1 minute read
Things Worth Doing and How to Do Them. Illustrated by the authors. $2.00. Recreations for Girls. Illustrated by the authors. $2.00 (postage extra). What a Girl Can Make and Do. New Ideas for Work and Play. Illustrated by the authors. $2.00. The American Girl’s Handy Book ; or, How to Amuse Yourself and Others. Illustrated by the authors. $2.00. The Field and Forest Handy Book. New Ideas for Out of Doors. Illustrated by the author. $2.00. The Jack of All Trades ; or, New Ideas for American Boys. Illustrated by the author. $2.00. The Outdoor Handy Book. New and Cheaper Edition of The American Boy’s Book of Sport. Illustrated by the author. $2.00. The American Boy’s Handy Book ; or, What to Do and How to Do It. Illustrated by the author. $2.00. Copyright, 1906 by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS SPECIAL NOTICE The publishers hereby give warning that the unauthorized printing...
18 minute read
We know our girls. We know and sympathize with their restless longing for activity. The normal girl simply must be doing something, and this ceaseless energy, at times rather appalling to her elders, is but natural and right. It is in the young blood coursing so swiftly and joyously through her veins, and it must find vent in one way or another. But there is no need of doing that which brings neither true pleasure nor the joy of accomplishing something worth while, for the world is full of delightful things really worth the doing. We have only to open our eyes and ears to find them crowding forward to claim our attention, and the choice is between better and best. There are merry frolics and active games that stimulate the health and renew the vitality of the body and there are scores of charming things for willing hands to...
10 minute read
Prepare your guests for something novel by issuing your invitations in the form of giant firecrackers. Decorate Your Grounds and make them as festive as possible with fluttering flags, floating streamers, red, white, and blue bunting, and Japanese lanterns. Also provide a number of small flags, one for each guest, to be worn in the hat, hair, belt, and buttonhole. This little touch of uniform will not only make the scene gayer and more exhilarating, but, like badges of an order, will have the effect of dispelling the stiffness of new acquaintances, and bringing the party closer together as members of one band of merrymakers. For the Giant Firecracker Invitations you will need several sheets of bright red tissue paper, more of white tissue paper, and some white unlined writing paper. A ball of soft white cotton string will also be required. Cut an oblong of red tissue paper, a...
8 minute read
MAKE your poster as nearly as possible like the one on the opposite page. Paint the lettering in gay colors on a big sheet of paper and a day before the show tack it up in a conspicuous place where all the family will see it, for, of course, your show must have an audience, and if you follow out all directions very carefully it will be well worth seeing. Have your circus on top of a large table, or on the floor, or out of doors on the bare ground. Almost any place will do where there is a good-sized level surface. Make the circus ring about forty inches in diameter, outline it with chalk and cover the marked line with either sawdust or dry corn meal built into a narrow ridge similar to that of earth around the large rings; then your circle will look just like the...
13 minute read
THERE are no end of delightful things to do at an Easter party, and every game may be in keeping with the season. The game of Egg Tennis is particularly pretty. As you play this new Easter game, showers of color will fill the air, sometimes descending in sparkling bits of orange, again reds, then greens or blues, yellows or purples, with all their beautiful tints. Quivering and shimmering, down the colored rain will fall, lightly covering your hair, clothing, and surrounding objects, while you stand, racket in hand, watching the result of your stroke. Your companions, seeing your success, will be eager to try their skill, also, with one of the pretty magic eggs. These colored showers do not even look wet, and they will not injure the most delicate of fabrics, for they are composed of countless bits of bright tissue paper. The Number of Eggs needed for...
12 minute read
The only material necessary for The Stage will be a piece of plain solid-colored cloth, which must reach across an open doorway, be tacked upon each side and extend down to the floor, where it should be again fastened that there may be no danger of its blowing aside. Put this curtain up high enough in the doorway to reach a trifle above your head, for you must be completely hidden from the audience. The full-page illustration shows the back of the stage and gives the manner in which Punch and his family are made to move about in the opening between the top of the doorway and the curtain. It is this opening which constitutes the stage. The illustration also shows a band of cloth stretched across the extreme top of the doorway, and short side curtains added to the outside of the stage to improve its appearance. To...
