INEXPENSIVE PRESENTS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 22 (Supplement)

INEXPENSIVE PRESENTS

• ♦ • Toys You Can Make for ' the Christmas Stockings You can make lota of jolly little presents for the stocking, costing next to nothing, with just a few evenings’ work, and using the bits and pieces that are to be found in every scrapbag. Rag-dolla, for Instance, are very easily made—a circle of flesh-coloured stocking about six inches across forms the head of each doll. Run a gathering thread round the edge, pull up to form a bag, and stuff tightly with cutup rags. Work features on the front of the ball made in this way, using suitable coloured wools—the eyes can be suggested with shiny black buttons, firmly sewn in place. The doll's body is made from a piece .of material five inches long and six

Inches wide. Sew the two shorter sides together, gather up the top end to make a bag, and stuff firmly, making a, tight, sausage-like shape. Sew the head to the body, and then make four smaller sausage shapes for the arms and legs. Brown or black wool will suggest Dolly’s hair, and the join between head and neck can be concealed behind a string of coloured beads. A gay cotton dress and panties to match, a perky little bonnet tied under her chin with bright ribbons, and Rag Doll is all ready. By way of variety, you might make a Golliwog-Girl, in much the same way, but using a black woollen

Stocking for the foundation, and loops of black wool sewn all over the head to suggest that piccaninny’s curls. Turkish towelling can be used to make very fascinating animal rag toys. A six-inch circle of this material stuffed, joined to a firm stuffed bag about six inches long, and ten Inches in circumference, will suggest the head and body of a plump puppy dogfour small sausages, each one two inches long and four inches round, should be sewn on four legs, and ears and tail must be added in the appropriate positions. Boot-buttons for eyes again, and a red, wool-embroidered mouth, with a black Wool nose, and the puppy is finished. Bead Dolls. Wooden beads of different sizes and shapes can be strung together to make all kinds of quaint little animal and

figure mascots. Match-boxes may be glued together in sets of six, to form dear little dolls’ chests of drawers. Gas-mantle boxes, if enamelled some gay colour, and with a slit cut in the lid, make jolly money boxes. Odds and ends of multi-coloured wools will fashion soft balls for two-year-olds. Sets of dolls’ clothes made from oddments of pretty materials are always acceptable. Napkin rings may be made from strips of cardboard, two inches wide and five inches long, joined into a ring, and bound round with raffia; raffla in a contrasting shade can be threaded in and out to add a trimming. Then sheets of brown paper, folded and joined into a book, can be given a cover of gay wallpaper; and when all the sheets are tied together at the folds with a red ribbon, a scrap-book, or album for cigarette cards will be ready. A Trinket Box. Materials.—An empty tin box, seven button moulds, a little dark sealing 1 wax, seccotine, small tins of enamel in j

the following colours: Light blue, pink, green, and yellow. Enamel the outside of the tin blue, and enamel the moulds pink. Several coats of enamel may be necessary on the wood to get a good surface. Leave this to dry. Drop hot sealing-wax in the holes In the moulds.

Glue a mould in the centre of the lid, and arrange the others round it With green enamel paint little leaves round each mould. When this is dry make little mid-ribs in yellow. With the yellow make little flower centres in the spaces between the button moulds and also at equal distances round the side of the lid. ’ Round each centre put eight or more little brush strokes with pink enamel to represent narrow petals. Enamel the inside of the box pink, giving it extra coats if necessary.