If you want your flowers to last Do not cut them on a windy day. Cut long stems, so they can be trimmed later. Take off the leaves that are under water.

When you pick poppies, hold each stem over a lighted match-to burn it-before it is put in water, or dip ends in boiling water.

If an aspirin is put in the water with flowers that are beginning to wilt, sometimes it will freshen them.

The color or tint of a flower will change if the stem is put in a little household ammonia. Stand the flower in a bottle for this, and have only the stem end in the liquid. When stems of white flowers are put into red ink the flowers will develop red stripes.

Things To Make With Acorns

There are many things that can be made from acorns. Try the suggestions given here and you may think of other uses.

For a top, just take off the little cap. (This is easy to do if your acorn is dry and not too green.) Insert half a matchstick in the middle of the head of the acorn, and give it a spin to start it rolling.

For a bracelet, (or you may prefer to make a chain), there are various possibilities. You may pull off the tops and string those, or you can string the whole acorn.

Very nice doll teasets can be made from acorns. A few sticks will help. The tops of the acorns will look like saucers, and the bottoms resemble cups when they have stick handles put on them. Sticks will also make an acorn look like a teapot if you put one on for a snout, and another for a handle. Tip one acorn up on its top, and put another top piece on it for a cover, then two handles will make it look like a sugar bowl.

Things To Make With Pine Cones

A dish of cones makes a very pretty centerpiece for the dining room table.

A bag of cones is nice to give to someone with a fireplace. Make the bag of colored tarlatan and sew it with yarn.

Paint cones and tie them together to hang beside the fireplace, or on the front door. This makes a pretty Christmas decoration.

A cone necklace is fun to have. Use only the tiny cones.

Cones to burn in the fireplace will give out colored fire and make a greenish flame if they are treated with a boric acid mixture of 1/2 pound of boric acid and 2 quarts of water. Soak the cones for several hours, and dry them thoroughly before you burn them.

Turkeys can be made from pine cones. Pull off the small front sections, leaving the back ones to look like the spread feathers. Make the head of a pipe cleaner- painted red. The feet can be made from matches, or toothpicks.

Things To Do With A Dandelion

Have you ever seen people in the fields in the spring, cutting something green from the ground, and filling a basket with it? They are probably cutting dandelion greens. The first leaves of the plant-before the blossom comes-are good to eat. They can be cooked like spinach, or made into a salad.

Put the large end of a dandelion stem in a glass of water. Slit the end and you will find it curls up. Keep splitting the stem, and you will have a long curl.

To make a dandelion chain, collect about a dozen dandelions-more if you want a long chain-and pull off the blossoms. You will find that the blossom end of the stem is smaller than the other end, and that the stem is hollow. Put the small end into the large end, and you will have a ring. Now make another ring looped through the first one, and so on until you have a long chain.

If you can find a dandelion blossom that has gone to seed, pick it carefully and give it a good hard blow. Count the seeds that are left, and you will know what time your mother wants you.