®lie J^Sies Stored fiudiinei urn) JHclornoI K 
OBie Komjnwiion. 
AUTUMN LEAF WORK. 
In the Autumn kind Nature gently weaves, 
For the dear old year, a crown, 
Of the beautiful ripened leaves, 
Bright red, and yellow, and brown. 
Of late years it has become a favorite amusement to 
gather quantities of the most beautiful autumn leaves, 
and after carefully pressing them (and varnishing, if 
you like a glossy surface) to arrange them into 
wreaths, crosses, bouquets, mottoes, and 
various devices, which often produce 
effects as beautiful as a picture from the 
brush of a skillful painter. 
When tastefully arranged in a bouquet, 
on buff or white card-board, they make 
beautifuL pictures; and when with the 
leaves a few delicate green and frost- 
touched ferns are mixed, they are fair 
and graceful enough to deck the most 
gorgeous parlor. 
When leaves are thoroughly dried they can be at¬ 
tached to a piece of coarse flexible wire, by the help 
of fine brown cotton-covered wire; and, by inter¬ 
mingling the varied and contrasting colors of the 
different maples, the oak, beech, &c., with a few 
green fern fronds, handsome garlands can thus be 
formed with which to encircle picture frames and 
mirrors, or to hang in windows. Then, too, some of 
the prettiest lambrequins one could wish may be 
made of autumn leaves fastened in graceful figures on 
to lace, each curtain adorned with but oue kind of 
leaves, with fronds of fern—breathing sweet remem¬ 
brances of the cool, green, old woods—interspersed 
among them. 
Mottoes, for framing, make beautiful gifts from 
friend to friend, and are very easily made. As you 
take your autumn walks, eagerly search for the 
gayest leaves and ferns with which to fill your vases, 
and decorate your windows or pictures. Please not 
forget to take your eyes from the trees now and then, 
and look carefully on the ground at your feet, or on 
the small bushes and tiny running vines, for there 
you will find material for your mottoes. Gather the 
small 'St leaves you can see; the dark, maroon wild 
rose, bright red huckleberry, the delicate notched 
miller grape-vine, white and fuzzy as a miller’s coat; 
the clover, toad-sorrel, cinquefoil, and, in fact, any 
very small ones which your eyes may be so fortunate 
as to rest upon. Press these carefully. Draw, with 
a pencil, the outline of your letters on card-board, 
then carefully stick on the leaves (with common flour 
paste), and you will have mottoes which, when 
framed under glass, are far prettier than many of the 
chromos now so common and so much admired. The 
word “Welcome!” made in this manner is very 
pretty to hang in a hall, or in a room facing it. 
Bookmarks with motto on one side, and initials on 
the other, make pretty birthday gifts. 
A very tasteful ornament for a bracket consists of a 
cross made of wood, covered with a coating of mucil¬ 
age, and marble dust sprinkled carefully over it. 
Fasten the base of it ou to a very thin block of wood 
or thick card-board, which block cover with green 
moss. Form a wreath of small leaves, by means of i 
fine wire, and twine up the cross. If marble dust J 
cannot be obtained, coarse sand may be used, or the j 
cross may he covered with gray mosses. 
Lovers of the beautiful will find much pleasure in 
using some of their bright leaves for decorating 
articles in “ Japanese Work,” (or “ Anglo-Japanese 
Work,” as it is too often called.) The materials re¬ 
quired are some fine black paint, a piece of nice sand¬ 
paper, bottle of shellac varnish, a little isinglass, and 
ferns and leaves. Any article may be ornamented by 
this “ elegant and easy domestic art; ” an old work- 
box, writing-desk, tea-caddy, fire-screen, flower-pots, 
small tables, wall-pockets, bracelets, &e. Select 
perfect leaves, carefully pressed and dry ; rub the sur¬ 
face of whatever you wish to ornament smooth with 
sand-paper, cover the surface with black paint; leave 
this to dry thoroughly; smooth with the sand-paper, , 
Motto jn Autumn Leaves. 
if rough at all; add two other coats of paint, then 
gum your leaves on, after the paint has thoroughly 
dried. Dissolve a little of the isinglass in hot water, 
and, with a brush, apply a coat of it while warm. 
