Chapter VII: Preface (7)

The first thing to do is to rule the outline of the cottage. All the measurements must be most accurately made, as the slightest incorrectness will keep the house from fitting together properly. Then cut it out. When this is done, draw the windows and doors. Then lay your cardboard on a board, and run your knife along each side of the windows and the three free sides of the doors until the card is cut through. A ruler held close to the penciled line will make your knife cut straight. The bars across the windows can be made of strips of paper glued on afterward. If the doors have a tiny piece shaved off each of the cut sides, they will open and shut easily.

To make the front door open well, outward, the hinge line of the door (KK) should be half cut through on the inside. The hinge can be strengthened by gluing a narrow strip of paper or linen along it. At the three points marked H make small slits through which to put the tags, marked G, of the partition wall.

All drawing and painting must be done on both sides while the house is still flat. The doors inside will need handles and keyholes. Small pieces of mica can be glued over the windows instead of glass.

Little curtains of crinkly tissue-paper can also be made, and, if you like, the walls can easily be papered with colored paper pasted on. This will cause some delay, however, for it must be well pressed. Instead, wall-paper patterns could be painted on.

Outside--that is, on the underside of the cardboard--there is a great deal to do. Both walls and roof can be painted, and tiles, bricks, and creepers imitated. The front door should have a knocker and a letterbox, and around both the door and the windows should be imitation framework. As the upright joints of the four walls will be made of linen painted to imitate brick-work or stone-work, you need not carry the painting of the walls quite to the edges, because these will be covered by the joints. It is best to paint the joints before you stick them on.

Before turning the card over again, run your knife along the four sides of the floor to assist the bending up of the walls. Do not on any account cut through; merely make a half cut.

[Illustraton: CARDBOARD DOLL'S HOUSE]

When you have drawn and painted all you can think of to make the house complete and pretty, take your strips of linen, for the fastening of the walls, crease them in half, lengthwise, and glue one half to the outside of the edge of the walls marked CB and DE in the plan. When this is quite dry, bend the back wall and the two side walls up, and glue the free sides of the strips to the wall marked AB and EF, holding the walls firmly together until well stuck. Strengthen the fold LM, which has to serve as a hinge for the front of the house, with a strip of linen glued underneath. The sides of the front wall must remain unattached, as that forms the opening. It can be kept closed by a strong pin slipped through the roof.

The Partition

Now for the partition. Put the three tags G G G through the slits H H H and glue them firmly down on the outside. (These will have to be touched up with paint.) The roof must then be put on. Cut out a slit N an inch long to fit the tag on the partition, also marked N. Run your knife along the dotted line underneath, and fold it to the necessary angle to fit the sloping walls. Where the roof touches the end walls it must be fastened on with strips of linen or paper, which have been folded in the same way as before and one half fastened securely to the walls. It is important to let it get quite dry before gluing the other half to the roof.

The Chimney

The chimney, of which the illustration is the actual size, is the last thing to be made. First paint, and then fold the two side pieces downward, cut out the three little holes and put into them three chimneys, made by folding small pieces of paper, painted red, round a penholder, and gluing their edges together. The chimney is fixed to the sloping roof with very small pieces of glued paper. Remember that all the pieces of paper used as fastening ought to be touched up with paint. The chimney in the drawing of the complete house on page 240 is put at the side of the roof, but it may even better go in the middle.

The Garden

The cottage can then be fixed to a piece of wood or paste-board, to form its garden and add to convenience in moving it about. A cardboard fence and gate can be cut out and painted green. A path to the front door is made by covering a narrow space of the cardboard with very thin glue over which, while it is wet, sand is sprinkled to imitate gravel. Moss will do for evergreens, and grass plots can be made of green cloth. A summer-house, garden chairs and tables are easily cut out of cardboard. So also are a rabbit-hutch, pump, dove-cot, and dog-kennel. A plan of a dog-kennel, actual size, is given.

Another Way

It is, of course, possible to make a house of several pieces instead of one. The walls and floors can be made separately and joined with linen strips; but this adds to the difficulty of the work and causes the houses to be less steady. Cardboard houses can also be made with two floors.

"The House That Glue Built"

A novel kind of paper house has been gotten out in book form. It is called _The House That Glue Built_, and consists of pictures of rooms, without furniture, which is shown on separate sheets. The object is to cut out the furniture, arrange it and paste it in its proper place. The illustration shows the library, and the furniture for it. There is also a sheet of dolls to be cut out, who represent the owners of the house. Two other books on the same order are _The Fun That Glue Made_ and _Stories That Glue Told_. They are all easily put together, and are lots of fun.

