MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS Screens.—Have a carpenter nail to gether strips of pine or other cheap well-seasoned wood in any desired shape or size and in one or more pan els. Hinge these together and have straight bottom supports with braces to prevent the screen overturning. Cover this with burlap, grass cloth, leather, or any suitable fabric and em broider or otherwise decorate as de sired. Such screens are inexpensive, artistic, and useful to hide corners, openings to doors—as a kitchen door —and also to prevent draughts and to admit of opening windows for ven tilation.
Footstools.—Save the ends of car pets left in evening up the design, also remnants of materials used for dra peries, screens, and the like, to cover footstools. Make a lining of cotton cloth of the desired shape, to be filled with excelsior or similar material and cover with any desired fabric.
Or take a piece of plank of any preferred size two or three inches in thickness. Pad it with cotton batting and cover with suitable material. Button down with brass tacks. Screw underneath heavy cast-iron clothes hooks as feet.
Or make a footstool of empty tin cans such as tomato cans. Six cans will make a three-cornered footstool, or seven a round one. Cover each separately with cloth, turning the rag ged tin edges down; stitch them to gether and cover with any suitable material.
Or make heavy cushions similar to sofa cushions, and cover with heavy material, to take the place of foot stools.
Filling for Fancy Pillows.—Among the materials recommended for filling sofa pillows, porch cushions, and floor cushions, in addition to feathers, are excelsior, grass clippings, hay or straw, paper, cotton batting, dried tea leaves, milkweed fluff, hops, dry rose leaves, and lavender. Pine, hem lock, or balsam needles may also be used, and are recommended for their delicate odor.
Feather pillows are, of course, the best. To save chicken feathers for pillows, take the feathers immediate ly after dressing the fowls, cover them with hot suds, and wash thoroughly.
Put them in a large pan and let stand on the stove or in a slow oven until thoroughly dried. Let the heat be as strong as possible without scorching. Put them in a cloth bag and set in a dry place until enough have accumu lated for a pillow. They will thus keep fluffy, and after being aired will be fresh and clean and without odor.
Or take cotton batting and pick the cotton up very fine and fluffy. Place it in the oven in a pan and bake it with a slow fire. Have the heat as strong as possible without scorching the cotton and bake until thoroughly dry. If the cotton is picked up very fine and thoroughly baked it will not grow hard or mat up in pillows. Make an inner pillow to contain the cotton, and after it is stuffed go over it by means of a brush with a varnish of melted wax. This will make the pil low impervious to moisture, and the cotton will always continue soft and downy.
Or gather milkweed pods when nearly ripe. Store in a dry place un til they burst open. Carefully sepa rate the down from the seeds in the center, put them in a tight muslin bag rather than ticking. This material is equal to down.
Or carefully rake the grass clip pings from the lawn, raking lightly so as not to get dead grass or leaves. Cure these in loose beds, sunning for several days and turning frequently. Store in sacks in a dry place, and be fore using dry thoroughly at the fire. Put them in the pillows while hot. Pillows thus made are light and soft, and have a delightful fragrance.
Or wash clean old pieces of woolen ingrain carpet. Ravel it up and use the ravelings for filling cushions.
Or take newspaper or any paper from the wastebasket, tear it into strips a few inches long and half an inch wide and curl these over blunt edge, the same as in curling feathers.
Or save tea leaves, dry thoroughly in the oven, and fill the pillow with these.
Or mix the tea leaves with other substances.