HINTS AND IDEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

HINTS AND IDEAS.

A TRANSFORMED BASKET.

WASTE PAPER TO NEEDLEWORK.

Hours of work are spent in sewing and knitting during the winter, and here is a suggestion for a welcome gift to some industrious friend.

Buy a fairly large waste-paper basket. A plain unpainted one will do, but take care that it ha« a substantial base. Lacquer or paint it on the outside in some pastel shade, or in a colour which is likely to tone with the recipient's room. The next step ie to eew on to one side of the basket some motifs, leaves, or other ornament. Now line the interior with a pretty material. Measure the circumference of the basket, and allow one and a half times the actual width when "preparing the stuff. This will allow for a gathered effect. To get a good shaped inner base which will lie flat at the bottom of the basket, stand the basket on a piece of paper, and draw the shape with a pencil. Allow for turnings when cutting the material. Join the yearns of the lining which is to cover the sides of the work-basket. Gather the bottom and the top, and draw up to the size of the basket. Sew the base portion to this. Now fit it into the basket itself, taking care to have the nea.t sides of the joining visible. Turn in tlie edges of the top of the lining, an.l sew through the basket, making it secure. If the work-basket is intended for a bedroom, rosebud trimming will form a suitable edging for the rim to cover up the stitches, but a ruching or other trimming can be used with great effect. This type of work-basket is most handy when knitting, mending, or bulky sewing has to be tidied away. The holding capacity of such a receptacle is surprising.

AFTER THE HOLIDAYS. A seaside holiday should bestow a heritage of health and energy, and give resistance to the chills and ills of winter, but if one has sun and sea bathed to a very great extent, then probably the strong sunlight and sea breezes have had rather a harmful effect on the skin, eyes and hair, unless care was taken at the time to protect them. A lotion used on the skin at the first suspicion of redness and irritation caused by sunburn would have prevented pain and blisters and given the skin a uniform tan that is most becoming. If the hair had been washed in freeh water after bathing, then all the salt would have been rinsed away. If it has been allowed to remain in, then the hair will need very thorough shampooing after the holiday. Use rain water, if it is available, or soft water, for washing the hair, and a very good shampoo. Massaging the scalp well with warm olive oil before washing the hair will help to make it soft and glossy. If the hair has been bleached by too much exposure to strong sunlight, or it is coarse and sticky after frequent immersions in ealt water, it may need special treatment. Eyes that have been protected from glare by dark glasses, and that have been bathed regularly with boracie lotion, will not bo reddened and watery, and there will not be a network of fine wrinkles round them, but eyes that have been neglected will need bathing at least twice a day in a warm boracie lotion. Rest them as much as possible ,and try to lie down for half an hour every day in a darkened room, and put pads of cotton wool soaked in witch hazel on the closed lids.

WHEN SOMETHING GETS IN THE EYE. Foreign bodies in the eye are common and irritating, but, on the whole, not as dangerous as foreign bodies in the ear or nose. If the grit, or whatever it is, is loose and can be seen, there is little difficulty in removing it. If it cannot be seen, it is almost for certain under the upper lid. To remove it. the eyelid has to be turned over. This is not at all difficult if you know how to do it. It is a trick that everybody should be taught how to do, for it is certain to be wanted at some time when no help is available. If you cannot get it out, put a few drops of castor oil into the eye, bandage the eye, and leave it on all night; in the morning most probably the grit will have dieappeared. Occasionally foreign bodies become embedded in the transparent part of the eye. These bodiee are always extremely small, but very distressing. Do not attempt to remove them, but let a doctor do it at once. The commonest cauee of these accidents iri looking out of train windows whilst the train ie in motion, the body being almost always a fragment of coal grit. Don't let children look out of open train windows.

THINGS WORTH KNOWING

Neuralgia can often be relieved by rubbing the affected area with a freshcut lemon. Vitamins in diet are important. Vitamins A and D are in fats—butter and cream; B in the germ of wheat, egg yolk, milk, liver, kidney and green vegetables; C in fresh fruit. To boil vegetables well, place them in faet-boiling water, bring quickly to the boiling point again, not allowing them to steep in the hot water before boiling, which toughens them and destroys both flavour and colour. Black dye will be a better colour if a small quantity of green dye, about the sixth part of a packet, is mixed with the black. In dyeing green articles 'black, the green dye must be omitted. A delicious flavour is given to prunes if a etick of cinnamon is stewed with them, and if you add a teaspoonful of powdered gelatine to the liquid, it makes it set and the result ie an unusual sweet. Hot puddings are sometimes difficult to turn out from the basin in which they were cooked. Should there be any difliculty, wrap a cloth that has been wrung out in cold water round them for a minute or two, and it will then be found that the puddings come out without any trouble. Irons, especially U they have been used for garments that have been starched, should be cleaned before they are put away. Wash them in hot soapy water, to which a teaspoonful of ammonia has been added. If no starch has been used, the usual rubbing on wire gauze is sufficient to clean the iron. When taking out oil or grease stains from material with petrol, always have a piece of clean blotting paper to cover the stain, then apply petrel. Do this out of doors. The stain will be found to soak into the blotting paper, thus preventing an ugly stain being left on the material.