Menorah in a Holiday Explosion Box

Need a little gift celebrating Hanukkah?

Make the Holiday Explosion Box with a cute mini-menorah standing in the center!

Materials needed

• The free SVG (located in the Free Files Folder) – it’s design #61 – Mini-Menorah
  
• Heavy black cardstock or posterboard
  
• Cricut Maker or Explore cutting machine
  
• Blue LightGrip mat (for the card stock or posterboard)
  
• Green Standard Grip Mat (for the HTV)
  
• Scoring wheel
  
• Iron-On Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) – I used blue foil for the candles and gold glitter for the flames
  
• Cricut Mini-Press
  
• Parchment paper
  
• Glue such as Aleene’s Tacky Glue or Art Glitter Glue

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How to create the menorah for the center of a holiday explosion box

Download the free SVG from the Free Files Folder. It’s Design # 61 – Mini-Menorah.

Unzip the file. Upload the SVG file “61-mini-menorah_minorDIY.svg” to Cricut Design Space and insert it onto the canvas.

Ungroup.

Change two cut lines into Score lines and Attach them to the base piece as shown in the screenshot below.

Click the green Make It button.

Cut the black base from heavy cardstock or poster board. Posterboard is stiffer, so I prefer to use it.

Cut the candles from any color of HTV.

Use gold glitter HTV for the candle flames.

Tip: It’s especially helpful to use iron-on vinyl when you have small, fine designs. It’s hard to weed the small bits out; cardstock would probably rip when it was being cut out and would be impossible to glue in place.

Place the HTV (with the clear plastic sheet side up) on top of the cardstock. Align the candle HTV over the base.

Place parchment paper over the HTV.

Next, press the Cricut Mini-Press straight down on the HTV for about five seconds using the lowest heat setting.

Tip: Test the HTV on a scrap piece of cardboard first.

I found that the lowest heat setting worked best, while pressing for a very short amount of time.

If the heat is too high, or it’s pressed too long, the melted adhesive leaks out from underneath the piece of HTV.

Peel off the back from the HTV. The candle HTV should remain in place.

Now, do the same thing for the gold glitter HTV. Align it over the flames and press.

I love how the blue foil turned out. Pretty and shiny!

Now, repeat this process for the second mini-menorah.

Fold the tabs out, then glue the two menorahs together (back to back.)

The tabs hold it up.

Either glue the mini-menorah to a base, or glue it down to the center of your Holiday Explosion Box.

I hope this tutorial and free SVGs helped you celebrate Hanukkah!

Other options for the center of the Holiday Explosion Box include:

• a snowman
  
• a pair of penguins
  
• three Christmas trees (in the original tutorial)

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