Paper Furniture

Everything required for the furnishing and peopling of a cardboard dolls' house can be made of paper; and if colored at all cleverly the furniture will appear to be as solid as that of wood. After cutting out and joining together one or two of the models given in the pages that follow, and thus learning the principle on which paper furniture is made, you will be able to add all kinds of things to those mentioned here or to devise new patterns for old articles, such as chairs and desks.

Glue and Adhesive Tape

Two recent inventions of the greatest possible use to the maker of paper furniture are fish-glue which gets dry very quickly and is more than ordinarily strong, and adhesive tape. Glue can be bought for very little, and adhesive tape, which is sold principally for mending music and the torn pages of books, is put up in inexpensive spools.

Home-Made Compasses

A pair of compasses is a good thing to have; but you can make a perfectly serviceable tool by cutting out a narrow strip of cardboard about four inches long and boring holes at intervals, of a quarter of an inch, through which the point of a pencil can be placed. If one end of the strip is fastened to the paper with a pin you can draw a circle of what size you want, up to eight inches across.

Materials

These are the materials needed when making paper furniture:--

A few sheets of stiff note-paper or drawing-paper. Scissors.
A penknife. A ruler (a flat one). A mapping-pen. A box of
paints. A board to cut out on. Adhesive tape or stamp-paper.
Glue.

Tracing

If the drawings are to be traced, tracing-paper, or transparent note-paper, and a sheet of carbon-paper, will also be needed. To trace a drawing, cover it with paper and draw it exactly. Then cover the paper or cardboard from which you wish to cut out the furniture with a piece of carbon-paper, black side down, and over that place your tracing. Draw over this again with a very sharply pointed pencil or pointed stick, and the lines will be repeated by the carbon-paper on the under sheet of paper.

The furniture, for which designs are given in this chapter, can be made of stiff note-paper, Whatman's drawing-paper, or thin Bristol board. The drawings can be copied or traced. In either case the greatest care must be taken that the measurements are minutely correct and the lines perfectly straight. A slip of paper is a very good thing to measure with.

Enough designs have been given to show how most different kinds of furniture can be made. These can, of course, be varied and increased by copying from good furniture lists; while many little things such as saucepans, dishes, clocks, and so forth, can be copied from stores lists and added to the few that are given on p. 248.

These small articles are cut out flat, but an extra piece of paper is left under each, which, when bent back, makes a stand.

General Instructions

The front legs of chairs, the legs of tables, and the backs of furniture must be neatly joined together by narrow strips of stamp-paper or adhesive tape. To do this, cut a strip of the right size, crease it down the middle, and stick one side. Allow this to dry, before you fix the other.

Wherever in the pictures there is a dotted line, it means that the paper is to be folded there. It will be easily seen whether it is to be folded up or down.

Before the furniture is folded it should be painted. Wood, iron, brass, and silk can all be imitated in color.

In cutting out small spaces of cardboard--as between the bars of a chair--lay the card on a board, and keeping your knife, which should be sharp at the point, against a flat ruler, run it again and again along the lines you want to cut, until you have cut through. If your furniture is made of paper, the spaces can be cut out with finely pointed scissors, taking care to start in the middle of the space, for the first incision is seldom a clean one.

[Ilustration: WOODEN BEDSTEAD]

Paper Dolls

Paper dolls are not as good to play with as proper dolls. One can do much less with them because they cannot be washed, have no hair to be brushed, and should not sit down. But they can be exceedingly pretty, and the keeping of their wardrobes in touch with the fashion is an absorbing occupation. Paper dolls are more interesting to those who like painting than to others. The pleasure of coloring them and their dresses is to many of us quite as interesting as cutting out and sewing the clothes of ordinary dolls.

Making Paper Dolls

The first thing to do is to draw the doll in pencil on the cardboard or paper which it is to be cut from. If you are not good at drawing, the best way is to trace a figure in a book or newspaper, and then, slipping a piece of carbon-paper (which can be bought for a penny or less at any stationer's) between your tracing-paper and the cardboard, to go over the outline again with a pencil or a pointed stick. On uncovering the cardboard you will find the doll there all ready to cut out. It should then be colored on both sides, partly flesh color and partly underclothes.

The Dresses

The dresses are made of sheets of note-paper, the fold of which forms the shoulder pieces. The doll is laid on the paper, with head and neck lapping over the fold, and the line of the dress is then drawn a little larger than the doll. A small round nick to form the collar is cut between the shoulders of the dress, and a slit is made down the back through which the doll's head can be passed. After the head is through it is turned round. (Of course, if the dress is for evening the place which you cut for the neck must be larger, and in this case no slit will be needed.) All the details of the dresses, which can be of original design, or copied from advertisements and fashion plates, must be drawn in in pencil and afterward painted. Hats, trimmed with tissue-paper feathers or ribbons, are made of round pieces of note-paper with a slit in them just big enough for the tip of the doll's head to go through. The illustrations on pp. 260 and 261 should make everything clear.

