Home Occupations for Boys and Girls Part 15

DOLL FURNITURE

=1.= =Cork.= (See page 37.)

=2.= =Block= (_Blocks of wood or kindergarten blocks, cubes and oblongs_)

Glue these blocks together, three cubes making a little chair, and cubes and oblongs making a bed or sofa. Get the carpenter to saw a number of blocks of different shapes and sizes and let the child use his invention in putting them together. The furniture may be painted or gilded.

=3.= =Paper or Cardboard=

Take a piece of paper 1 2 inches. Fold crosswise. Make a dot 1/4 inch from the folded edge and 1/8 inch from right hand edge. Make dot 1/4 inch from fold and 1/8 inch from left hand edge. From open edges opposite fold make two parallel cuts to these dots. These cuts make the four legs. When opened out a table is seen with two extensions for drop-leaf. Cut one of these extensions off and a chair is made. If the original paper is longer and wider it can be made into a bed, what were the leaves of the table being bent up into the head and foot of the bed.

An ingenious child can vary and elaborate this furniture _ad infinitum_.

The backs can be cut into fancy form and arms given to chairs and sofa.

Use one of these paper chairs for a model, place on cardboard and draw around the outline and so obtain a stiffer bit of furniture. Rockers can be drawn, added to the feet, and cut out, thus making a rocking chair.

SPECIAL ARTICLES OF FURNITURE

=Pictures and Clocks= (_Trade journals_, _scissors_)

Cut from trade journals and attach to walls.

=Lamp= (_Twist spool_, _toothpick_, _half egg-sh.e.l.l_, _wax_)

Paste a bit of paper on top and bottom of twist spool. Through this stick a toothpick, which the paper should hold firmly. Upon the top of the toothpick fasten a half egg-sh.e.l.l for a globe with bit of wax or glue.

=Stove= (_Cardboard_, _black ink or paint_)

Make oblong box of cardboard. Turn upside down and cut openings for top of stove. Make a small hole in the back of the stove and insert in it a piece of paper rolled into a stove-pipe and pasted. Cut openings in front for the grate and ovens, leaving a door for the latter. Ink or paint black.

=Windows= (_Thin white paper_, _oil_, _glue_)

Brush a piece of white paper over with ordinary machine oil, or olive oil, or dip it in the oil and when dry glue in for windows, telling the children that not very long ago that was the only way in which light was admitted to many houses before gla.s.s became so common.

Isingla.s.s may also be put in for windows.

=Doll's Bedstead= (_Cigar-box_, _glue_, _gilt-headed tacks_)

Saw the _cover_ of box into two pieces, one for the head and one for the foot. Fasten in place to the box with the decorative tacks. Legs may be attached if desired.

=Curtains= (_Cheesecloth or lace_, _needle_, _thread_)

Cut small squares of cheesecloth and let the child hem and put in windows for curtains. Do not insist on very fine sewing for beginners.

Curtains may be edged with lace, or the entire curtain may be made of lace, tacked or glued to inside of window.

=Telephone= (_Two spools_, _nail_, _tin mucilage top_, _string_, _small flat block_)

Take a flat piece of wood about two inches square. Glue to it the flat end of small spool. That is the 'phone. Another spool is the receiver hanging, when not in use, upon a nail driven into the wood. The mucilage top has the slot into which to drop the imaginary nickel.

MISCELLANEOUS

=Grocery Store= (_Wooden soap-box_, _small cardboard box_, _scales_, _toy barrels_, _tiny pill boxes_, _sand_, _pebbles_, _etc._)

A small wooden box makes the store. A smaller cardboard box turned upside down will make the counter, or small pieces of wood can be nailed together by the little amateur carpenter. Buy toy scales or make some as described below. Small barrels can be obtained at toy store or little bottles and boxes can be filled with small quant.i.ties of tea and sugar, with tiny bags of pebbles for potatoes, apples, etc. Cranberries make acceptable play apples. Corn and nuts also will find places. Tacks can be hammered in on which to hang tiny brooms, and by hammering in two long nails and laying a narrow board upon them a shelf can be made for the canned vegetables. Let the children make their own brown paper bags, looking at a real one for a model.

=Scales= (_Two small square cardboard boxes, made or bought_, _twine_, _skewer or other slender stick of wood or metal_)

In each of the four sides of a box make a small hole near the top. Take two pieces of twine each four times the width of the box. Tie one of these through two opposite holes of the box and the other piece through the two other holes, being sure that the strings when tied are of equal length. These two strings cross each other. In the middle, exactly where they cross, tie one end of a string three inches long. Raise the box by this string and it should hang exactly true. Arrange the other box in the same way.

Now take the skewer and exactly in the _middle_ tie a string of three inches. To the ends of the stick tie the ends of the twine already tied to the boxes. Raise the skewer by this string and the boxes should hang evenly, like scales. If they do not, slide one or the other back and forth until they do balance.

Use in the toy grocery store. Playing store is always a fine opportunity for indicating lessons of honesty in business. Train the child to give fair weight and measure, even in play.

=Merry-Go-Round for Dolls= (_Cardboard_, _large ribbon spool_, _stiff paper or kindergarten folding paper_, _slender pencil_, _tiny flag_)

Cut two circles of cardboard, one five inches in diameter; the other, ten to twelve. Using the smaller one as a base, stand on it a large ribbon spool (spool around which baby ribbon comes). Glue the large circle to the other end of the spool, parallel to the other lower circle. Make a hole in each circle. Run a slender pencil through the upper cardboard, then through the spool, and then through the lower circle, making an axis round which the spool may revolve, carrying with it the upper circle.

On the upper circle paste alternately animals cut from paper or cardboard, and benches also cut from cardboard. Elegance may be added by gilding the spool and letting a tiny flag float from the point of the pencil. Cut out paper dolls for a ride.

=Dolls' Park= (_Starch-box_, _earth_, _moss_, _twigs_, _tiny mirror_, _etc._)

Fill the box with earth and sand for a foundation, and then with moss, twigs, elder-berry sprigs, etc., fill in the fairy-like details. A toy swan or boat adds to the reality.

=Rugs for Doll-House=

1. Make the loom by taking a slate and knocking out the slate so as to leave the frame intact. Hammer a row of small nails half an inch apart along the two narrow sides. Then make the warp by stringing strong cord back and forth across the nails. Tie first around one corner nail; carry _to_ and _around_ the two nails opposite, then back and around the next two, and so back and forth till it is all strung. The rows of cord should be parallel.

2. Instead of a slate, looms of various sizes may be roughly made of four narrow pieces of wood measured, sawed, and nailed together at the corners. A curtain slat could be so used, or wooden boxes will furnish raw material for such. A loom 4 6 inches is a good size for a beginner.

For woof, use coa.r.s.e worsted or ribbon to begin with, or colored cheesecloth torn into narrow strips.

Use the fingers at first, later a bodkin, weaving under one cord of the warp and over one, back and forth, till a tiny rug is made. Fasten ends by weaving in and out a short distance into body of rug. At first make rug all of one color, or a rag-carpet effect can be obtained by tying into a long string worsteds of various colors. If a plain color is used a border can be made by running in a strand or so of a different color.