Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Include Cotton Batting and Powdered Mica in Your Christmas Decor!

Novel Ways of Trimming Interiors For The Holiday, 1899 American Press Association

      A Christmas without snow is not always a pleasant season. With our variable climate and the passing away of the good old fashioned winter of our grandfathers the "beautiful" can no longer be relied upon as an accessory to Christmastide celebrations.
      A New York artist who has the happy faculty of thinking out such things for himself has adopted a plan in his own house which has always a congenial Christmas within doors, no matter what the weather may be without.
      This plan for converting a home into a grotto of boreal attractiveness is as follows: When it is decided in which room the Christmas tree is to be erected, a white sheet should be spread over the carpet, covering the entire floor of the room. The picture molding should then be draped with bunches of cotton batting and sprinkled with powdered mica to represent snow. About the sashee of the windows also should be bunched masses of this glistening cotton wool.
      The Christmas tree itself should stand in a snow bank, and its boughs should be laden with flecks of the "beautiful" spread about as generously as though it were standing in a Maine forest in midwinter.
      The effect of such unique and at the same time inexpensive decoration is marvelous. It brightens and lights and cheers a room in a most wonderful manner. If there are a number of pictures in the room, the frames of these can also be done in white cotton wool and touches added wherever such would in crease the wintery illusion.
      This sort of decoration should be most acceptable in the south, where Christmas often comes without snow. It must be remembered, however, that this sort of decoration should not be left up after Christmas day. The white cotton very soon becomes dusty and draggled, and when once in this condition the charm is lost. The accompanying illustration will give a good idea of the general effect of a room so decorated.
      It is also fit and proper that the dining room should be well decorated on Christmas day. Ropes of evergreen, which can either be made at home with very little trouble or purchased from the dealers, should be suspended from the chandelier in the center of the room and caught up at its four different corners. The frames of the pictures should also be decorated with greens, and if there happens to be any old Dutch plates hanging on the walls a very pretty effect can be obtained by surrounding them with a holly wreath. These wreaths should be so made that the green will be on the outside of the circle and the berries inside next to the plates.
      Another unique idea is to have a number of well made holly wreaths in which to set the plates on the table during the Christmas dinner. Somewhere about the room, of course, should be the indispensable spray of mistletoe. If it is put on the chandelier over the table, the best part of the Christmas celebration is likely to be missed, as one can scarcely expect a young lady to climb up on a table, no matter how much she --well, we need not say the rest, but it stands to reason that the portiere or the arch over the door is the best place for the white berried parasite.
      Holly wreaths should also be hung in the different windows. In doing this a very fine wire should be used, tying the wreath to the window fastener so that it will hang exactly in the middle of the lower casement.     

Novel ways of decorating with cotton and bling today. Watch Annabelle's Cotton Candy Christmas Tree. The tree is white and flocked and filled to the brim with sweet long lasting treats!

More Decorating With Cotton:  

No comments:

Post a Comment

Constructive comments are appreciated. All comments are moderated and do not immediately appear after publishing. I don't publish spam folks. Thanks and have a nice day!