A BAZAAR NOVELTY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 14, 22 August 1911, Page 3

A BAZAAR NOVELTY.

; GUTTA-PERCHA HATPINS. These are quite a novelty, and sell well at bazaars. They are made* to imitate a flower or any fancy form, and are then gilded or enamelled in natural shades according to taste. Gutta-percha is brought in sheets. An eighth of an inch is a convenient thickness. If not in. stock, any chemist or stores will procure it. Four ounces makes many pins. To manipulate the gutta-percha you require two basins, one with cold, the •other with boiling water. Cut off a piece of gutta-percha and drop it into the hot water. It will soon become soft and pliable. It becomes stringy and cannot be modelled if the water is insufficiently hot. Wet your fingers and raise it with a stick and pinch off a piece. Roll it between your finger and thumb and practice shaping it as though you were modelling clay. When shaped drop the form into cold water, and in a very short time it sets quite hard. Keep the hands wet. If you touch the. plastic gutta-percha with dry fingers it sticks and to model it would be an impossibility. Making a Rose. Suppose you desire to make a rose hatpin. Squeeze out a piece of guttapercha flat and thin and lay it over the glass head of the pin, modelling it on. Put it in cold water to set while you work at the petals, for the rose must gradually be built up. Each petal is made separately, merely a soft little ball rolled up and then squeezed out to imitate the natural blossom, and cast into a cold bath. Leave the base of the petal thick, as it is required for sticking on to the pin. Now roll and draw out a thin thread, pinch off little scraps, and put them to set. These are stamens and are for the centre of the rose. When the petals are quite hard take them out and dry them with a cloth. Hold a steel pen in a- candle flame till red-hot, then very lightly trace veins on the petals. It acts like a pencil if done quickly, allowing no time to burn through. Now mount the petals by thrusting the base of each into the flame, when it will be found quite easy to make them adhere to anything. They are stuck round the gutta-percha-covered glass head, and the stamens are added in like manner by a touch of flame. As each petal is affixed the pin must be floated in cold water, or the petal may fall limply away unless given the opportunity to harden. If the flower it to be painted in a delicate shade give a first coat of white, as the gutta-percha is very dark and the light ground is easier for shading in rose or light tints. Artist's oil paints are used or enamel. Rough knobs modelled on to the pin head are very effective painted in silver or gold.