ALLSPICE BASKETS.
The allspice berries should be soaked in spirit to soften them, and then holes should be made through them. They are strung on slender wires, which are twisted or woven into diamonds or squares, or rows as you fancy, and then formed into baskets. A gold band between every two berries gives a lively look to the basket. Around the top are sometimes twisted semi-circles of berries, from which are suspended festoons of berries strung on silk, drooping over the outside.
The baskets may be lined with bright colored silk and ornamented with ribbons. Baskets can be made of cloves in the same way, by taking off the berry and soaking the long part in spirit. Bead baskets are also made in the same way; the wire should be the color of the bead. Cut glass beads are the most desirable, as they glitter prettily amidst the green boughs of the Christmas tree.
RICE OR SHELL BASKETS.
The frame is made of pasteboard neatly lined; the groundwork can be white or colored, as you fancy; fasten on with gum either grains of rice, bugles of different colors, or small rice shells, arranged in any form you please.
WAFER BASKETS.
Make a neat card-board frame and bind the edges with gilt paper. Take the smallest wafers you can get; keep a whole one for the ground work; cut another in halves; wet the edges of one of the halves and stick it upright through the middle of the whole one; cut the other half into two quarters, wet the two straight sides, and place them on each side of the half wafer; this forms a kind of rosette. When you have enough prepared, wet the bottoms of the whole wafers, and fasten them on the basket in such forms as you please. It is very pretty to have the whole wafer one color and the rosette another. Stars can be made by placing six quarter wafers around the half in place of two. The handle can be decorated in the same manner, or with ribbons. Care must be taken to have the wafers cut even and uniform.