Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1887 — THE HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

THE HOUSEHOLD.

Decorated Perfumery Bottles. Very common bottles can be transformed into pretty ornaments for the dressing table with very little trouble or expense. This is just the kind of fancy work that little girls like to do, as it is really only dressing dolls. Cleanse the bottle thoroughly and have a new - cork fitted to it. Procure a little china head at the toy store, and fasten it upon the cork; the clopk or shawl is fastened around its neck ahd a little cap on its head. The skirt is sewed around the neck of the bottle, so that it conceals the whole of that. The cork can be readily drawn out by the head; The style of dress can be very elaborate or quite plain; it is pretty to have the dress correspond with the color of the covering Of the dressing-table on which the bottle is to stand. A black silk or satin suit made to imitate a gossamer, with an umbrella of black paper, is quaint looking. Paper Holder. On a piece of cream white satin ten and a half inches wide and sixteen inches long, work some design in outline, stitbh with black or colored silk, or, if preferred, paint or sketch something in ink. Take a piece of drilling\ thirty-two inches long and ten and a half ■ wide, and one of cream-white silesia the same size; the silesia is the lining, and the drilling the interlining, to give it subsistence. On the other side of the drilling lav the satin, and upon the lower half, which this does not cover, put silesia; manage the sewing together., so that the .stitching of the sides will not show; the ends do not matter so much. When the satin half joins the silesia turn the satin under a little and hem it down. At the top and bottom of the satin blind stitch on a band of velvet three aUda half inches, wide. It should be of some contrasting color and laid right on the satin, not above nor below it. Turn up all the strip below the velvet band and fasten it firmly to the front of the upper velvet, first finishing the ends neatly. This makes a case similar in shape to the newspaper holder. Pass a brass or wooden rod through the top, catch into place with ' stitches here and there, and fasten with n silk cord or ribbon from end to end by which to hang it up. s I>ecorations. Plain small moulded surfaces will usually look all the better for beTng in two tints of the same color. • ; " Parlor screens are introduced that are arranged to slide downwards ■ and so disappear from sight. ’ A plcliireaqtth'effect is induced by draping upper portion of portraits with Indian silk, with deep fringes. The low-backedchairj low-set and broad, and with back of heavily-carved hardwood, reaching but half-way to the shoulders of the sitter, has become a variety. It is to be remembered in selecting wall papers that light papers are much more intense on being hung, owing to reflection from the opposite wall, especially near tfce corners. Furniture supplies remarkable instances of changes of taste. Up to half a century ago antique furniture in England among the rich was relegated to the storehouses and the garret, and even now some tine examples are obtainable in the houses of the peasantry.