In celebration of the first night of Hanukkah, I’ve put together a simple craft tutorial for making a button menorah. It’s an easy project that exercises your kids sorting skills as they separate buttons by color and size and their eye hand coordination as they thread the buttons onto pipe cleaner. It has the added benefit of being flame-less and fire-free, allowing Junior to safely ‘light’ a candle each night by slipping a sparkly shank button over the wick.

The result is a sweet, kid-made holiday keepsake that can be displayed every year for the Festival of Lights!

To begin, gather the following materials:
chenille pipe cleaner
sew-through buttons to form the candle
sew-through buttons to form the candle base
shank buttons to form the flame

While you certainly can make the menorah candles in any scale and color you please, the pictured examples each use a 6″ piece of 3mm white chenille pipe, approximately 16 clear and white flat, sew-through shirt buttons to form the candle, two larger blue and/or silver colored sew-through coat buttons for the base and one sparkly shank button with a back loop for the flame.

This is a great way to utilize all of those loose, mismatched buttons and those in your vintage stash that have been waiting for just the right project. It should also be noted that buttons can pose a choking hazard to younger children - so please be mindful.

STEP 1:
Bend a pipe cleaner in half and thread the two ends up through the holes in the larger candle base buttons. It helps to have a concave shaped button for the very bottom piece, as this allows room for the bend of pipe cleaner - preventing your candle from wobbling when set upright.

STEP 2:
Set the base upright and thread the pipe cleaner ends through the holes in the smaller shirt buttons, stacking them on top of the base buttons. This forms your candle. When using four hole buttons, make certain to thread the pipe cleaner through diagonally positioned holes - not side by side holes.

STEP 3:
When all of the buttons have been stacked, tightly wrap one end of the pipe cleaner once around the base of the other and snip off the tail. The vertically standing pipe cleaner end become the candle wick. Trim your wick to stand approximately 1/2″ in height.

This completes your first candle! Repeat steps 1 through 3 to create eight candles in total - one for each night of Hanukkah. You can also create a ninth candle as the “shamash“. (With traditional Hanukkah menorahs, the Shamash candle is used to light the other eight candles since it is forbidden to use the Hanukkah lights for any purpose other than viewing.)

To ‘light’ your button menorah candles, simply slip the back loop of a shank button over the top of the pipe cleaner wick. Buttons with a bit of sparkle best convey the idea of a flame. Pictured are plastic buttons with facets to resemble cut crystal, metal buttons with inset rhinestones and molded plastic buttons with star designs.

Wishing you and yours a very happy Hanukkah!

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