PLACE CARDS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 11 (Supplement)

PLACE CARDS

CARICATURES IN TABLE DECORATION A pound bag of mixed nuts contains sufficient material for the making of many attractive, novel and out of the ordinary caricutures of men, animals and birds to be used as place cards when something different is desired by the hostess who gives a dinner party. The making of these statuettes is not difficult, as liquid glue and ordinary pipe cleaners are used to join the parts together. To prick a hole in the shells of the nuts, a nail driven in the head of a clothes pin, then sharpened to a needle point with a file, makes a splendid tool. Ostrich feathers plucked from an old plume, small tufts of cotton and water-colour paints are also needed. Start making the caricatures by selecting nuts suitable for the model. For example, two pecans or two English walnuts, or a pecan and an almond can be joined with pieces of pipe cleaneii to represent men. Holes must be drilled, or punched, in the shells of the nuts with the pointed tool described above. A hole is required for the neck joints, and holes for the arms and legs. Then pieces of pipe cleaner are inserted and bent to represent these parts of the body. Tufts of cotton are glued to the head nut to represent hair and whiskers. Hats can be made from half a nutshell, or from paper rings to give a finished appearance to these funny looking little follows. Watercolour paints tint the face and mark the eyes, the nose and the mouth. For caricatures of women, an extra

THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, who were recently married. The Duchess was formerly the Hon. Lavinia Strutt, daughter of Lord Helper, and she is seen above with the Duke outside Norfolk House. The Duke, who is 28, is identified with the Coronation arrangements in his capacity as hereditary Earl Marshal of England.

long pecan can be used for a skirt. If you are handy with a needle, tiny skirts of lightweight silk or crepe paper can be fashioned over the model’s pipe-cleaner legs. Birds require two nuts. Joined with pipe cleaners and finished with tufts of cotton or tiny bunches of ostrich feathers. All the models are glued to stand upright on a square of cardboard. As one or more of the caricatures may be more outstanding than the others, some of your guests may take a liking to one model in preference to the one you have selected for them; so the places at the table can be determined by typing humorous verses on cards and duplicated for matching on the cardboard stands for the favours. From the “Christian Science Monitor."

pound of ointment of spikenard very costly.” So powerful was this perfume that “the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.”

The Greeks thought perfume to be of divine origin, and the Persians were in love with roses. Then, to fly down the centuries, we find, in France, in 1582, women being publicly reproved for using all sorts of perfumes and precious aromatics to perfume their clothes and linen, and their bodies. Diana of Poitiers attributed the preservation of her beauty to their aid. and so was able to outshine all her rivals.

Near the close of the eighteenth century, the perfumed bath, termed by Voltaire “the luxury of luxuries,” was revived, and we read of Madame Tallien refreshing herself in a bath of crushed strawberries and raspberries after which she was gently rubbed with sponges soaked in perfumed milk. No wonder these were beauties!

And then, perfumed gloves were invented. They were brought to England from Italy by the Earl of Oxford, and that year (1550) Queen Elizabeth had a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed with four tuffes of roses of coloured silks in which she took keen pleasure. She was exceptionally fond of perfumes which, according to a Tudor writer, “were never richer, more elaborate, more costly, or more delicate that in Elizabeth’s reign.” She had a cloak of Spanish perfumed leather, and her shoes were scented with sweet essences. The still-room then formed a part bf every castle and country house, and in it aromatic waters were prepared from the recipe-book.