18 minute read
Novel Ways of Telling Fortunes Ask the fairies, gnomes and elves to your Hallowe’en frolic; they will be delighted to come, though of course, you cannot invite them in the usual fashion. Instead of writing notes, you must braid three Invitation Rings of Grass— fresh grass is best, but the dried will do—and hang the rings on bushes ( Fig. 48 ), or lay them on the outside window-sill, making a wish on each grass ring as it is put into place. To insure the fulfilment of the wish, you must not see the rings again until after Hallowe’en. The fairy troupe will find the green circles as they come floating along through the air on gay-colored bubbles from the magic spring waters of Fairyland. During the last days of October fairies are always looking for such invitations. Here are some of the ceremonies and games newly revealed to me...
9 minute read
Have Titania’s Stage Ready that she may not be kept waiting, for queens and fairies will brook no delay ( Fig. 62 ). Find a wooden box 18½ inches long by 13 inches wide or larger ( Fig. 63 ). With a heavy hammer or a hatchet pry up and knock off the top and one of the long sides ( Fig. 64 ). The open side forms the front of the roofless stage. The coloring of the stage should be a light sage green. If possible, procure this color in cartridge wallpaper wider than the stage. With a string measure the distance across the back wall of stage from top to bottom (A to B Fig. 64 ), continue the measurement in the same straight line across the floor of the stage from back B to front C. After allowing five extra inches for turning the paper over the...
9 minute read
Apple, Orange and Pumpkin Games Little Pumpkins Select apples about two inches in diameter, all as near of a size as possible and preferably somewhat flattened at top and bottom. Cut a square of orange-colored tissue paper and stand an apple, stem uppermost, on its centre ( Fig. 79 ). Bring one side of the tissue paper up to the top of the apple and take a wee plait in the paper, at the same time smoothing it up from the bottom of the apple ( Fig. 80 ). Make several more plaits and bring the nearest corner of the paper up to the apple top. Continue plaiting the tissue paper around the apple ( Fig. 81 ) while constantly smoothing it up from the bottom and over the apple until the apple is completely covered and all the edges and corners of the orange-colored paper are folded and brought...
3 minute read
First make the poster, to be hung in a conspicuous place in hall or parlor. Print it in large black letters on a good-sized sheet of wrapping paper: There Will be To-night An Exhibition of The World-Renowned Moving Pictures Taken by Madam Moselle at Great Risk of Life and Property. No Expense or Effort Being Spared to Obtain the Real Characters and Settings of a Puritan Thanksgiving And Other Scenes from the Life of Our Forefathers. Make the picture screen by stretching a large white sheet on the back wall of the room where the performance is to be held, as you would for a magic lantern exhibition. Then get your costumes ready. These may be made up very quickly from materials at hand. The Puritan Woman’s Dress as well as that of the man must be entirely of black and white, and to carry out the effect of black...
8 minute read
To make the design, fold through the centre a square piece of paper measuring five and one-half inches along each edge. Fold this oblong crosswise through its centre, and you will make a small square of four layers of paper. On one side of this square mark the outline of a heart, allowing the corner of the small four-folded square, which is also the centre of the large square of paper before it is folded, to form the point of the heart ( Fig. 105 ). Cut out the top of the heart through all four layers of paper, also the curves of the sides of the heart; cut these only part way down as shown by A and A ( Fig. 105 ). The dotted lines in Fig. 104 represent creases. Answers to the invitations might read: “My dear Miss Darling and Miss Love, too, I’ve opened your heart...
9 minute read
But did it ever occur to you that the show could come to you—that is, you might organize a show of your own and arrange things to suit yourself? If you want the Wild West Show first and a circus after you can have them. Should you prefer both shows at the same time they are yours, for you can make the entire affair—horses, riders, Indians, wild animals and tent. You may do even more—you can cause all the performers actually to move, and that by the mere turn of your wrist, because your show will be in reality the moving pictures of A Panorama Get a common old house-broom ( Fig. 117 ) and saw the broom part off evenly from the handle at the dotted line A; then saw two pieces of equal length from the handle at dotted lines B and C, making each piece fourteen inches...
