Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1883 — DECORATIVE ART. [ARTICLE]

DECORATIVE ART.

t CRY BTALIZED OBUAJQNTS. Select a good twig of white or black thorn; wind some loose wool or cotton around the branches, and tie it on with worsted. Suspend this in a basin or deep jar. Dissolve two pounds of alum in a quart of boiling hot water, and pour it over the twig. Allow it to stand twelve hours. "Wire baskets may be covered in the same way. SHAM PILLOW FOB CHILD’S CRIB. Something new. Make your pillow the required size, stuff it with husk stripped np fine. First cover the pil" low with a tight slip of silk; putting a fail puff where the white points will come. Make a white slip, just the size of a pillow, cut the edges in deep points, finish with embroidery; work button-holes in the ends of half the points; linen buttons fasten the points together. LINER CHEST. Take a common packing trunk, line the inside with bleached muslin, cover the lid on top with the same quite closely, and then between the wood and the covering stuff a sufficient quantity of curled hair to make the top a good shape; then cover the whole with cretonne or rep. Around the lid lay a wide band of some other goods to correspond, bordering the edges with cord at each corner and in the center or sides of cover; glue on large transfer flowers, round the sides lay a wide band, cord it both sides and finish off with a deep worsted fringe, loop up a cord with tassels, fasten it to the lid, a little distance apart to open it by. PASSEPARTOUT FRAMES. Trim the margin of the picture to the size required; have a glass just the size of the picture; the edges must be perfectly smooth. Cut cardboard the size of the glass, about one-half the length. One inch from the sides cut with a knife a small place in the cardboard. Cut two pieces of tape each two inches long and draw the ends through the places cut in the board, leaving enough for a loop on the right side; glue the ends down and glue a pmn.ll piece of muslin over the ends of the tape. Cut brown paper and black morocco paper pieces one yard long and one inch wide. Hold the glass, picture and cardboard together, glue the brown paper first and bind them, holding them in place at the same time. Let it, dry, then bind with the morocco paper. Pictures, with black backgrounds look nicely bound with red. For standard passepartout, take of thick cardboard a piece six and a half inches long, one inch wide at the top, two inches wide at the bottom; take a piece of muslin two inches long, glue part of the muslin on to the small end, the other part to the frame. This is the genuine way to make passepartout. I have made them for the trade. VALANCES *AND LAMBREQUINS. Mantel valances and bracket lambrequins are made of crochet macrame lace, lined with colored satin, or have a strip of satin ribbon running through the threads, finished at the ends with bows. To make the lace, use a large ivory crochet hook, apd cotton sein cord—that which is very firm is the best. I used the unfinished for a cover, ?ut it would not remain in place. Crochet a chain of thirteen stitches, put the.thread over the needle twice, put in the first stitch, slip one, then the other, repeat twice, make one chain, then three stitches as before, which complete the shell; nine chains; then in the last stitch of the first row, make a shell the same as the first. Turn and make two chains, one shell, seven chains, one shell. Turn, make two chains, one one shell, five chains, putting the needle in the fifth stitch of the first make nine, throwing the three chains together in the center, four chains, one shell. Turn, two chains, one shell, seven chains, one shell, two chains. Now make a shell of eight stitches in the outer opening of the shell directly underneath, completing the scallop by catching it in the. outer opening of the first shell made Put the three ■over the needle and make a single crochet between each stitch of the scallop, two chains. Then commence again from the beginning; in the small loops at the bottom of the scallop tie fringe. The lace makes pretty chair backs and cushion covers. It should be fastened to the mantel with small brass tacks.