned out rather lovely.

The contrast of the shiny silver and chunky white glitter looks super cool in the light, and I like that the tree is a little more subtle.

SO HEY. Want to make your own?

All you'll need is some white poster board, glitter, and this menorah:

Electric Hanukkah Menorah

It also comes in gold, if you want more contrast against the white tree.

The hardest part is tweaking the White Tree to exactly fit - but not block - each of the candle tips. If you use the same menorah we have, though, then John's done all the work for you! Here's our template:

Right-click to embiggen, then save to your desktop. From there you can either print it as a template to hand-cut, or upload it to your cutting machine. This will not fit on standard paper, so if you're printing you'll need to tile it, and for cutting machines you'll need the longer mat.

Blogger sometimes resizes my files, so here are the exact cut measurements:


10.66 X 12.94



After cutting we used spray adhesive to add glitter, then sealed it with spray lacquer to (hopefully) prevent the glitter shedding everywhere.

So sparkly. (This was a test run; later we added the roots.)

Once your tree is cut and glittered, secure it to your menorah with a few pieces of poster tack/museum putty:

Gently bend the roots to follow the curve of the base, and secure with more poster tack.

And you're done!


The beacons are lit!

Sorry for not posting this earlier, but we only finished it just in time ourselves, heh. Hopefully this made you smile, though, and maybe inspires you for next year?

 John and I are new to Hanukkah, but as someone with Jewish ancestry I'm finding great meaning and beauty in the celebration. The Hebrew blessings are so pretty to sing each night, and John & I are enjoying finding readings about light and love, and taking time each night to focus on all we're grateful for. (If you're curious to learn more, there are lots of helpful videos on YouTube.)

 

As a newbie I'd love to hear your Hanukkah traditions: favorite recipes, songs, activities, etc. I keep reading about a special kind of donut - do we have to make those ourselves, or can we buy them? SPILL.

*****

And one last thing, before you go: a quick Real Life update.

We've had a little health scare with John. He had to have a sudden surgery last Thursday, and is still recovering. Everything is OK now, and we're grateful that a routine screening caught the issue, and even more grateful that all the biopsies have come back clean. (I actually have some funny [in retrospect] stories to share, so maybe I'll tell those later, ha.)

I didn't want to worry you until we had all the results in, especially at the holidays, but it's also felt strange and false to carry on here as if we weren't facing scary things offline. It was a scramble getting the surgery so soon, and of course all the paperwork and insurance and waiting on tests has been a lot. Again, everything is OK now (huzzah!), but John did have a rare adverse reaction during surgery that knocked him flat. It's slowed us down at the most breakneck time of the year, which is frustrating John no end, but for me has been a valuable reminder about priorities.

See, I don't care about parties or projects or the endless to-do lists; I'm just glad my hubby is OK. I'm sad he's still kind of miserable, but so, so grateful I get to sit with him every night and watch Christmas movies. We're doing our best to take some moments in the madness to be still and be grateful, and my wish for you this week is that you can do the same.

Listen, people will forget your accomplishments, your gifts, and how clean your house was, but they'll never forget the way you make them feel. So please be extra kind to yourself as your spread kindness to others this season. Rest. Recharge. Remember it's people that matter - and those people include you.

Love you, so much. See ya back here Friday.

::mwah::

*****

 If you like the crafts and templates I share here, and would like to help keep them free, then you can support me and John directly through Paypal! Whether it's a one-time tip or a monthly donation, every dollar is dearly appreciated, and lets us devote more of our time and energy to this community.

And hey, if you don't have cash to spare, no worries! Just your being here is more than enough, so thanks for sticking around.