Other Paper Dolls

Simpler and absolutely symmetrical paper dolls are made by cutting them out of folded paper, so that the fold runs right down the middle of the doll. By folding many pieces of paper together, one can cut out many dolls at once.

Walking Dolls

Walking ladies are made in that way; but they must have long skirts and no feet, and when finished a cut is made in the skirt--as in the picture--and the framework thus produced is bent back. When the doll is placed on the table and gently blown it will move gracefully along.

Tissue-Paper Dresses

Dresses can also be made of crinkly tissue-paper glued to a foundation of plain note-paper. Frills, flounces, and sashes are easily imitated in this material, and if the colors are well chosen the result is very pretty.

Rows of Paper Dolls

To make a row of paper dolls, take a piece of paper the height that the dolls are to be, and fold it alternately backward and forward (first one side and then the other) leaving about an inch between each fold. Press the folds together tightly and cut out the half of a doll, being careful that the arms are continued to the edge of the fold and are not cut off. Open out and you will have a string of paper dolls.

Other articles to be made from paper and cardboard will be found on pp. 284-291.

PLAYHOUSES OF OTHER PEOPLES

It is not in the least necessary to confine yourself to making playhouses that are like the houses you live in or see about you, for with a little ingenuity you can construct bits of all sorts of strange countries right in your play-room. In one of the schools in New York City the children study geography and history of certain kinds by making with their own hands scenes from the places about which they study.

One of the most valuable materials for making these playhouses is ordinary modeling clay. You can buy fifty pounds for from fifty cents to a dollar, and with this you are equipped to make almost anything you can see in pictures. Put the clay (if bought dry) into a jar, pour over it clear water, and stir it up with a stick until perfectly smooth and about the consistency of hard butter. The first thing to do is to make a supply of bricks for building. This should be shaped like real bricks and about two inches long. Smaller ones are also possible if you wish to have your settlement on a very small scale. These should be made as regularly as possible and as nearly of the same size. After a little practice one becomes very expert in this simple art. They should then be dried in the sun and are ready to use, though they must be handled carefully. If you can obtain terra-cotta clay, and have it baked hard you will have real bricks that will outlast your play-time.

A Pueblo Settlement

Suppose now that you have been reading about the life of the Pueblo Indians in our Southwest, and you have a picture of one of their singular settlements. The accompanying picture shows what was done in the way of constructing such a settlement by a class of school children, none of whom were over eight years old. You can model little clay Indian inhabitants and paint them as you please, to represent their brown skins and bright-colored clothes. If you can have a box with a little earth in it to set before your Pueblo village you can sow wheat seed, or mustard, and model Indians working in the fields with their crude plows. Anything of which you can find a picture can be reproduced. Indian villages and camps are easy to make and interesting. And once you are started on Indian life it may be fun to make yourselves Indian costumes. The costumes in the picture shown were made by the boys who wear them. By looking closely at them you can copy them.

An Esquimau Village

Another class in the same school painted their bricks white to represent blocks of snow and made an Esquimau village. This is fascinating and easy to do. Or, the rounded huts can be modeled all in one piece directly from the clay. Any book describing the life of dwellers in the Arctic region will tell you how they make their houses and you can make tiny imitations of them that will be infinite fun to construct and the admiration of all your friends when finished. Cotton-wool can be used for snow (powdered isinglass also is pretty), and bits of broken mirror for ice-ponds. Little sleds can be made on which to put your Esquimau hunter, who may be one of the white-fur-clad dolls so cheaply bought in toy-stores. Or you can model a little doll just the right size to be entering the door of your tiny rounded white hut.

A Filipino Village

Or if you get tired of living near the Arctic circle you can sweep your table clean of Esquimau dwellings and construct a Filipino village. For these you do not need bricks (which can be given a rest and put away in a box) but little splints of wood the same size and length which you can make yourself with a knife. Make a little thin floor of damp clay (but drier than you use it to model with) and stick your upright pieces in this in the shape of the house you wish to make. When the clay has hardened they are held quite firm and you can make a wattled hut by weaving long straws or grasses in and out to form your walls. A thatched roof can also be made of long grasses, tied in little bunches and laid close together all sloping down from the ridge-pole. Almost every magazine of a few years back has in it pictures of Filipino villages which will furnish you with models to copy. According to the size of the table or board on which you make your settlements you can have more or less extensive tropical country, surrounding your village. Mountains can be made of the clay, covered with moss or grasses to represent the jungle and a river with overhanging trees arranged with bits of broken looking-glass, and twigs with tiny scraps of green tissue paper glued to them for leaves. The exercise of your own ingenuity in using all sorts of unlikely materials which you will find all about you is the best part of this game.

