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Hanukkah Craft: Tiny Little Neighborhood
Published 12.26.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (7)
Make Your Own Happy Little Hanukkah Village!
By Brenda Ponnay
I should start this post by saying that I am not Jewish nor is this little Hanukkah craft idea kosher. It's just something I came up with that I thought would be fun. I don't mean to be disrespectful to the holiday or to those who celebrate it. But I do hope you enjoy this post. Take it for what it is: just something fun to do with your kids. Shalom!
Ever since I spied my first paper Christmas village, I've been itching to create my own. I wanted to make something really small though, because we don't have a fireplace mantel that I can spread a miniature village out all over. I thought about making one for the coffee table in our living room but that area is often used for three-year-old break dancing sessions, so that idea was out. Then I spied our narrow window sill---the perfect spot for a very narrow village! It would be showcased by the weather outside and at night it would light up the window so cheerily!
When Isabel asked me if I could come up with something crafty for Hanukkah, I was sort of stumped. I really wanted to do my little paper village but it wasn't about Hanukkah at all...or was it? I realized my village idea would work perfectly for a little Jewish neighborhood. Why not? I have so many fond memories of staying in the Marais District in Paris and all the buildings there were very narrow, just like raisin boxes! And that was when the idea of a raisin-box village was born!
All you need are ten raisin boxes, some paint, tissue paper, a long narrow piece of cardboard and these really nifty little battery operated light bulbs. I know that last item is probably not something you have on hand but I found them at a party store in a pack of twelve.
They were in the wedding supply aisle next to the disposable cameras and paper cups, but that's just my party store. If you can't find them I'm sure you could use one of those mini-strings of Christmas lights. I liked the individual light bulbs though, because they worked with my Hanukkah story, which I will get to later.
After I arranged my boxes so that there were eight small buildings and one tall building in the middle, making nine total, I set about cutting the windows with a very sharp X-Acto(TM) knife. To create that taller box I cut off about a quarter of a spare raisin box off and just glued the "add-on" to the bottom of the ninth box with a glue gun to make it taller. Nothing fancy.
At first I cut the windows from the boxes as they were. But I wasn't happy with how imperfect the squares were as I punched through the empty box with my knife. To remedy that, I carefully disassembled each box by cutting along the seam on the side that was glued. After the boxes were opened flat, I did a much better job cutting out my windows on my self-healing cutting mat (a cutting board will work too).
It was tough going on some of the boxes, I'll admit. This craft might be best suited to kids who have the patience for making model airplanes, or maybe this would be a fun project for those architect dads and moms to supervise. Of course you don't really have to cut out the windows but I think the light showing through is the best part so I say, tough it out and cut those windows out.
After all the windows were cut, I glued the boxes back together with a glue gun. Then I painted them with regular acrylic paint. They needed two coats to cover the bright raisin box printing. For the first coat I used white as a primer and for the second I alternated between two shades of pastel blue, to fit my wintry scene.
When the paint was dry I added small pieces of yellow tissue paper to the inside of each box with a tiny smudge of glue to hold them in place.
The next part I botched up pretty bad I deliberately did the wrong way just to give you an example of how not to do it. I assembled all the buildings in a line on my piece of cardboard first, and then painted the detail in later. I don't recommend doing it this way. I think it would be much easier to paint each building, detail and all, separately. Then when they are dry, assemble them in a line. However you do it doesn't really matter. You might not even want to add details like windows in a deli or address numbers or awnings and shutters. Part of me wishes that I had left my little village plain so it looked more like Gotham City from a distance. But the charm of a little Jewish neighborhood is fun too.
You'll have to forgive my details as most of them I came up with by doing a quick internet image search for "Jewish Neighborhoods." It would really cool if my street resembled an actual avenue in New York City or boulevard in Paris but it's more by way of my imagination. (If you can do a better job please send me your photos or link them here. That would really make my day!)
Of course no tiny holiday village is complete without glitter so we added glitter. My toddler assistant was quite helpful for this portion of the project. She let it snow and snow and snow. Some cotton balls would work well here too.
Then we added props and took pictures.
You've probably noticed by now that the number of buildings in this little village is intentional. It's sort of my modernistic nod to the hanukiyot, a hanukkah menorah. The one tall building is the Shamash, the helper candle. The eight smaller buildings are the candles that are lit on the eight days of Hanukkah to represent the miracle of one day's worth of oil lasting for eight days.
As I added the electric bulbs and thought about the miracle of Hanukkah, it reminded me of one time when I was a kid and my mom forgot to pay the electric bill. We got the blue notice and the green notice and then the pink notice and we knew the lights would go out. But they didn't. They stayed on. It was sort of a miracle. I don't remember how many days the lights stayed on before my mom ended up paying the bill but it might have been eight. Maybe the little people in this village didn't pay their electricity bill either and their lights stayed on. Or maybe it's just a little village to make your windowsill cheery. Or you can use it when you're playing Godzilla...
