[ART IN THE HOUSE.]
PART II.
How to Decorate Furniture with Stencilling.
The idea of decorating your own furniture seems to be an extraordinary thing to many readers, and yet I hope to show you that this much to be desired consummation is quite within your reach. In the former article I gave as an illustration a portion of a chiffonier I decorated with stencilling, as can be seen by referring to it, which, by the way, is reproduced from a full-size design which was actually stencilled with the same stencils as I used on the chiffonier. Stencilling is a very simple business indeed if you will take ordinary care. Indeed the mere getting of an impression is a mechanical matter, as can be seen by the way packers mark boxes with stencils of letters. The art is seen in the way you colour the patterns and the use you make of your stencils, for with some four or five stencil plates, as I shall hope to show later, many combinations are possible; you can evolve new patterns as it were by taking a portion of one and combining it with a portion of another.
Fig. 1. Stencilled border of butterflies and sprigs with background, suggested by a spider's web. For details see Figs. 1B and 1C.
Fig. 1A. The right-hand half is white on black ground, the reverse of the left-hand half. For details see Figs. 1B and 1C.