After you have decided to change the climate and character of your village, the clay used may be broken up and put back in your jar, wet again, stirred smooth and is all ready to begin again. Great care should be taken that it is kept clean, that bits of wood or glass be not left in it, or you may cut or prick your fingers in handling it.

A Dutch Street

You cannot only wander from one climate and from one nationality to another, but from one century to another. If you are studying early American history nothing is more fun than to make a street in an old Dutch settlement. Your bricks are painted red for this. Almost any history-book will have pictures of one or two old Dutch houses which will show you the general look of them. They are harder to construct than the ruder huts of savages and may need to be held together with a little use of damp clay. It is interesting to try and reconstruct old Dutch Manhattan, from the maps and pictures, showing the bay and the walk on the Battery.

Or if you are interested in Colonial New England, make a settlement of log-houses with the upper story overhanging the first. On any walk you can pick up enough small sticks to use as logs after trimming and measuring.

Other possibilities in this line are suggested below. You will have more fun in working them out yourself than if you are told just how to proceed. A Roman arena with gladiators fighting and a curtain which may be drawn to keep off the sun. A little fishing-village beside the sea (a large pan of water) with tiny nets spread out to dry and little walnut shell boats drawn up on the sandy beach.

A farmhouse, barn, pig-pen, dog-kennel, carriage-house and the like. A very pretty settlement can be made of this with fields of growing grain, brooks, water-wheels, etc.

All the animals of a farm can be modeled and painted. When they are skilfully made they are very pretty and add much to the picture and when they are done unskilfully it is fun to have people guess what they were meant for. However, with a little practice very presentable animals can be modeled. It is easier to make them in clay than to draw them.

A gypsy camp, with tents and open fires (bits of yellow and red tissue-paper), under a black kettle (made of clay and painted) swung on a forked stick, can easily be made.

Of course with tin or lead soldiers the number of games one can invent with these tiny settlements is innumerable. One favorite with some children is the attack and capture of the Filipino village by American troops. Sometimes it is burned, and this is always a stirring spectacle. Indeed with tin soldiers (which are just now unjustly out of favor) one's range of subjects is unlimited, and one always has plenty of inhabitants for any settlement. An army post can be made, with a fort and barracks and a wide green parade ground with the regiment drawn up in line for dress-parade. A tiny American flag flutters from the flag-pole and after the sunset gun booms (a fire-cracker exploded or only some one striking a blow on a tin pan) it can be lowered to the ground while the best whistler of the company executes "The Star-Spangled Banner."

INDOOR OCCUPATIONS AND THINGS TO MAKE

Painting

Painting is an occupation which is within almost everybody's power, and of which one tires very slowly or perhaps not at all. By painting we mean coloring old pictures rather than making new ones, since making new ones--from nature or imagination--require separate gifts. On a wet afternoon--or, if it is permitted, on Sunday afternoon--coloring the pictures in a scrapbook is a very pleasant and useful employment. After dark, painting is not a very wise occupation, because, in an artificial light, colors cannot be properly distinguished.

All shops that sell artists' materials keep painting-books. But old illustrated papers do very well.

Flags

An even more interesting thing to do with a paint-box is to make a collection of the flags of all nations. And when those are all done, you will find colored pages of them in any large dictionary, and elsewhere too,--you might get possession of an old shipping guide, and copy Lloyd's signal code from it.

Maps

Coloring maps is interesting, but is more difficult than you might perhaps think, owing to the skill required in laying an even surface of paint on an irregular space. The middle of the country does not cause much trouble, but when it comes to the jagged frontier line the brush has to be very carefully handled. To wet the whole map with a wet brush at the outset is a help. Perhaps before starting in earnest on a map it would be best to practice a little with irregular-shaped spaces on another piece of paper.

Magic-Lantern Slides

If you have a magic lantern in the house you can paint some home-made slides. The colors should be as gay as possible. The best home-made slides are those which illustrate a home-made story; and the fact that you cannot draw or paint really well should not discourage you at all. A simpler way of making slides is to hold the glass over a candle until one side is covered with lamp black and then with a sharp stick to draw outline pictures on it.

Another way is to cut out silhouettes in black paper, or colored tracing-paper, and stick them to the glass. In copying a picture on a slide put the glass over the picture and draw the outline with a fine brush dipped in Indian ink. Then paint. All painting on slides should be covered with fixing varnish, or it will rub off.

Illuminating

As a change from painting there is illuminating, for which smaller brushes and gold and silver paint are needed. Illuminating texts is a favorite Sunday afternoon employment.

Pen and Ink Work

There is also pen and ink drawing, mistakenly called "etching," for which you require a tiny pen, known as a mapping pen, and a cake of Indian ink. If the library contains a volume of old wood-cuts, particularly _Bewick's Birds_ or _Bewick's Quadrupeds_, you will have no lack of pictures to copy.

