FANCY WORK AND HOUSE DECORATION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 35, 30 August 1890, Page 15

FANCY WORK AND HOUSE DECORATION.

THE GUEST HOOK. A VERY pretty and novel idea is the keeping of a guest book. And what is a guest book, do you ask ! Well, it is a blank book, a handsome one, too, of course—it should not be otherwise for such a purpose. You can make it yourself, too, which is all the more appropriate, and I will tell you how, and then what to do with it. Take two pieces of pasteboard for the covers. Ise vrmr own taste about the size of these, though those of a mediumsized book, are, perhaps the best. Cover these with satin, plush, or linen, decorated with painting or embroidery. Then get leaves of nice paper, and if you can design a title page and execute it, so much the better ; you can also decorate a leaf now and then with appropiate mottoes, etc., through the book, which will add greatly to its beauty. Tie ail together by eyelet holes through the whole. Now as to its purpose. Let it lie upon some table in the sitting room or library, with a fountain pen near it, which, by the way, should always be kept full, and when you have guests visiting you, invite them to write in it something that will recall to you the visit pleasantly in years to come, their impressions of a ride perhaps, a walk, or the exchange of ideas upon some interesting subject, their general im pressions of persons they have met —of course, in this unpleasant criticisms must be omitted all these things are in order. These books may be marie not only things of beauty, but joys forever.