Things You Can Make of Orange-Skins
A TOY JAPANESE STOOL
The soft, golden orange-skin, lined with silvery white, is fine material for moulding and making into different kinds of things to play with. Bring your orange and we will begin by making a toy stool for your doll-house ([Fig. 208]). It will look very much like the real stools which the Japanese make for real people to sit on, though nothing is used for it but the orange-skin.
Fig.206 - "Can't remember what I was going to say."
First cut the orange across from side to side, making two halves, and after you have taken out the pieces of juicy fruit and enjoyed eating them, examine the two pretty yellow orange-skin bowls that are left. See how soft and pliable they are. Now take one of the bowls and pinch the edges of two opposite sides toward each other; hold them steady while, with your other hand, you pinch the other two sides toward each other. Hold all four sides bent inward for a moment, then let go of them and the sides will stay bent while you wind string across, first one way then the other, between the curved stool legs you have just made by bending the sides of the bowl inward.
Fig.207 - "What a joke."
Set the stool away to dry and stiffen into shape; then, when it has become hard, take off the string and you will have a little Japanese stool quite as strong as if made of wood.
Fig.208 - Japanese stool made of half an Orange peel.
A CANDY-BOX
A candy-box can be made in the same way of the other half of the orange-skin, but you must curve the sides in only a little for this; not nearly as much as for the stool. Stand the candy-box, with open part up, ready to be filled with candy.
A BASKET
An orange-skin basket is a substantial little affair when finished, and will hold almost anything you want to put in it. It looks like [Fig. 209]. For this you will again need half of an orange-skin. Bend in two opposite sides after first cutting a short slit in each side near the edge. Make the handle of strong paper, cutting it like [Fig. 210], with a tongue at each end. Bend over the two side points of each tongue, and slide one tongue through the slit in one side of the basket, the other tongue through the slit in the other side, then open out the points again and they will make secure fastenings for the handle. You will see from the illustration that the tongues are put through the basket from the inside and show on the outside.
Before setting away to dry, tie a string around the bent-in sides of the basket, and stuff the open part with crushed paper to keep it in shape.
Fig.209 - Half of Orange skin used for a basket.
Fig.210 - Make the handle of paper.
ORANGE-SKIN BOWLS
When you have another orange save the two halves of the skin, pack each full of crumpled, clean, blank paper, flatten the bottom of the bowls so that they will stand firmly, then set them away to dry.
If you do all this carefully the bowls will harden in good shape and you can use them to eat and to drink from.
Fig.211 - A little summer house made of half of an Orange skin.