Chalks

In place of paints a box of chalks will serve very well.

Tracing

Smaller children, who have not yet learned to paint properly, often like to trace pictures either on tracing paper held over the picture, or on ordinary thin paper held over the picture against the window pane.

Pricking Pictures

Pictures can also be pricked with a pin, but in this case some one must draw it first. You follow the outline with little pin pricks close together, holding the paper on a cushion while you prick it. Then the picture is held up to the window for the light to shine through the holes.

Easter Eggs

Home-made Easter eggs are made by painting pictures or messages on eggs that have been hard-boiled, or by merely boiling them in water containing cochineal or some other coloring material. In Germany it is the custom for Easter eggs to be hidden about in the house and garden, and for the family to hunt for them before breakfast--a plan that might very well be taken up by us.

Spatter-Work

Paper and cardboard articles can be prettily decorated by spatter-work. Ferns are the favorite shapes to use. You first pin them on whatever it is that is to be ornamented in this way, arranging them as prettily as possible. Then rub some Indian ink in water on a saucer until it is quite thick. Dip an old tooth-brush lightly into the ink, and, holding it over the cardboard, rub the bristles gently across a fine tooth comb. This will send a spray of ink over the cardboard. Do this again and again until the tone is deep enough, and try also to graduate it. It must be remembered that the ink when dry is much darker than when wet. Then remove the ferns, when under each there will be a white space exactly reproducing their beautiful shape. If you like you can paint in their veins and shade them; but this is not really necessary. Colored paints can be used instead of Indian ink.

Scrapbooks

Making scrapbooks is always a pleasant and useful employment, whether for yourself or for children in hospitals or districts, and there was never so good an opportunity as now of getting interesting pictures. These you select from odd numbers of magazines, Christmas numbers, illustrated papers, and advertisements. Scraps are very useful to fill up odd corners. In choosing pictures for your own scrapbook it is better to select only those that you really believe in and can find a reason for using, than to take everything that seems likely to fit. By choosing the pictures with this care you make the work more interesting and the book peculiarly your own. But in making a scrapbook as a present for some one that you know, you will, of course, in choosing pictures, try to put yourself in his place and choose as you think that he would.

Empty scrapbooks can be bought; or you can make one by taking (for a large one) an old business ledger, which some one whom you know is certain to be able to give you, or (for a small one) an ordinary old exercise-book, and then cutting out every other page about half an inch from the stitching. This is to allow room for the extra thickness which the pictures will give to the book. Or you can sew sheets of brown paper together.

For sticking on the pictures, use paste rather than gum; and when it is done, press the book under quite a light weight, with sheets of paper between the pages.

Scrapbooks for Hospitals

Children that are ill are often too weak to hold up a large book and turn over the leaves. There are two ways of saving them this exertion and yet giving them pleasure from pictures. One is to get several large sheets of cardboard and cover them with pictures and scraps on both sides, and bind them round with ribbon. These can be enclosed in a box and sent to the matron. She will distribute the cards among the children, and when they have looked at each thoroughly they can exchange it for another. Another way is to use folding books which are more easy to hold than ordinary turning-over ones, and you can make them at home very simply by covering half a dozen or more cards of the same size (post-cards make capital _little_ books) with red linen, and then sewing them edge to edge so as to get them all in a row. In covering the cards with the linen--red is not compulsory, but it is a good color to choose--it is better to paste it on as well as to sew it round the three edges (a fold will come on one side), because then when you stick on the pictures they will not cockle up. Pictures for hospital scrapbooks should be bright and gay. Colored ones are best, but if you cannot get them already colored you can paint them. Painting a scrapbook is one of the best of employments.

Composite Scrapbooks

Sometimes it happens that you get very tired of one of the pictures in your scrapbook. A good way to make it fresh and interesting again is to introduce new people or things. You will easily find among your store of loose pictures a horse and cart, or a dog, or a man, or a giraffe, which, when cut out, will fit in amusingly somewhere in the old picture. If you like, a whole book can be altered reasonably in this way, or made ridiculous throughout.

Scrap-Covered Screens

A screen is an even more interesting thing to make than a scrapbook. The first thing to get is the framework of the screen, which will either be an old one the covering of which needs renewing, or a new one made by the carpenter. The next thing is to cover it with canvas, which you must stretch on tightly and fasten with small tacks; and over this should be pasted another covering of stout paper, of whatever color you want for a background to the pictures. Paste mixed with size should be used in sticking it. After the pictures are all arranged they should be stuck with the same material, and a coat of paper varnish given to the whole, so that it can be cleaned occasionally.

