of profit. Find out what fruits and vegetables sell best in your neighborhood, and plant accordingly. And remember that the key to your success in garden produce is the single word fresh.
Section 12. School Supplies
There are a number of articles in use in our schools which can be made at home. Once let it be known that you can make and sell as good a quality as the imported article, and at a cheaper price, and you will have the patronage of all the schools in your vicinity. Advertise wisely, and in cases where the trustees furnish the things, make a low bid for the entire school supply.
112. Book Covers. – Save all your paper bags, iron them out smoothly, and make them into book covers. Sell them at three cents apiece, or take the contract to cover all the books in the school at two cents apiece.
113. Artificial Slates. – Take forty-one parts of sand, four parts of lampblack, four parts of boiled linseed or cottonseed oil. Boil thoroughly, and reduce the mixture by adding spirits of turpentine so that it may be easily applied to a thin piece of pasteboard. Give three coats, drying between each coat. Finish by rubbing smooth with a piece of cotton waste soaked in spirits of turpentine. You have an excellent slate or memorandum book, which may be sold for ten cents. Use a slate pencil. Made in large quantities, these are very profitable.
114. Cheap Ink. – Boil one and a half pounds of logwood with sufficient residue water to leave a residue of two and a half quarts. When cold, add one and a half drams of yellow bichromate of potash, and stir thoroughly, and the ink is ready for use. The above will fill twenty-five large ink bottles, which, at five cents apiece, come to $1.25. Cost, 25 to 35 cents.
115. School Bag. – Take a piece of cheap white linen and make it into a pretty bag, with a strap to go over the shoulder. Have a colored stamp to put on the initials of the purchaser. Sell for twenty-five cents.
116. Pen Wiper. – Take any cheap material, and cut in three circles of different sizes. Scallop the edges, and stitch together at the center. If the circles are of different color as well as size, it will be attractive to the children, and still more so if the smallest circle has an initial letter. Sell for five cents.
117. Children’s Luncheon. – Thousands of parents would rather pay a trifling sum than be put to the trouble of providing and preparing lunch. Make a little repast cheap and neat. One large or two small sandwiches, a small dish of jelly or a tart, a pickle or a piece of cake. Put in a collapsible paper box, and tie with red or blue ribbon. Cost about six or seven cents. Sell for ten cents.
Section 13. Christmas Presents
You can do well with these if you are supple with your fingers and nimble with your tongue. Learn what artistic designs are becoming popular, and keep abreast of the latest fads. The fabric called denim is coming more into use every year, and as it is very cheap, and comes in all colors, it is especially suited for making, covering, and adorning all kinds of household handiwork. A ramble through the large metropolitan stores with a request to see the various lines of goods used for trimming and ornamenting will astonish you. The endless varieties of silks, satins, velvets, plushes, linens, laces, feathers, and so forth, should suggest to a lively mind infinite possibilities in the way of made-up articles of market value. Our list below must be taken only as samples of what a fertile mind and ingenious fingers can accomplish.
118. Sofa Pillow. – Take a piece of India silk of different colors, and let them all taper to a common center upon which a monogram is worked. Relieve the bareness of the white by a running vine and morning glories. A pillow of this kind which cost $3 sold for $8. The varieties of the sofa pillow are almost endless. Get a book of designs and learn to make the Organdy, Butterfly, Duck, Clover, Daisy, Cretonne, Yacht, Mull, Poppy, and many others.
119. Jewel Tray. – Cut a circle of delicate écru linen twenty-two inches in circumference, and sew a piece of bonnet wire around it, notching or looping it so as to give an escaloped edge. Have a pretty little motto in the center, and fill the remaining space with snowdrops worked in ivory white, each tiny petal tipped with pale green, and with a long green stem. When properly worked, this is very pretty, and ought to command a good price.
120. American Flag. – Make it five feet in length by three in width, and smaller flags in the same proportion. There should be seven stripes of red bunting, six of white, and a field of blue. On this field stitch forty-five stars of white. Face the inside of the flag with a piece of strong canvas for the admission of the pole. If the stars are of silk, the price should be at least twice that of linen.
121. Hair-Pin Case. – Cut a piece of fine white duck in the shape of a square envelope and embroider upon the flap any simple design in wash silk. Close with button and buttonhole. Sell for fifty cents.
122. Chair Cushion. – Take blue denim with dark and light shades happily combined. Let the tint of pale blue be appliqued on, and then worked in different shades of this color with rope floss in long and short stitch. The back may be of plain denim unadorned.
123. Lamp Shade. – You can get a dozen skeleton frames for a few cents, and French crêpe paper which costs little, and your own cultivated taste and deft fingers will do the rest. A cheap kaleidoscope will suggest an infinite number of designs. One lady made an elegant shade at a cost of $2.50, and sold it for $6.00.
124. Book-Mark. – Silk, worsted, and two hours of spare time will give you a pretty book-mark which should sell for fifty cents, at a cost of making (time not reckoned) of only fifteen cents.
125. Handy Work-Box. – Take a pasteboard box and line with denim. Include a tiny pin-cushion, scissors-case, thimble-holder, needle-book, flap, and spool wires.
126. Pin-Cushion. – Always popular, but the form changes every season. Cover with silk or satin, and overlay with strips of fine linen embroidered in festoons of tiny blossoms. Border with ruffle of lace, and put small rosettes of baby ribbon at the corners.
127. Catch-Bag. – A convenient receptacle for laundry, schoolbooks, shoes, and many other articles. It should be in envelope form, the dimensions eighteen by twelve. The material may be white linen, upon which you should work a gold border. Make an attachment for hanging on the wall.
128. Court-Plaster Case. – Cut two circles of celluloid two inches in diameter, and four other circles of thin drawing-paper for inside leaves. In these little pockets place pieces of court-plaster, pink, white and black, cut into strips or squares, and held flat and stationary by having their comers thrust into slits cut in the paper. Punch holes in the left side of the case, and tie with baby-ribbon. Paint or work on outside cover a design of burrs with “I cling to thee,” or a design of beggar-ticks with “I stick to thee.”
129. Postage-Stamp Holder. – Same as above except that the shape is square.
130. Photograph Frame. – Take a piece of stout pasteboard and turn down the corners. Cut the inside to the proper size, and stitch a piece of chamois over the pasteboard. Tie bits of colored ribbon on the corners. Sell for twenty-five cents.
131. Match-Safe. – Cover a tin box of any shape with one of the lesser inflammable materials such as chamois, and on the front attach a piece of match-paper. Sell for ten or fifteen cents.
132. Wall-Pocket. – Take bamboo sticks or thin strips of wood, and glue them together in the form of a pocket-frame. The sticks should be about two inches apart and the outer lattice-work a little lower than the inner. Wind colored ribbons around the sticks, and have a circular head-piece for attachment to the wall.
133. Glove-Box. – (Easter present). Cover a flat pasteboard box with pale gray linen or delicate blue. Work a spray of passion-flowers on the top, inclosing some suitable motto.
Christmas presents should be in the store at least three weeks before the holidays. As many donors like to attach the initials of the recipient to the present, have prettily worked letters for that purpose, and charge ten cents a letter. Be careful to inform all possible customers of this arrangement, as many will be attracted by that feature. Call attention to this class of goods when your patrons are buying other kinds of your wares, and be always eager to show your latest designs. Remember that taste in this department is as important as