Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/213

  final cover it is best to lay it over the sofa and cut it into some semblance of the shape, as then you can the better tack it round, and once tacked to your liking, cut off to the edge as close to the tacks as possible; for you must remember you have to tack a gimp or some edging over it. In doing the back and arm, it is easiest to strap them through and through, sewing a button at each place. When you have all done so far, tack your edging round with the very smallest tacks or gimp pins. If you are not inclined to buy gimp, a very good one can be made of worsted, or even twine, but it depends on the colour. It must be worked up with a crochet needle and a hair pin (most people know the hair pin work I mean; it is very simple, and done as I say in twing makes a capital gimp). When you have all ready, screw or nail your pieces together again.

A Curtain Wardrobe. - This is a great convenience in a bush bedroom, and almost any corner will do for it. Nail a corner shelf at the top, or as high as you want your things to hang. If you cannot get this done a piece of calico tacked across will do; it is only needed to keep the dust out; but you must have a batten across the corner to tack your curtain to - a string is so apt to break; besidesk it does not look so well. I have the shelf top and bottom; the latter does for boots and shoes. The curtains must be long and full, lapping over each other in the centre, then with a nice fringed valance, this forms quite an ornament to the room.

Lustroleum - There is a new work lately come into fashion very useful and convenient for ornamentation. It is called "Lustroleum" and consists of different paints very nicely got up in small bottles. The boxes vary in price. I bought one lately for 15s.; there are twelve different colours - one bottle of "medium" as it is called, but it really is a light coloured varnish, I fancy, for I used all mine and then wanting to some leaves I just used some ordinary spirit varnish and turpentine—and a bottle of spirits of wine for cleaning the brushes, &c. I can recommend them to ladies in the bush; they can be used in a great number of ways in house and home decoration. When I bought them I was told that they were only intended for painting on cloth, velvet, &c., but I have used them for all sorts of things — specially for doing wood and basket ware. I have just finished a lamp globe and an afternoon tea service which would do credit to any artist, which I am not. As the pattern is quite original I give it as a hint to others. I bought some common cups and saucers; they are very small, and a peculiar rough ware, not the ordinary smooth china one is accustomed to. To begin with, I mixed some blue paint — that called bril blue — and painted one cup and saucer with that. When it was dry I mixed some gold paint, and with the brush made little smudges all over the blue ground— not spots, you understand, but just simple quick smudges — and I put a band of gold round the edge of both cup and saucer. The effect is very pretty. I did each a different colour, blue, green, scarlet; gold with blue smudges, silver with green, and citron with scarlet. Of course they will not wash, but I only want them for an ornament to dress a small table I have.

A Centre Ottoman.—This is not so simple as the sofa, for it requires a little carpentering. First procure a common barrel or cask such as bottled beer is packed in. With a gimlet bore holes in every stave as far as the middle of the barrel, eight or nine in each, one about four inches below the other. Now stand your barrel up and make as it were a ledge round it half way down ; you can do it with three- or four old cases, cutting hollows out of them to make them fit the barrel so that you have an equal seat all round. It must be all securely nailed together. Now pad your barrel ; the easiest way is to sew all the stuffing between two-linings and tack it round the barrel.