Collecting Stamps

Stamp-collecting is more interesting if money is kept out of it and you get your stamps by gift or exchange. The best way to begin is to know some one who has plenty of foreign correspondence and to ask for all his old envelopes. Nothing but time and patience can make a good collection. To buy it, is to have little of the collector's joy.

Postage-Stamp Snakes

Old American stamps can be used for making snakes. There is no need to soak the stamps off the envelope paper: they must merely be cut out cleanly and threaded together. A big snake takes about 4,000 stamps. The head is made of black velvet stuffed with cotton wool, and beads serve for eyes. A tongue of red flannel can be added.

Puzzles

If you have a fret saw, and can use it cleverly, you can make at home as good a puzzle as any that can be bought. The first thing to do is to select a good colored picture, and then to procure from a carpenter a thin mahogany board of the same size. Mahogany is not absolutely necessary, but it must be some wood that is both soft and tough. Deal, for instance, is useless because it is not tough, and oak is useless because it is not soft. On this wood you stick the picture very firmly, using weak glue in preference to paste or gum. When it is quite dry you cut it up into the most difficult fragments that you can. It is best to cut out the border so that each piece locks into the next. This will then be put together first by the player and will serve to hold the picture together. After the puzzle is cut up it is well to varnish each piece with paper varnish, which keeps it clean and preserves it.

A simple puzzle can be made by pasting the picture on cardboard and cutting it up with scissors or a sharp knife.

Soap Bubbles

For blowing bubbles the long clay pipes are best. Before using them, the end of the mouthpiece ought to be covered with sealing-wax for about an inch, or it may tear your lips. Common yellow soap is better than scented soap, and rainwater than ordinary water. A little glycerine added to the soap-suds helps to make the bubbles more lasting. On a still summer day, bubble-blowing out-of-doors is a fascinating and very pretty occupation.

Shadows on the Wall

Shadowgraphy nowadays has progressed a long way from the rabbit on the wall; but in the house, ambition in this accomplishment does not often extend further than that and one or two other animals, and this is why only the rabbit, dog, and swan are given here. The swan can be made more interesting by moving the arm which forms his neck as if he were prinking and pluming, an effect which is much heightened by ruffling up and smoothing down the hair with the fingers forming his beak. To get a clear shadow it is necessary to have only one light, and that fairly close to the hands.

Skeleton Leaves

Leaves which are to be skeletonized should be picked from the trees at the end of June. They should be perfect ones of full growth. It is best to have several of each kind, as some are sure to be failures. Put the leaves in a big earthenware dish or pan, fill it with rain-water, and stand it in a warm and sunny place--the purpose of this being to soak off the green pulpy part. There is a great difference in the time which this takes: some fine leaves will be ready in a week, while others may need several months. Look at the leaves every day, and when one seems to be ready slip a piece of cardboard under it and shake it about gently in fresh cold water. If any green stuff remains, dab it with a soft brush and then put it into another basin of clean water. A fine needle can be used to take away any small and obstinate pieces of green. It is now a skeleton and must be bleached according to the following directions:--Pour into a large earthenware jar a pint of water on half a pound of chloride of lime. Mix thoroughly, breaking up any lumps with the hand. Add two and a half quarts of water, cover over, and leave for twenty-four hours. Then pour off the solution, leaving the sediment behind. Dissolve two pounds of soda in one quart of boiling water, and pour it, while on the boil, over the chloride solution. Cover it, and leave for forty-eight hours; then decant into bottles, being careful to leave all sediment behind.

Fill an earthenware dish with this solution, lay the leaves in it, and cover tightly. The leaves will be bleached in six to twelve hours. They should be taken out directly they are white, as the lime makes them very brittle. After bleaching, rinse the leaves in cold water, float them on to cards, and dry between blotting-paper, under a heavy weight.

Ferns

It should be noted that if you intend to skeletonize ferns, they should not be picked before August, and they must be pressed and dried before they are put into the bleaching solution, in which they ought to stay for three or four days. The solution should be changed on the second day, and again on the fourth. After bleaching they can be treated just as the leaves are.

Wool Balls

Cut out two rings of cardboard, of whatever size you like, from one inch in diameter up to about four inches. A four-inch ring would make as large a ball as one usually needs, and a one-inch ring as small a one as could be conveniently made. The rim of the largest rings should not be wider than half an inch. Take a ball of wool and, placing the cardboard rings together, tie the end of it firmly round them. Then wind the wool over the rings, moving them round and round to keep it even. At first you will be able to push the ball through the rings easily, but as the wool is wound the hole will grow smaller and smaller, until you have to thread the wool through with a needle. To do this it is necessary to cut the wool into lengths, which you must be careful to join securely. Go on until the hole is completely filled and you cannot squeeze another needle through. Then slip a pair of scissors between the two rings and cut the wool all round them; and follow this up quickly by slipping a piece of string also between them and tying it tightly round the wool that is in their midst. This is to keep the loose ends, which were made directly you cut the wool with the scissors, from coming out. All that is now necessary is to pull out the cardboard rings and shape the ball a little in your hands. The tighter the wool was bound round the cards, the smaller and harder the ball will be and the more difficult will it be to cut the wool neatly and tie it. Therefore, and especially as the whole purpose of a wool ball is softness and harmlessness, it is better to wind the wool loosely and to use thick wool rather than thin.