9 minute read
Sunflowers can be fashioned rapidly by cutting orange-colored tissue paper into strips twenty-five inches long and six inches wide, pointing the strips into petals three inches deep and two and a half inches wide at the base ( Fig. 132 ), ten petals to each strip; then creasing each petal lengthwise through its centre to give stiffness ( Fig. 133 ), and gathering each strip separately along its straight edge with needle and thread ( Fig. 134 ); in this way forming the two strips into two pointed circles ( Fig. 135 ). These circles, together with a brown centre, make one sunflower. Cut a strip of brown tissue paper nine inches long and two inches wide for the centre, gather the paper tightly along one lengthwise edge and tie it close up under and against the head of a slender nail ( Fig. 136 ). Around the nail under...
9 minute read
Cut a large square opening in the end of the box, leaving a margin one-half inch wide at the top and sides ( Fig. 147 ). Make a small round hole in the centre of the front of the box, only large enough for one eye to look through, and cut a slit a quarter of an inch wide on each side of the box half an inch from the open end and half an inch from the top; extend the slit to the bottom of the box ( Fig. 148 ). Fig. 149 shows the box with the front, sides, and back cut. If the bent-down edges of the box-lid are wide, cut them off within half an inch of the top; then put the lid on the box and it will be ready for the slides ( Fig. 150 ). The Slides must be stiff and perfectly opaque,...
9 minute read
A New Flower Game I have it! A game of flowers with roses that will not wilt or fade but last for a long time fresh and bright. We will call it “Plant Your Garden if You Can,” because one cannot always be absolutely sure of planting the flowers, and that is part of the fun. Two Dozen Roses will be needed for this garden game, half a dozen white, half a dozen red, half a dozen yellow and half a dozen pink. The flowers are of tissue paper and very pretty. Cut squares measuring twelve inches along each of the four sides, from white, pink, yellow and red tissue paper; the dotted lines on the diagrams indicate where the paper must be folded ( Fig. 185 ). Fold each square across the centre ( Fig. 186 ). Fold again crosswise through the centre, forming a small square of four...
10 minute read
It would be difficult to say positively how long Santa Claus has lived, or when he first made his appearance, but we all know just how he looks, We know that he is sure to come every Christmas, and the girls and boys look forward gladly to his visit. The little Hollanders name our Christmas Saint Santa Claus, the same as we do, though sometimes we call him Kris Kringle. In England he is both Santa Claus and St. Nicholas, in Switzerland Samiklaus, in Russia he is St. Nicholas. But no matter by what name he may be called, he is always the same, always the jolly little fellow bringing good cheer to every one. Santa Claus takes great delight in driving his tiny reindeer and sleigh full of toys over roofs of houses for the special benefit of the girls and boys he knows, and that includes all of...
3 minute read
You can keep the preparation of the living tree absolutely secret and make it a complete surprise, for it does not have to be set up where all may see in order to be decorated, and no hint of its existence need be given until the time arrives, the door is thrown open and the beautiful, sparkling Christmas tree glides slowly into the room. How to Prepare the Living Christmas Tree. Choose quite a tall girl for the angel of the tree and from dark green, undressed cambric cut a long, plain cloak that will fit smoothly over her shoulders and hang like an inverted cornucopia from neck to feet. Make the Peaked Hat out of stiff brown paper, cutting it like Fig. 221 , and pasting it together like Fig. 222 . Cover the hat with some of the green cambric, allowing a cape of the material to fall...
14 minute read
Form a Managing Committee and talk over arrangements with them. If the fair is to be large, you will need either one large room or several small ones. When the question of place has been settled to the satisfaction of all, make out a list of the various girls and boys who will help with the entertainment, and divide the list into as many parts as there are young people on your managing committee, including yourself. Give each member of the committee his or her portion of the list, with instructions to see every person whose name is on the paper and find out what each particular one will promise to make for the fair. Do not confine the soliciting to young people of your own little circle, ask for contributions from all the girls and boys your managing committee are able to reach. Some may want to make several...
9 minute read
It is a wild land, full of wild creatures if you choose to believe in them. Cats you will probably meet on the trail, and they are wild ones if you will. Wolves, too, may prowl around, for what else are Tramp and Nipper, your own dearly loved dogs, but descendants of the wild wolf. There will be plenty of sailing, fishing and outdoor sports. Guides can be secured at headquarters and you will not have to travel far, for the camping ground is your own back yard. You must have your Camping Outfit, as all campers do, and it is the proper thing to think, plan and talk much about this same outfit. As the trip is to be made overland and you will have no camping wagon, use bags for carrying the various articles needed in camp. Old flour bags are just the thing. Into these you can...
