IMPRESSIONS OF BUTTERFLIES.
If you find a dead butterfly, cut off the wings and place them upon clean paper, in the position they occupy when the insect is flying. Spread some clean, thick gum water on another piece of paper and press it on the wings; the little colored, feathery substance will adhere to it; then lay a piece of white paper upon the top of the gummed paper, and rub it gently with your finger, or the smooth handle of a knife. A perfect impression of the wings will thus be taken. The body must be drawn and painted in the space between the wings.
TO TAKE IMPRESSIONS OF LEAVES.
Dip a piece of white paper in sweet oil, and hold it over the lamp until it is thoroughly blackened with smoke; place a green leaf upon the black surface, and let it remain pressed upon it for a few moments; then put it between two pieces of white paper and press it in a book, with something heavy upon the top of it. When taken out, one of the papers will have received a perfect impression of the leaf with all its little veins. Some think the impression is more distinct if a little lamp-black and oil be passed lightly over the leaf with a hair pencil, instead of smoking it over a lamp.
PAPER LANDSCAPES.
Observe well the shadows of the pictures you wish to copy; draw their shapes as exactly as you can, and cut them out. Paste these pieces on a sheet of paper, in the same relative positions they occupy in the landscape; if the shade be rather light, put on only one thickness of paper; if darker, two thicknesses and three thicknesses may be used; if the shadow is very deep and heavy, five or six pieces may be pasted on, one above another. When held up to the light, shades are produced differing in degree according to the thickness of the paper. These make very pretty transparencies for lamps in Summer. Lamp shades can be made in this way with colored paper placed between two thin white papers and so arranged that the shadows will represent grapes, or any fruit or flower. China lamp shades are prepared in the same way, that is, portions of the china are made thicker than others; in the daylight they appear perfectly white, but when the light shines through them the shades look like a soft landscape in India ink. It is on the same principle that the beautiful Parian transparencies are made for windows.