Wool Demons

To make a "Wool Demon," take a piece of cardboard as wide as you want the demon to be tall, say three inches, and wind very evenly over it wool of the color you want the demon to be. Scarlet wool is perhaps best. Wind it about eighty times, and then remove carefully and tie a piece round about half an inch from the top to make the neck. This also secures the wool, the lower looped ends of which can now be cut. When cut, gather up about twenty pieces each side for the arms, and, holding them firmly, bind them round with other wool, and cut off neatly at the proper length. Then tie more wool round to form the body. The legs and tail are made in the same way as the arms, except that wool is wound round the legs, beginning from the feet and working upward, only to the knees, leaving a suggestion of knickerbockers. Eyes and other features can be sewn on in silk.

Bead-Work

Among other occupations which are not in need of careful description, but which ought to be mentioned, bead-work is important. It was once more popular than it now is; but beads in many beautiful colors are still made, and it is a pity that their advantages should be neglected. Bead-work lasts longer and is cleaner and brighter than any other form of embroidery. Perhaps the favorite use to which beads are now put is in the making of napkin-rings. Bead-flowers are made by threading beads on wire and bending them to the required shapes. Boxes of materials are sold in toy-shops.

Post-Office

"Post-Office" is a device for providing the family with a sure supply of letters. The first thing to do is to appoint a postmaster and fix upon the positions for the letter-boxes. You then write letters to each other and to any one in the house, and post them where you like; and at regular times the postmaster collects them and delivers them.

The Home Newspaper

In "The Home Newspaper," the first thing to do is to decide on which of you will edit it. As the editor usually has to copy all the contributions into the exercise-book, it is well that a good writer should be chosen. Then you want a good title. It is better if the contributors are given each a department, because that will make the work more simple. Each number should have a story and some poetry. Home newspapers, as a rule, come out once a month. Once a week is too often to keep up. There is a good description of one in a book by E. Nesbit, called _The Treasure-Seekers_.

Paper and Cardboard Toys--A Cocked Hat

To make a cocked hat, take a sheet of stiff paper and double it. Then fold over each of the doubled corners until they meet in the middle. The paper will then resemble Fig. 1. Then fold AB AB over the doubled corners; fold the corresponding strip of paper at the back to balance it, and the cocked hat is ready to be worn. If it is to be used in charades, it is well to pin it here and there to make it secure.

Paper Boats

If the cocked hat is held in the middle of each side and pulled out into a square, and the two sides are then bent back to make another cocked hat (but of course much smaller); and then, if this cocked hat is also pulled out into a square, it will look like Fig. 2. If the sides A and A are held between the finger and thumb and pulled out, a paper boat will be the result, as in Fig. 3.

Paper Darts

Take a sheet of stiffish paper about the size of this page and fold it longways, exactly double. Then fold the corners of one end back to the main fold, one each side. The paper sideways will then look as in Fig. 1. Then double these folded points, one each side, back to the main fold. The paper will then look as in Fig. 2. Repeat this process once more. The paper will then look as in Fig. 3. Compress the folds very tightly, and open out the top ones, so that in looking down on the dart it will have the appearance of Fig. 4. The dart is then ready for use.

Paper Mats

Take a square piece of thin paper (Fig. 1), white or colored. Fold it in half (Fig. 2), and then again in half (Fig. 3), and then again from the centre to the outside corner, when it will be shaped as in Fig. 4. If you want a round mat, cut it as marked by the dotted line in Fig. 4; if square, leave it as it is. Remember that when you cut folded paper the cuts are repeated in the whole piece as many times as there are folds in the paper. The purpose of folding is to make the cuts symmetrical. Bearing this in mind cut Fig. 4 as much as you like, as suggested by Fig. 5. Perhaps it would be well to practice first of all on a rough piece. The more delicate the cuts the prettier will be the completed mat.

