Some of the more interesting scrapbooks in my collection are not those which are crammed with Victorian art prints, scraps and postcards; rather, I enjoy the more personal scrapbooks; those made from altered ledgers and books containing favorite poems, recipes, snippets of useful information, spiced up with the occasional scrap image or cherished photograph.

We now have so many choices, and digital scrapbooking software has for some replaced the traditional supplies of printed scraps and paste glue. I am not as old-fashioned as I appear, I think there is comfort in knowing a tradition born of necessity and beauty continues in some form.

Free Victorian bird scrap for your scrapbook.

Enjoy this old article, The Value of a Scrap-Book, from Household Hints and Recipes by Henry T. Willams and “Daisy Eyebright” 1884

Every one who takes a newspaper containing various items connected with housekeeping, the toilette, etc., will often regret to have it torn up, on account of some little scrap in it which was of importance to them; but, if a scrapbook was only at hand, the scissors could have quickly transferred the item to its pages.

If you have never been accustomed to preserve short articles, and tiny scraps in this manner, you cannot understand the pleasure you would take in turning over the pages of the book, and reading a bit here and a scrap there. Perhaps a choice bit of poetry will meet your eye, and bring tears to its lids; or a witty anecdote will make the room ring with your laughter. Or, valuable “Hints” or “Recipes” may claim your attention just at the time you needed the knowledge they contain.

Indeed, you can hardly read a single paper at the present time, but you will find something in its columns that is worthy of preservation, and which will be of service to you many times during your life.

Or, you may procure a choice thought, which is far more precious than a jewel set in gold; and, if you will hoard these rare gems, year after year, you will garner up a treasure-book that will not only be of service to yourself, but also to your children and grandchildren, in decades of years yet to come.

Window Flower Box

Given fresh mosses or leaves, a few trailing creepers and two or three spikes of flowers, and the effect will be charming in a window box made after any of the following descriptions. These methods are all cheap and feasible for securing the effect desired.

The box may be made of zinc, painted to suit one’s taste, or of common white pine stained and oiled, with a strip of molding or a few lichens and fir cones tacked on by way of ornament. Or prettier still, it may be turned into a rustic affair by covering it withy narrow horizontal lengths of rough-barked wood. Birch bough or laurel, or both alternating, will answer, halved lengthwise with the saw, and cut into sections to fit the box, the shelf which supports it being edged with the same. Or a gaily colored affair may be made with narrow strips of oilcloth, finished off with a wooden molding at top and bottom, a set pattern being chosen of bright solid colors, like the tiles, which are so much in vogue for more expensive arrangements. Or a most unique and tasty box may be made by first painting it white, then lay ferns, green or pressed ferns, upon the sides in tasteful designs, and sift clean brown sand over the whole side, after which remove the ferns, and the fern designs with all their delicate tracery of fronds, will appear distinctly in white.

The box we illustrate here was ornaments with a mixture of acorns and pounded shells. Cut all the acorns in half lengthwise. Cover the box with glue. Make an edge each way of acorns, and then cover the box all over with rows of acorns moderately close together. Sift the pounded shell all over the box thickly between the acorns. The acorns are varied with cone seeds and red berries cut in half.

Whatever style of box is used, unless the window seat is of unusual width, brackets must be put underneath, or a stronger pine shelf must be adjusted in the recess to support the box, and the edge which fronts the room just be ornamented or stained to match.

A Victorian Windowscreen

The foundation of this window-screen is made of woven netted lace, on which white woven braid is hemstitched in lattice-shape with black split zephyr worsted. The braid is ornamented in herring-bone stitch with similar worsted. Stretch this foundation in a frame of varnished black cane.

Figure 1

Those acquainted with the manner of making the “quilled braid,” as it was called in the old days, can apply it to the manufacture of beautiful and serviceable rugs, for parlor or sitting-room floor. The materials required are wide, woolen braid or strips of cloth of two or more colors, a piece of canvas or carpeting for the foundation, and strong thread.

Figure 2

The accompanying figures clearly show the modus operandi of plaiting the braids, if any are unacquainted with the simple performance.

Scarlet and black, green and brown, or a row each of various colors, will all be found beautiful for these braids, which, when finished are sewn on the foundation which has been cut to proper form; a tasteful one of which is shown in Fig. 1. The form of arranging the braids, which are shown in one-half size in the diagrams 2 and 3, is plainly marked in the illustration of the rug.

Figure 3

Where such rugs are made of old cloth, (which, by-the-way, will be found a most useful manner of utilizing old fragments or pieces of discarded garments) they must be cut into strips and run together along the edges, thus making long inch-wide pieces, of which the braids are plaited. The edge is finished with cloth pinked-out on the edge, or perhaps merely cut into points and sewed around the foundation beneath the first and outer row of braids.

From “Beautiful Homes,” 1877

To shut out a disagreeable view from a back window, the glass may be rendered ornamental, and the obnoxious objects shut out, by a very simple plan, which makes a very fair imitation of ground glass. This is effected by cutting out stars or diamonds upon a piece of white muslin, tarlatan, or common tissue-paper, which is then gummed or pasted on to each pane of glass, the great point being to get the gum or paste as colorless as possible. By washing the glass over with a hot, saturated solution of Epsom salts, or sal ammoniac, or Glauber’s salts, or blue stone, very beautiful effects of crystallization can be obtained, by which also the above purpose is served in shutting out an obnoxious view, and the window has also a very ornamental appearance. By a saturated solution is meant one containing as much of the salt as the water will dissolve. The solution must be applied while hot, and with a brush. Be careful not to use salts of a deliquescent* nature.

To aid our readers in making their choice of crystals, we give a diagram, in which Fig. 1 represents the crystals formed by the sal ammoniac, Fig. 2 those formed by Epsom salts (four-sided prisms’) ; Fig. 3, the crystals of Glauber’s salts (six-sided prisms).

Figure 1, the crystals formed by the sal ammoniac.

Figure 2, formed by Epsom salts (four-sided prisms).

Figure 3, the crystals of Glauber's salts (six-sided prisms).

Victorian Hook Close Up

I used dental tools to pick out the gunk in the crevices. At this point, I’m thinking that it is neither brass or bronze, but cast steel, with some sort of plating. I wish my Dad was still around, he would know.

See another picture under the break.

This hook would have held your coat and hat, probably on a hall tree.

Grotesque Victorian Hook

I picked up a pair of antique Victorian hooks while antiquing yesterday. They are currently soaking in some stripper to remove years in paint. Not certain if they are brass or not. We’ll see!