10 minute read
The Pole may be a stationary clothesline post, a small, unused flagstaff, an extra long clothesline pole, a long curtain pole, or a very long, straight bean pole, and for smaller children the handle of an old long-handled broom will answer. Use strong, soft twine to make The Cover for Your Ball Cut twelve pieces, each twenty-four inches in length; place all the lengths straight and evenly together; then tie a string around the entire bunch, an inch and one-half from the centre ( Fig. 270 ). In this figure and several other diagrams the single strands of twine are not drawn in detail, because, should every separate thread be outlined, much confusion might ensue. After tying the lengths of twine together, separate the longest part into three divisions of four strands each ( Fig. 271 ). Braid these strands together in one braid, beginning close to the string tied...
9 minute read
Cheops’s Home was in Egypt, where there are more crocodiles than you can count, and doubtless the little brown fellow, at a safe distance, enjoyed watching the sleepy creatures while he vaguely wondered why crocodiles always crawled up on the banks to lie so long and still in the sun. There were many other strange animals and queer Egyptian things—unlike any you have ever seen—that interested and delighted the child. When Khufu grew to be a man he was A Great Monarch, an Egyptian King, and instead of watching crocodiles busied himself watching and ruling a nation. The King did not bother greatly about the house he lived in, but spent much energy and many years in building an enormous pyramid, the largest ever erected at any time. When you grow older you may possibly take a trip to Egypt and see this Wonderful Structure, built 900 B.C. It is...
10 minute read
Now, we will play that Your Name is Chares of Lindus, that you are a great sculptor and can model all sorts of wonderful and beautiful objects, and that the city of Rhodes has commissioned you to make a gigantic bronze statue of Apollo, their sun god. So you must pretend that you have built two small islands at the entrance to the port of Rhodes, and that on each island you have erected immense stone pedestals fifty feet high, so that your Colossus need not be obliged to stand in the water. The statue must be made to span the harbor with “legs wide apart,” as Napoleon stands in the pictures of history. Apollo must be very large, about one hundred and eleven feet high, in order that every ship entering the harbor may pass between the legs of this Towering Colossus as a tribute to the god; and...
12 minute read
The First Lighthouse Ever Known Think what that means: When it is finished the people from other countries will see your Pharos and wonder why it never occurred to them to build a lighthouse, and they will hurry to erect similar structures on their coasts, that sailors on all the seas may have guides in times of danger and not be dependent upon bonfires burning at the entrances of harbors. These chance watch-fires are now the only kind of lighthouses the people have, so get ready your material and make preparations for building, that you may help the poor sailors. Remember, though, that we are living in the third century B.C., and that we are not in the United States but on the island of Pharos. Select the eastern extremity of the island for Your Building Lot It happens that your lighthouse will be on an island in the identical...
8 minute read
You can make a little statue of Zeus, but you must pretend that You Are the Sculptor Phidias and that you are actually modelling the real giant statue. Make believe that hundreds of elephant tusks have been sent to you from distant regions to supply enough ivory for the work, and that you have an abundance of gold, precious stones and ebony. Make Zeus of a doll ( Fig. 332 ) five and one-half or six inches in length. Pry off its wig, then give the doll a coat of varnish. Should the arms be flat, round them out with a layer of raw cotton glued on and paint the doll white all over. You must make the entire doll absolutely white. Gild Hair, Beard and Mustache on the head ( Figs. 333 and 334 ). Gild the sandals ( Fig. 335 ). Make a crown of green tissue paper...
8 minute read
Look at Your Column; see how gracefully the capital curves into a roll on each side, reminding one of a blossom on the end of a stem. The column you have made is called Ionic, and when you examine the columns or pillars of buildings, you will easily recognize those with Ionic capitals. It was principally because of the beautiful rolled capitals crowning its columns that the temple of Diana was known as one of the Wonders of the World, for it was the first structure that utilized this beautiful style of architecture. Find a piece of extra stiff white cardboard, nineteen by eleven inches, and on it draw The Ground Plan of your temple ( Fig. 350 ). The distance from the outside edge of one ladder-like strip to the outside edge of the other is nine inches. The strips are each sixteen inches long, two inches wide and...
