The Making of Beeswax Candles

What a variety of candles can be found today! The types of waxes have extended beyond the tallow and beeswax of our early ancestors to include paraffin, soy, and gel. There is even another type of wax which was discovered by the American colonists and still in use today. It is called Bayberry wax, which is derived from bayberries, naturally! Many people are interested...Continue Reading

How to Paper a Room.

SEVERAL lengths of paper should be laid one on another upon the floor or bench, allowing the fair edges to project over, so that the paste may not touch the figured surface. The back should then be smartly brushed over with paste, covering every part, taking especial care not to soak the paper. The more quickly and dexterously this operation can be performed, the better...Continue Reading

CUT FLOWERS.

The first thing to be considered in arranging cut flowers is the vase. If it is scarlet, blue, or many-colored, it must necessarily conflict with some hue in your bouquet. Choose rather pure white, green, or transparent glass, which allows the delicate stems to be seen. Brown Swiss wood, silver, bronze, or yellow straw conflict with nothing. The vase must be subordinate to what it...Continue Reading

Floors

Taken from Scribner's Monthly September 1871 WHEN Mr. Ruskin chronicled the "Ethics of Dust," he should have devoted a large portion of his space to the modern floor. The popular theory of a floor, reduced to practice, amounts to this: it is the principal dust-trap of the room. Being of soft and porous wood, its cracks open easily for the admission of dust, from furnace,...Continue Reading