Smilax.
The tools required to make these print-pictures are simple, and consist of a piece of glass, a palette-knife or table-knife and some printers’ ink which comes in small tin boxes and can be procured at any stationery store, and a pad made of a ball of cotton tied in a piece of soft silk or satin.
Evergreen Moss.
The printers’ pad used by the writer for spreading the ink, was manufactured of the satin lining taken from a gentleman’s old hat, and answered the purpose admirably, being a good size, measuring nearly four inches in diameter. The album itself may be a common blank-book, with every other leaf cut out, in order to make room for the prints, which are on pieces of blank unruled paper of uniform size, and small enough to fit in the album and leave a margin all around the piece inserted, so that the book when opened may be neat and attractive. Having all your tools at hand, select the leaves you wish to print. These must be free from dust or dew and perfectly fresh.
Skeleton Geranium Leaves.
First, with your knife, place a small quantity of printers’ ink on the piece of glass and smooth it as evenly as possible over the surface. Then press the printers’ pad down lightly, lifting, and again pressing, until the ink is evenly distributed on the pad; next, select a leaf and place it face, or right side, downward on a piece of folded newspaper; press the inked pad down on the under side of the leaf, which is now, of course, lying upward, repeating the operation until the leaf is sufficiently covered with ink. Carefully place the leaf, inked side down, on the centre of the piece of paper you have previously cut for the album; over this lay a piece of common yellow wrapping-paper, or any paper that is not too thick or stiff, and rub the finger gently all over the covered leaf. Remove the outside paper and very carefully take up the leaf. You will find an exact impress of the natural green leaf showing every one of the delicate fibres.
The picture is now ready to be pasted in the album, with a thin, delicate paste, touching only the corners. It is a good plan to write under each leaf the name of the plant or tree from which it was taken, with the date, and such facts as you would like to recall. Very valuable botanical collections can thus be made. Flowers are more difficult to print than leaves, owing to less “relief” in the films; still they make charming pictures when successfully treated, sometimes having the appearance of photographs of flowers with all the lights and shadows.