BETWEEN the fun you have in cutting out the pictures, blacking and pasting them up, - as I shall direct, - into "shadow pictures" or "transparencies," and the added fun you have looking at them afterwards through the view-box or scope, this simply made toy should furnish a good many hours' amusement for the whole family.

Let us suppose you have a photograph of your house. Trace its outline on a piece of cardboard, using a piece of carbon paper (or a piece of paper which has been rubbed on the back with lead pencil) for the tracing. Trace the windows and the bare outline of the house and trees; that is all.

Now cut this out. The outline can be cut with scissors, but the openings, such as the holes among the trees in Figure I and the windows, had better be cut with the point of a sharp knife.

We will make this a night scene, with all lamps in the house lighted. To get this effect, paste at the back of the window openings pieces of yellow or orange tissue paper. At the back of the whole house and for the sky (but not over the windows) paste a piece of thin blue tissue paper, as in the dotted portion, Figure I.

Now for the view-box, Figure 2. Select a small cigar box, as shown. Knock the bottom out and fit a square paper funnel at one side. This box, of course, should be large enough so that the picture you have made can be seen through it. You will see what I mean as I proceed with my description.

This funnel is made as in the pattern Figure 5. The lengths of the parts areas follows: -

The funnel is about six inches long (E to F).

From A to B (and the distance from C to D is the same) is as long as the box you have selected is long outside. B to C and D to E equal the height of the box outside, so that when bent around square, this end will fit snug around on the outside of the box end. The flaps f are left so that the funnel can be pasted on the box, and g is to be pasted to the edge F-E, when the pattern is bent on the dotted lines.

G-F is about an inch and a half high, as is H-K, while L-K and H-G are four and a half inches long and curved a little. The line shown in my drawing has a notch N cut to fit the nose of a person looking through the scope.

Little wire hooks, such as S, are fastened to the front of the box, as shown, to hold our picture.

Now paste a pasteboard frame around the house shadow picture, this frame being of a size to fit the front of the box in its outside measurements and to fit your picture in its inside dimensions.

Punch pinholes in the blue tissue sky for stars. Slip the picture in between the box front and the clips S, hold the box to the light, and look through the small end of the funnel; you will be surprised at the result.

This is only one picture. You can make scores more by cutting out pictures of buildings, fountains, animals, and people, and mounting them on transparent tissue paper backgrounds of colors to suit sky, grass, or anything else. A railway train at night would make a fine picture, with the windows shining yellow, a dark blue sky above, and all beneath black.