WOMEN’S WORLD

Northern Advocate, 22 May 1929, Page 8

WOMEN’S WORLD

DECORATIONS FOR LAMP SHADES

Cheap parchment paper lamp shades make splendid foundations for "cut out” decorations. The paper is cut away here, and there to form a definite pattern; coloured transparent paper is then pasted behind the open spaces, and the light shines through with delightful effect. Use a safety razor blade for cutting the parchment paper. A "balloon” design will be the easiest for an initial venture. Lay pennies or ha’pennies on the shade, in the required positions, pencil round them and Amry carefully cut out each circle. Now lay .the pennies on scrap? of transparent paper in varying colours —red, green, yellow, blue, and orange, make an effective combination —pencil round and cut the circles, making each one a quarter of an inch larger. Paste a "balloon” behind each cut-out space on the shade, and press down from the back. When all the balloons are in position, outline each one with a fine brush dipped in Indian ink, and add "strings” to the edge of the shade. Having made a success of this idea, you will be ready for something rather more ambitious, and a lamp-shade with •a quaint Chinese decoration offers plenty of scope. Draw a little coolie on one side of the shade —you can trace a figure from a picture book, or use an embroidery transfer —and sketch in a. wee Chinese house and a tree at the back. Draw several lanterns of different shapes and sizes, and cut these out ; too. Also cut out the window in the house, and make lots of little triangles all over the top of the shade to represent stars! Give the whole shade a wash of fairly deep blue paint, and, when this is dry, back the lanterns and window with yellow transparent paper. The "stars” need not be backed with paper—they are so small, that they will look quite satisfactory left as they are, with the' light shining through. WHERE SPACE IS LIMITED. It is often extremely difficult to arrange adequate storing facilities in a small room. There is not space for very much furniture and big ’cupboards are out of the question; yet books, baskets, newspapers and all the various necessities of family life "clutter up” the place sadly if loft lying about, and the housewife wonders despairingly how sire can dispose of them handily and tidily.

Here is a splendid solution of the problem.

Get the local carpenter to build a set of locker-cupboards all round the room. They should be about three feet high and two feet broad, with doors at three-foot intervals. You can make long cushions, covered in material to match the curtains, to tit along the tops, and they will give you extra seating accommodation ns "well. With one or tw’o plump pillows of coldurful linen and cretonne here and there, the long seats will lend an unuoually attractive air of cosiness to the whole room.

Have shelves fixed inside the lockers, and you will find plenty of space for storing all the family impedimenta. Once you have your room fitted in this way, you will wonder how on earth yon ever get along without the cupboards. The bedroom also might be furnished with similar lockers, j They take up very little room, and will be found invaluable.

If the hall is wide enough, a set of cupboards '.might well be fitted along one wall; and they will hold rugs, golfsticks, dog-leads, clothes-brushes, and all the various things that are generally huddled up on the hall table. —R.M,