Either way I hope you have as much fun making this as I did!
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About this column
This is a year-round Holiday column. Kids love Holidays. As parents we have come to appreciate how Holidays seem to help structure our lives. Plus, any excuse to have fun sounds good to us!
We'll admit it, now that we're parents, we secretly look for Holidays to celebrate and between National, Secular, Unofficial and Bizarre Holidays, we think there are enough days out there to keep us inspired every week.
This column will be a place where you can get inspiration for how to enjoy time with your kids. Crafting projects and ideas will be posted on Thursdays by our brilliant contributors (see below). Other fun ideas will be posted here throughout the week as the inspiration hits us!
About our Craft Contributors
Ellen Luckett Baker is the author of the long thread, a blog about handmade goods. She has always enjoyed making things, but the flexibility of staying at home with her two daughters along with the creative inspiration they provide has led her to craft on a daily basis. Combining her love of graphic design and sewing, she has created an Etsy shop selling machine embroidery designs and sewing patterns.
Ellen lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters. She holds a B.A. in Art History and a Master's of Public Administration with a focus in Non-Profit Management.
Cindy Hopper was fortunate to be raised in a family who appreciated the arts. This background led to a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. With a keen eye for design and color, Cindy has continued her love of art and is now passing her creative skills on to her three children. Cindy's family and friends are the beneficiaries of her passion for fun and meaningful creative projects. Cindy's personal blog, Skip to My Lou, has taken her love of a project to new levels. Postings keep the family busy -– from testing new recipes for holiday treats to designing and building floats for a neighborhood parade to making fabric rolls to hold crayons to creating themed parties. Cindy seems to have an unending supply of ideas for gifts, parties and rainy days.
Marie LeBaron is a 30 something stay at home mom in Utah. Before life as a mother, she graduated with a teaching degree in Early Childhood & Elementary Education, after which she taught four years of Kindergarten. After her first child was born, she decided to read books and sing silly songs at home. She misses the classroom, but she now gets to bring the fun and learning into her home and ours. You’ll see her kids a lot in these projects as they are her guinea pigs and for whom she's creative. You can follow more of her projects at her personal blog Make and Takes.
Brenda Ponnay is a stealthy secret agent who juggles parenthood to her adorable daughter by day and freelance graphic design by night. Whether it's painting, baking, drawing, making castles out of card board boxes or just doing the laundry with flair, Brenda Ponnay has finally discovered (at the ripe old age of thirty-six) that what really makes her happy is being creative every single day.
Brenda lives in Southern California with her husband, daughter, three cats and thirty-seven pet birds. You can read about all her crazy adventures on her personal blog: Secret Agent Josephine.
Disclaimer
This column is only for entertainment purposes. Any recommendations or information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for advice by a trained professional. For a full statement of our site policies, please click here.
Comments (7):
Sonja said:
Once again, I am completely inspired! I'm also in awe that you are doing anything but crashing and burning after the holidays!! Love this idea. With raisins and recycling you're being nutritous AND green! This might give you and idea, but when I first read "raisin boxes" I thought of the tiny individual boxes that my Dad just gave us for my son's stocking. I was like, "NO WAY!!" I knew you would be using an exacto knife but I'm glad you didn't kill yourself over something too miniature! We're looking forward to trying more of your crafts since we got a space heater for our attic and a huge smock for my son for Christmas! Happy Holidays Brenda!!
Posted on December 26, 2008 11:01
Neil said:
Brenda -- This is perfect. We deem you an honorary Jewish person this Hanukkah for being so creative and talented!
Posted on December 26, 2008 12:31
brooke said:
I love it.. using those mini electric lights is brilliant.
Posted on January 2, 2009 13:43
Sara said:
This is really cute. Might I suggest for the windows next time that you disassemble the boxes as you did, then pencil squares where you want the windows to go. Then just draw an "X" inside the squares, then cut the top and bottom so you have four triangles. All you have to do is fold the triangles and tape them to the inside of the raisin box, then you have flawless windows! My dad made houses out of cardboard milk cartons for the Christmas tree one year, and he taught me that trick and it's served me well ever since!
Posted on January 4, 2009 15:06
Katie said:
i am very new to Cricut and all the amazing sites that I have stumbled upon trying to learn from others and I am so very in awe of such creative persons I have "met". You are very creative and talented--blessings to you and hope to get more ideas and hope to be able to share some of my own--soon...
Posted on September 20, 2009 21:33
tali said:
this looks very nice and nostalgic. i love the idea.
happy Hanukkah
tali
Posted on December 7, 2009 01:43
Doda said:
That is such a cute idea.I love it, I'm going to have to do something like that for my little girl. She'd love it!
Posted on December 9, 2009 15:22