When this is dry, give the work three coats of copal 
cigar-boxes, and ornamented with bouquets or gar¬ 
lands of leaves. Letter-cases and card-racks are also 
very elegant done in the same way. Beautiful boxes 
may be made by taking nice smooth strawberry or 
oval fig boxes, painting them, arranging a bouquet or 
wreath on the cover, and a garland around the box. 
An old table which has been thrown aside for its de¬ 
facement, can be made into “ a thing of beauty,” of 
which the most fastidious may be proud. If it is a 
round or oval table, fashion a wreath of leaves and 
ferns; but it square, make a wreath or bouquet in 
the centre, and pretty figures in the 
corners. Flower pots look very nicely 
with a small garland around them, or a 
single leaf or small cluster on the sides. 
In fact, many are the beautiful articles 
of use and adornment which can be 
made by the aid of this pleasing art. 
The paint can be obtained already 
mixed at a paint shop, and either copal 
or shellac varnish may be used. 
Another very elegant use to make of 
autumn lenves is, to form them into transparencies for 
hanging in the window. Place your brightest leaves 
with some delicate grasses and ferns, between two 
panes of glass ; bind the edges first with some old, 
but strong, cambric; then bind over this with ribbon, 
leaving a loop at the top with which to hang it up by, 
or sew a ring on securely through the cambric and 
ribbon before the paste gets quite dried. 
Very handsome crosses, Wreaths and anchors are 
often made for hanging in windows, by sewing leaves 
on paper or stiff net lace. 
An arch made of twigs or stiff wires, on to which 
leaves, ferns and a few pine cones are secured, and 
fastened over the mantel, with a small wreath, or 
basket covered with moss and filled with grasses, 
suspended from the centre, well repays for the labor 
of making it. 
One more method of using leaves I will give you, 
and must then say good-bye to this subject, though the 
half of the beautiful ornaments they suggest are yet 
unmentioned. Procure a piece of tin, seven by nine, 
or eight by ten inches square, get an oval aperture 
cut out of the centre. Next cover the tin with two 
coats of “black Japan,” then arrange little corner 
pieces of bright leaves, allowing a delicate branch of 
them to go down the sides and across the ends. Now 
varnish with two coats, and you have an odd but 
tasteful frame for some light picture, which I am sure 
you will like. Mary I. Herron. 
Toilet Table. 
varnish, allowing ample time for each coat to dry. To 
make the work look “ very Chinese,” or Japanese, 
the leaves are put on in every possible way (with no 
regular design), but it is much more tasteful and 
pleasing if the leaves and ferns are arranged in 
bouquets, clusters, wreaths, or garlands. Exquisite 
brackets and wall-pockets may be fashioned from 
A BEAUTIFUL TOILET TABLE. 
This beautiful toilet table may be adapted to the size of the room 
and can be draped to suit the furniture. 
An ordinary dry goods packing box will answer for the lower part; 
to this is screwed two upright strips of wood, four inches wide, six 
feet long, and one inch thick, placed one-fourth distant from each 
side of the back; small strips of lath are nailed from each end of the 
back, diagonally, across to these strips, and two end pieces and a 
back of the inch plank nailed on the box ; then a hoop is securely 
-’crewed to the top of the two uprights, projecting over towards the 
front; pieces of wood are nailed on the under four corners and 
castors inserted in them. This forms the frame-work, which is 
covered with scarlet or other colored velveteen, as also the plain mir¬ 
ror hung between the upright standards Two short posts, one foot 
in length, are nailed to the front corners and also velvet covered. 
The entire box is next covered with suitable crimson glazed muslin, 
over which is stretched, in gathered folds, dotted lace or Swiss mus¬ 
lin, edged with lace and a full puff of the thin material. Drapery of 
the same, with a lined and full-gathered lambrequin, cut with long 
points finish the latter at the top. Around the table is gracefully 
louped a long strip of Swiss muslin, held by ribbon bands, the same 
ornamenting the top. The inside of the box forms a handy receptacle. 
The ottoman to match may be made of a section of a barrel lathed 
over and surmounted by an embroidered cushion, draped with Swiss 
and lining like the table and similarly puffed around the edge. 
The table and stool are exceedingly elegant, and in a small room 
will be found to be not only attractive but very convenient. ^ 