21 minute read
These are the famous Hanging Gardens and you are in the ancient city of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar is king, and the time is about the year 580 B.C. The King’s Wife, Amytis, used to live in the mountainous country of Media, and when she married and came to Babylon, she longed for the sight of a hill, so her husband, King Nebuchadnezzar, had the Hanging Gardens built for her. Pretend that The Queen Has Invited You to explore the gardens with her. Up, up the many flights of marble steps you go to the tip-top of the beautiful hill, and standing there by her side you have a splendid view of the surrounding flat country as well as of the River Euphrates, which divides the city into two equal parts, half on the east and half on the west side of the river. The Gardens are built as high as...
9 minute read
Paper enough for the making of Christmas greens to decorate an ordinary room quite lavishly may be bought for fifty cents or less. One sheet of tissue paper will make thirty-two holly leaves. One sheet of tissue paper will make a large bunch of mistletoe and one sheet of tissue paper will make one yard of evergreen rope. Complete success in this work depends largely upon the paper used and great care must be taken in selecting the colors. The quality should be good, else it will lack the necessary crispness and staying properties. For the holly and evergreen choose a dark moss-green paper, which is a yellow green with no tinge of blue. For the mistletoe you must have a light gray-green, also of a yellow tone, a light cardinal red for the brilliant holly berries, white for the waxy mistletoe berries and dark gray-brown for holly stems. One...
9 minute read
A Large Spool and you will have a pretty little table; paint it a red brown to resemble mahogany. If you need more suggestions, spool furniture may be found in “What a Girl Can Make and Do.” To make the doll house. Get three stiff pasteboard boxes about fourteen inches long, thirteen inches wide and six and one-half inches high ( Fig. 423 ). Cut the thirteen-inch front and the right-hand side from the first box ( Fig. 424 ). Take the second box and lay the fourteen-inch front down flat on top of an old, common wooden table which can be used without fear of injury, and with the aid of a ruler, draw two straight lines across the front on the inside of the box; let each line be about one and one-fourth inch from the side. Keep the box as it is while you score the lines...
8 minute read
A quart of bayberries, a little time, a little trouble, and we have a beautiful green wax candle, hard, brittle and smooth, that hot weather will not melt and whose expiring flame yields an incense sweet and aromatic. There is a peculiar joy in using the raw material fresh from Mother Nature’s hands and starting at the beginning of things—a joy unknown to those who work only with materials that are manufactured—and to get the most out of the work of making bayberry candles you must begin with the bayberries. First locate your Bayberry-Bushes; then, just the time when out-of-door exercise begins to be a delight, the latter part of September or early in October, gather the berries and take them home for future use. The bayberries, which seem to be nothing but tiny stones covered with a coating of wax, do not decay quickly, but shrivel up into small...
7 minute read
The Patterns for the Little People are given in Figs. 464 , 466 , 477 and 480 . Cut ten girls from ten pieces of folded white writing-paper after first tracing the lengthwise half of Fig. 464 on half of the paper ( Fig. 465 ). Cut ten boys ( Fig. 466 ) from white writing-paper ( Fig. 467 ). Paint each girl’s hair a different color, varying from light brown to raven black, from golden blond to dark auburn. Paint their bathing dresses red, blue, pink, orange, brown, green, yellow, purple, striped red and white, and spotted blue and white. Paint the boys’ bathing suits in a similar manner; mark the features of both girls and boys in ink, then color face, hands, arms, legs and feet pink. Use water-colors, and paint the back as well as the front of the dolls. When the paint is dry, take two...
7 minute read
Method Invented by the Author A Board forty inches long will answer for weaving anything one yard or less in width and is of a convenient size to handle. The one-yard width is what an ordinary loom produces, but if you would have your rug or portière wider there is no reason why the board should not be longer. To prevent the material from catching, your board must be smooth on both sides and on the edge and it should be as wide as possible. A good-sized pastry board is excellent for weaving a piece less than twenty-two inches in width. Rags are Used for both warp and woof; if old and soft they should be more tightly packed than when new and firm. The warp is composed of the strips which run up and down in the work, the woof of those that are woven in and out across...
