Decorating Cuds and Saucers-how the Work is Done-a Workbag made of Cigar Ribbons

An inexpensive hobby is greeted with good-natured contempt by many. Still, it would surprise the scoffer to find how much pleasure can be gained from them.

The pretty and gaudy paper band looks well when it encircles a fat or lean cigar. By stripping it off carefully before lighting the cigar, however, it has finished its mission for most men. Not so for women; they have found a further use for these bright paper circlets. The decoration of cups and saucers, plates, baskets, and boxes has evolved into quite a recognised hobby.

The cardboard cups and saucers and other articles in cardboard can be bought at any big shop that deals in stationery. Before attempting the decoration of any object, however, a sufficient number and variety of bands must be available.

A cardboard cup decorated with cigar bands. This work is simple and inexpensive, and has the effect of elaborately decorated china

In the case of the cup and saucer illustrated, the large bands used as centrepieces in the decoration had to be carefully measured and trimmed to produce the effect desired. The handle of the cup cost much work and thought, as cardboard cups are not to be bought with handles. A tightly rolled piece of paper, of carefully measured length and appropriate thickness, was covered with cigar-bands, rolled round and round until the handle was entirely covered, and had, through pasting and rolling, received the necessary stiffness. It is absolutely essential, however, not to paste the handle to the cup until the latter is almost finished. By leaving the overlapping ends, which are to cover the attachment of the handle, hanging loose until everything else is done, the worker gives herself a chance of completing her work well. Then paste the overlapping ends down to hide where the handle is joined to the cup. he effect of cups and saucers thus tastefully covered is that of elaborately decorated china from a distance. The paper bands keep their colour exceedingly well, and even alter years of exposure to the air they are little the worse for wear. The yellow silk cigar-bands used to tie bundles of fifty or one hundred cigars are made of the best silk, of a width not greater than one or loss than half an inch. After collecting a good supply of different widths and lengths and different shades, a variety of articles useful and ornamental may be made.

A workbag, named the "Reina Victoria." because a wide ribbon bearing that felicitous name is divided off to take scissors, thimble, bodkin, crochet and knitting needles, etc., is another article that can be made dainty by this scheme of decoration. Pockets of different sizes for all sorts of things required by the busy housekeeper, such as cottons, threads, hooks and eyes, pins, are provided, and two little flaps for needles are attached at the tapering end. To make the workbag. take ribbons half an inch wide of two different shades, and cut 18 inches long. Use yellow-silk to sew tightly and evenly together, until a width of eight inches is reached.

When this is done, round off for the flap at one end, at the other turn over about two inches of your material, join round pieces of ribbon two inches in diameter to each side for the big pocket. Make small pockets and flaps to cover steel implements, fashioning your material for all these extra pieces required also out of cigar-bands joined tightly together. When you have accomplished this, bind the whole with ribbons joined together to form a sufficient length, sew a ribbon to tie round the bag at the rounded end, and an extremely useful article in daily demand is finished. Mats. cushions, pin-cushions, tray - cloths, and doyleys may easily be made in a variety of designs, and the inevitable odour of cigars may be quite eliminated by keeping the cigar ribbons-for a time in a box with plenty of strong-scented lavender bags.

An ingeniously decorated saucer. An infinite variety of patterns can be made by anyone possessing an eye for colour and deft fingers