How to amuse yourself and others : $b the American girl's handy bookBeard, Lina
General
How to amuse yourself and others : $b the American girl's handy book
Beard, Lina
Amusements -- Juvenile literature; Handicraft -- Juvenile literature
The picture is now ready to be pasted in the album, with a thin,
delicate paste, touching only the corners. It is a good plan to write
under each leaf the name of the plant or tree from which it was taken,
with the date, and such facts as you would like to recall. Very
valuable botanical collections can thus be made. Flowers are more
difficult to print than leaves, owing to less “relief” in the films;
still they make charming pictures when successfully treated, sometimes
having the appearance of photographs of flowers with all the lights and
shadows.
[Illustration: A Winter Landscape.
Printed from Nature’s Type.]
When printing flowers, proceed in the same manner as with the leaves.
Sweet peas, roses, daisies, wild carrot, clover, and verbenas, all make
beautiful impressions which look like photographs. Grasses of various
kinds also print well.
In making a spray, it is best to have a definite idea of the form you
desire it to take. If possible secure as a copy a natural spray of
the kind you wish to print. Then first print all the leaves in the
positions they are to occupy, and connect them by drawing in the branch
with pen and India-ink.
[Illustration: Maple Leaves.
Printed from Nature’s Type.]
The Winter Landscape is printed from dried twigs, grasses, and little
leafless plants, so arranged as to resemble trees and shrubbery.
Only have a little confidence and you can make etchings from
nature. Should you not understand drawing or composition, do not be
discouraged; obtain a picture to copy, and then hunt up little plants
and soft twigs as nearly as possible corresponding in shape and
character to the trees in the copy; in this way you can produce very
creditable landscapes.
Botanical impressions maybe used for “fancy work” by being printed on
satin, and the decorated satin made up as though it were painted or
embroidered; patches for silk quilts have been prettily decorated by
this process. The printings also make beautiful patterns for outline
work, much truer to nature than those made in any other manner and
afford infinite variety for “borders” and “corners.” Even satin dresses
can be beautifully ornamented with impressions of leaves instead of the
“hand painting” so long in use. You can, of course, see that should
several colors of printers’ ink be used, beautiful combinations and
pleasing variety would be obtained, and that probably some unique and
novel decorations would be secured.
Letter-paper ornamented with a delicate design printed from nature’s
types is very dainty and pretty, and in many other forms can these
simple and beautiful decorations be used.
Then bring leaves and blossoms from the woods or door-yard, and half
an hour may be delightfully spent in printing “impressions” which
will teach a lesson in botany, while the great variety of leaf forms,
difference in texture, fibre, veining and finish cannot fail to attract
your attention and call forth your admiration.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Corn Roast.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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