Ingredients
- four fern leaves placed down the sides of the table
- one built upon
- two great points to be remembered in arranging flowers are to use enough green
- 43 damp sand instead of water
Directions
In these days of pretty china, colored glass and bright silver, table decoration is much simplified, but there is nothing prettier than flowers at any time. Old-fashioned bowls of china are beautiful filled with roses, with sprays of smilax or trailing ferns drooping gracefully over the edges. Small low glass dishes, filled with ferns and flowers, are very effective. Pans of glass or tin, in shapes so arranged as to form crosses, bridges, or wandering lines of flowers, are cheap and pretty.
42 THE DINING ROOM.
A small tray, either circular or oblong, if filled with wood moss, nicely cleaned, and left to droop well over the edges, makes a good foundation for table decorations, especially in town, for, if the moss is dampened thoroughly by sprinkling, it will keep its color for weeks. About half an inch of water should be left in the bottom of the tray. Place in the center a cluster of tall, deep red roses, for example; then place around them, so as just to show a rim of moss, a row of yellow, then a row of white roses, until the tray is filled to within about two inches of the edge, and border this with a row of blossoms turned outward. Wild violets and all low growing flowers, are very effective, arranged in this way.
Trails of smilax coming from the edge of the tray and wandering among the dessert dishes are very pretty, and ground ivy is useful in the same way. If flower pots are used on the table, four of them, con- nected by arches of willow, the cross corners decorated with ivy, are light and pretty. These arches, covered with any creeping plant, are exceedingly graceful. Ferns are always a favorite decoration. Crosses of four fern leaves placed down the sides of the table, with a camellia blossom in the center of each, are very good. If alternately pink and white, the effect is increased. Banks of ferns, in which flowers are placed as if they are growing, arranged in the center of the table^ make an exceedingly pretty grouping.
Baskets edged with ferns and vines and filled with roses make veiy pretty pieces for the ends of the table, or three of them, one built upon another, make a beautiful center piece. A large sheet of glass, edged with grasses and moss, upon which lie water lilies, is both a novel and cool decoration for summer, especially as water lilies come in the warm season. A high glass dish filled with floating lilies and leaves is also a pleasing decoration. Where candlesticks are used small garlands of ferns and flowers enwreathing the standards add greatly to their beauty, particularly if the blue flowers are used upon the silver candlesticks and scarlet on the brass or bronze. Small vases with but a single flower and a few green leaves or ferns are all the flower decoration needed for a small dinner or lunch party.
The two great points to be remembered in arranging flowers are to use enough green and not to place the flowers too formally. Avoid stiffness and " set " bouquets ; try to dispose them lightly and gracefully, giving to each flower its own leaves. There must, however> always be more green than is afforded by the leaves attached to the flowers them- selves. Ferns always look well, and harmonize with everything, and when not attainable, the leaves of azalea or spirsea are extremely useful. Common field grasses can also be used with great advantage, and as a background some pieces of box will often be found extremely useful. In placing flowers in troughs it will be found very convenient to use
THE ART OF CARVING. 43
damp sand instead of water, as the flowers remain exactly in the posi- tion in which they are placed, and, as they do not lean against each other, fewer of them are required.