Paper Boxes

Take an exactly square piece of paper (cream-laid note-paper is best in texture), and fold it across to each corner and press down the folds. Unfold it and then fold each corner exactly into the middle, and press down and unfold again. The lines of fold on the paper will now be seen to run from corner to corner, crossing in the middle, and also forming a square pattern. The next thing is to fold over each corner exactly to the line of this square on the opposite half of the paper. When this is done, and the paper is again straightened out, the lines of fold will be as in Fig. 1. Cut out the triangles marked X in Fig. 1, and the paper will be as in Fig. 2. Then cut along all the dotted lines in Fig. 2, and stand the opposite corners up to form the sides and lid of the box: first A and B, which are fastened by folding back the little flaps at the tip of A, slipping through the slit at the tip of B, and then unfolding them again; and then C and D, which are secured in the same way.

Cardboard Boxes

Cardboard boxes, of a more useful nature than paper boxes, are made on the same principle as the house described on p. 239, and the furniture to go in it, as described later in the same chapter. The whole box can be cut in the flat, out of one piece of cardboard, and the sides afterward bent up and the lid down. Measurements must of course be exact. The prettiest way to join the sides is to use thin silk instead of paper, and the lid may be made to fasten by a little bow of the same material.

Scraps and Transfers

Paper boxes, when finished, can be made more attractive by painting on them, gluing scraps to them, putting transfers here and there, or covering them with spatter-work (see p. 275). Scraps can be bought at most stationers' in a very great variety. Transfers, which are taken off by moistening in water, pressing on the paper with the slithery clouded surface downward, and being gently slipped along, used to be more common than they now are.

Directions how to make many other paper things will be found on pp. 243-262.

Ink Sea-Serpents

Dissolve a teaspoonful of salt in a glass of water, dip a pen in ink and touch the point to the water. The ink descends in strange serpent-like coils.

A Dancing Man

The accompanying picture will show how a dancing man is made to dance. You hold him between the finger and thumb, one on each side of his waist, and pull the string. The hinges for the arms and legs, which are made of cardboard, can be made of bent pins or little pieces of string knotted on each side.

Velvet Animals

The fashioning of people and animals from scraps of velvet glued on cardboard was a pleasant occupation which interested our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers when they were children many years ago. A favorite picture was of a boy and a St. Bernard, in which the boy's head, hands, collar, and pantaloons, and the dog, were made of white velvet painted. The boy's tunic was black velvet, and its belt a strip of red paper. The dog's eye was a black pin-head. The whole was mounted on a wooden stand with wooden supports at the back, one running up to the boy's head and the other to the tip of the dog's tail. With some scraps of white and black velvet, and a little patience and ingenuity, one could make all the animals on a farm and many in the Zoo.

Hand Dragons

All the apparatus needed for a "Hand Dragon" consists of a little cardboard thimble or finger-stall, on which the features of a dragon have been drawn in pen and ink or color. This is then slipped over the top of the middle finger, so that the hand becomes its body and the other fingers and thumb its legs. With the exercise of very little ingenuity in the movement of the fingers, the dragon can be made to seem very much alive. The accompanying picture should explain everything.

Various games can be played with the fingers. Tiny caps and hats can be made, features drawn with ink on the fingers and little tissue paper dresses made. A whole play can be acted or sung by these tiny finger marionettes.

Other Uses for Cardboard

Once you have begun to make things out of cardboard, you will find no end to its possibilities and should be in no more need of any hints. After building, furnishing, and peopling a dolls' house, a farm or a menagerie would be an interesting enterprise to start upon. E. M. R. has a stud of ninety-two horses, each named, and each provided with a horse-cloth, a groom, and harness. She has also several regiments of soldiers and a staff of nurses, all cut from cardboard and painted. She chooses her horses from _Country Life_, or some such paper, and copies them. Another enthusiast has a cardboard theatre in which plays and pantomimes are performed.

It might be added that cardboard figures can be made to stand up either by leaving a strip of cardboard at the bottom, in which teeth can be cut and bent alternately one way or the other, or by slipping the feet into grooves cut in little blocks of wood.

Cardboard Cut-Outs

There are a great many cut-outs issued nowadays, which may be bought for a small sum at any toy shop. Perhaps the best among these are "The Mirthful Menagerie," "The Agile Acrobats" and "The Magic Changelings." "The Mirthful Menagerie" when properly cut out and pasted together, make a lot of animals that have _thickness_ as well as length and height; "The Agile Acrobats" can be made to assume almost any position, and in "The Magic Changelings," Little Red Riding Hood, for instance, can be changed into the wolf, and then back again!

Books of cut-outs are also made, in which the books are intact after the cut-outs have been removed. "The New Mother Goose" gives illustrations of many of the Mother Goose rhymes to be cut out and pasted together, and has a story and other pictures besides. "The Electric Fire Fighters" is on the same order, only in this case the pictures to be put together are of the Electric Fire-Engine, the Electric Water-Tower, etc. They are all easily made, and are fascinating games for stormy weather, or for indoor games at any time.

Particulars of "Snap" cards and other home-made cards will be found on pp. 77 and 78.

Kites