24 minute read
A simple, inexpensive Easter card may carry with it happiness, for “it is sweet to be remembered,” and you can think of many designs from which to choose a cheery greeting to send to every one. Cards Made to Represent Easter Flowers are always welcome. Trace Fig. 491 on heavy paper; paint the flowers to resemble as nearly as possible the natural blossoms, shading the lily lightly and coloring the passion flower in natural hues. Paint the violet a light blue purple and its foliage green. When dry cut out the design; then bend the card at the dotted lines that each flower may stand erect, supported by the blank back piece in tent-like fashion. When bent the card will form three tents in a row, with the smallest in front, as in Fig. 492 . If you are not able to paint the flowers satisfactorily, use any colored, printed...
15 minute read
Candlesticks are always decorative; even the old tin candlestick with its half burnt tallow candle has a certain picturesqueness that the artist recognizes when he chooses that as an accessory to his picture instead of the prosaic oil lamp. Then again, candlesticks give a wide scope to individuality in design, and that it gives expression to one’s originality is one of the greatest charms of pottery making. A potter’s wheel is not at all necessary. The primitive method of coiling the clay and gradually, without hurry, building it up into the form desired is far the better way for home workers. Get Your Clay at the nearest pottery where anything finer than flower pots is made, and if it is a place where they turn out only earthenware ask for their finest clay. Very frequently they make a quantity of extra pieces for holiday trade and for these prepare a...
5 minute read
In the orange groves the great golden balls are ripening, and on the long-leaved banana trees hang the queer bunches of bananas, growing in their funny upside-down fashion. Pineapples, lemons and many other fruits are there, all growing and ripening that the children of the North may have them when their own delicious strawberries, peaches and plums have gone. We are very glad of these Southern fruits, even the skins seem too good to throw away. And so they are. Save Your Orange, and Banana, and Apple Skins, too, and see what delightful things you can make of them. Long, long ago, before there were any steamboats, sailboats or even rowboats in the British Isles, when men’s clothes were merely the skins of wild beasts tied on with leather thongs, the people went on the water in little circular boats called coracles. These boats were wickerwork baskets covered with the...
11 minute read
Before we make the little paper people, let us build Columbus’ Ship. This ship is to be as nearly like the Santa Maria , the real ship in which Columbus sailed, as is possible to make of paper. Cut a piece of light-weight cardboard fifteen and three-fourths inches long and seven and one-half inches wide; on this draw the diagram of the boat ( Fig. 589 ), making the greatest lengths of the diagram exactly as long and the greatest widths as wide as the cardboard. Find the lengthwise centre of the cardboard, which will be three and three-fourths inches from each long side line, as the cardboard is seven and one-half inches wide. Draw a line along the centre from end to end, to guide you in making the diagram of the boat; this central line will also be the centre of your ship. Commence drawing the bottom A—A...
8 minute read
There is one animal in particular with which you must make friends—a bear, an immense creature called Ursa Major. Never could an earthly bear have such a tail as you see in Fig. 616 . However, the Great Bear is very different from the ordinary bear, and needs the big, bushy tail for three bright stars. Four more equally bright stars are on the creature’s side. Trace the big bear on cardboard, and be sure to get the stars in the right places. Cut out the pasteboard bear, and with a large, coarse pin or needle pierce a hole in the centre of each star; then hold the bear up to the light, as the little girl holds the lion in Fig. 617 . Look through the bear and you will see seven tiny, twinkling stars forming a dipper. Pretend you have stretched a string from star to star, and...
19 minute read
With the stencil you can decorate a window curtain, portière, table cover, bedspread, bureau scarf, screen or the walls of your room. You may even paint the trimmings for a dress if you like; it has been done. Stencilling is effective on almost any material: silk, cotton, linen and wool. Swiss and cheese-cloth sash curtains are particularly attractive decorated in this way, and swiss bureau and pin-cushion covers are very dainty. The drawing on page 427 is of a white cheese-cloth short sash curtain stencilled in pink and light apple-green. Both dye and oil paints may be used, but for anything washable Dyes are the best, inasmuch as they are supposed to be fast colors. There is an inexpensive dye now on the market that comes in tubes like oil paint and does not require boiling. This is convenient to handle, as it is merely necessary to dissolve it in...