Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: or season-landscapes, from the great chromo-field, cut them out nicely and gum them upon the glass face downward, covering the whole with a coat of paint in soft shades of blue, lavender, or sea-green. The " right" side of the glass then bears a very fair resemblance to a china painting. These tiles are easily and inexpensively made, and when fastened upon the wood-work, with narrow black moldings, have almost as good an effect as those costlier ones "from over the sea." For a fire-board take paper that will not quarrel with the prevailing color of the room, and paste it smoothly into the space between the wood-work and the mantel. This may be varnished and left plain, or a group of ferns, a wreath of autumn leaves, or a spray of " decalcomania " flowers may first be applied and then covered with two coats of varnish. If neatly and tastefully done this will agreeably brighten up an otherwise plain mantel. If one is so fortunate as to possess a long narrow mirror, of the sort that, with a green halo of asparagus boughs about them, used to adorn our grandmothers' best rooms, it can be placed lengthways upon this mantel, neither tipped backward nor forward, but fastened flatly to the wall, and the effect will be excellent. The frame, doubtless more or less tarnished, will require a rubbing with sand-paper and a coat of black paint and varnish like the mantel; or it may be necessary to reframe it in black molding of a width to make it as long as the shelf on which it rests. If one has no such mirror, it will not cost a great sum to purchase one, without frame, and fit it into place. It will reflect the sunlit windows by day, and the lamps by night, and greatly increase the beauty and cheerfulness of the apartment. HALL WINDOWS. If there are glass panels in the hall-door, o...