When you have a leisure day or evening, place your frame of wood before you, and the boxes of seeds around it. When your glue is hot, spread a little over a small space with a brush, and arrange your seeds in the form of some flower or other figure.
It is difficult to give explicit rules for the work. It is best for each person to exercise his or her taste and ingenuity in arranging the designs. As the work proceeds, an endless variety of shapes and styles of designs will suggest themselves.
An accurate resemblance to nature is not easily attainable in this kind of work.
When all the ornamental work is arranged, the small spaces left uncovered should be brushed over with a thin coat of varnish, and sprinkled with any small seeds. Black seeds are very desirable, as they form a good ground-work, and afford a proper relief to the designs. When the glue has become hard, apply to the whole work an even coat of copal varnish. If this is not sufficient, apply another coat; it is needed, as some seeds absorb more than others.
20.—HOW TO IMPRESS LEAVES ON VELVET.
This work is very easy and very pretty, requiring only great nicety and care, and some taste. Take a piece of white cotton velvet (such as undertakers use as a lining to burial caskets), white jean, or white linen, or fine, thin muslin; cut it out in the form of a tidy, mat, or whatever you wish to make. Then pin upon it carefully, with very minute pins, Ferns, Maiden’s Hair, or any graceful leaf, in the form of a wreath or bouquet.
Mix plenty of India ink the depth of color you require; take a fine comb and brush; dip the brush in the ink and pass it over the comb, thus splashing the ink all over your material until it is quite black. Let it dry thoroughly, and then unpin your flower; you will find its form left in white on the velvet or linen. Mark, with a fine brush, the veins and stems in it, and your work will be ready to make up as required.
All delicate leaves should be carefully pressed till dry before using them for this work.