Quaint Fancies in Glass

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 25

Quaint Fancies in Glass

New Ideas in Dinner Fable Decoration

Nli\ l'-K has tlie desire for i pressed as it is today in th are the days when the etiquel be strictly enforced, and snc were the accepted thing for ai Today fruit and glass, lights and flowers, are all tinged with the colours of the moment. One’s dinner table becomes an individual affair, which expresses one’s personality in no uncertain manner. The new freedom has its drawbacks, for it is far easier to make a mistake with artificial flowers than it is with real ones, and it is not difficult, for the coloured crystal tree, which looked so promising in the shop, to look insignificant and even cheap as a centrepiece for one’s dinner table. But given good taste, the right eye for effect, and a knowledge of what is the vogue at the moment, it is not difficult to achieve something outstanding in table decoration. IN STRANGE GUISE Never was glass so popular, and it appears in strange and intriguing guise. Quaint exotic birds and animals have found a home on our dinner table, and lend a curious touch of unreality. Dark-blue glass is a favourite at present, although very smart effects can be obtained with the aid of black and crystal. Sets of figures are obtainable, intriguing trifles which serve as menuholders, or place-card holders, with a sports motif. There is the Rugby player, a lissome crystal figure, guiltless of any semblance of clothing, holding aloft the oval ball. There is another which bends to the attack with a slender tennis racket of black glass. Yet another wields with glassy determination the fragile semblance of a hockey stick, and there is the boxer with small blobs upon his puny wrists, representing the gloves. Golf, too, is represented among these quaint devotees of sport, and there is the poised figure of the swimmer, and the diver. Unusual as they are, these will not altogether oust the more prosaic but lovely little figures of cloudy opal and blue glass, fantasies of the blowers’ art, which scorn minute reproduction in the cei’tainty of their impressionism.

There is, of course, no end to the loveliness that is expressed in the form of crystal trees and flowers and curious and lovely things are used to enhance their charm —silken strands in many colours, and threads of gold and silver, mother-of-pearl and ivory, carved semi-precious stones. The Chinese specialise in the carving of lovely costly blossoms, their petals the shaded colouring of the semi-precious stones from which they are fashioned; the little plant pots from which they rear their glittering fronds are carved, too, from rare coloured substances, sometimes as lovely as the flowers. CREATURES OF THE SEA j

There is a craze just now for the quaint creatures of the sea for table decorations. In any shop which sells these out-of-the-way things, you will find the small sea creatures reproduced in glass.

There are little red crabs with ferocious claws, and scarlet glass lobsters that were surely meant to peer j up at one from a crystal fiuger-bowl with their big goggle eyes, and pink shrimps—of the most delicious shade [

uiovation been so clearly ex- * world of entertaining. Gone te of the dinner table used to wy damask and real flowers y formal occasion. —tempting one to try their fragile brittleness with one’s teeth. Their legs are bunched beneath them, their pink backs arched—adorable things. If one has a fancy for the more fantastic creatures of the sea, there are liquid-looking starfish, their points of translucent glass, speckled with black, or what of ail octopus with writhing tentacles of milky opal, and bulbous head? And there are green glass eels, that, perk themselves up and try to resemble a blade of grass wavering in the current. FOR COOL LUNCHEONS Green frogs there, very tiny, with hits of toes, that belong entirely to the picture of a cool luncheon table, where green luscious salads tempt a jaded summer appetite, and where, in place of the usual floating bowl with flowers, a squat plain glass bowl is spanned by a flat brown bridge, on which are posed a trio of patient

Yes, now you can get chops cut evenly, any thickness, and absolutely free of splinters of bone. A.M.C., always out to serve you better, has installed “Jim Vaughan”—electric meat cutters —in Karangahape ! Road, Queen Street and Symonds Street I branches. “Jim” cuts through meat and bone with marvellous speed and accuracy. He prefers to cut A.M.C. quality meats because he likes to see his customers smile with satisfaction. Call and see him! —4.

I china fishermen, angling for the j goldfish of brown glass that float upon ! the water, or recline at the bottom i of the bowl, among “stones” that are uniform in size and colouring, being round glass pebbles, j But if you are of the kind that hates the suggestion of the sea at a meal, ! then there are terra-firma topics that lend themselves with equanimity. Beneath the crystal trees, whole families of bears may disport themselves, each one in different attitude, or if your centre arrangement is a masterpiece of tender young bamboo shoots, set in a vase of carved browny-yellow bamboo, then choose a small herd of miniature glass elephants to pose beneath it. If your tastes are more ordinary, and yet you like to feel you are in the fashion, there are sprightly Sealyliam dogs, or elongated dascbunds, looking a bit uncomfortable in green glass, or homely comical ducks. An attractive scheme could be arranged with a shoal of little red goldfish, which raise themselves up on their fins to scan the company for a familiar face, or poise themselves perilously, tails in the air. TURNING IT OUT To turn out a hot pudding successfully, put it upside down on the dish and cover with a cloth wrung out in cold water. In a minute or two the pudding will slip out easily. For a cold pudding, wring the cloth out in hot water.