Читать книгу Little Folks' Handy Book - Adelia B. Beard - Страница 18

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A handful of straws, such as are used for lemonade and soda-water, several large sheets of writing-paper, and some small-sized pins—these are your materials. A pair of sharp scissors, a ruler marked off into whole, half, and quarter inches, and a lead pencil—these are your tools.

Fig. 17—The old-fashioned bedstead.

We will begin with the old-fashioned four-post bedstead with its canopy and valances (Fig. 17). It is easily put together, but you must be careful to cut the straws for the posts all exactly the same length, making them about seven inches long, and to have your measurements for the other parts quite correct, in order that the bedstead may stand perfectly upright. Select four straight straws for the posts—sound and whole. Split straws will not do.

The mattress and canopy are exactly alike; each has its valance, and they are just the same size; so directions for one will answer for both. Cut an oblong of writing-paper eight and a half inches long and six and a half inches wide. Be sure that the ends and side edges form perfect right angles; if they do not, the bed will be crooked. The edges of your sheet of writing-paper are at right angles to one another, and if you use the top edge of your paper for the top edge of your oblong, and the side edge of the paper for one side edge of your oblong, the rest will come out all right.

Fig. 18—The mattress and canopy.

Now draw perfectly straight lines across your oblong from top to bottom, just one and a half inches from each edge (Fig. 18). Then from side to side draw two more straight lines; the first one and a half inches below the top edge and the other one and a half inches above the bottom edge. This gives the mattress with a border all around. In each corner of the mattress, a little more than a quarter of an inch from the end and side lines, draw a small cross as shown in Fig. 18. Be sure these crosses are placed correctly, and are exactly alike in mattress and canopy. Now cut out the four squares at the corners of the oblong, as indicated by the heavy lines in Fig. 18, and insert the point of your scissors in the centre of each little cross and snip along each line of the cross. Do not make the slashes too deep.

Fig. 19—Slide the paper down to the pin.

Cut the edges of the border, or valance, into small points, as in Fig. 17; then bend the valance down at the sides and ends of the mattress. The dotted lines in the diagrams show where to bend the paper. Make the canopy just as you have made the mattress, but cut deeper points on the edge of the valance.

Through each of the four straw bedposts run a small pin two and a quarter inches from the end of the straw (Fig. 19).

Push the long ends of the straws up through the slashed crosses in the corners of the mattress (Fig. 19) until the bottom of the mattress rests on the pins, then run a pin through each straw just above and close to the top of the mattress. Between the two pins the paper can slip neither up nor down. Run another pin in each straw post half an inch from the top, slide the canopy down upon these, and fasten with more pins, as you did the mattress. Make the bolster by folding a piece of paper the proper shape and cutting the end edges in points for trimming.

Now you not only know how to make the bedstead, but