from scraps of velvet glued on
cardboard was a pleasant occupation which interested our
great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers when they were children many
years ago. A favorite picture was of a boy and a St. Bernard, in which
the boy's head, hands, collar, and pantaloons, and the dog, were made
of white velvet painted. The boy's tunic was black velvet, and its
belt a strip of red paper. The dog's eye was a black pin-head. The
whole was mounted on a wooden stand with wooden supports at the back,
one running up to the boy's head and the other to the tip of the dog's
tail. With some scraps of white and black velvet, and a little
patience and ingenuity, one could make all the animals on a farm and
many in the Zoo.

Hand Dragons

All the apparatus needed for a "Hand Dragon" consists of a little
cardboard thimble or finger-stall, on which the features of a dragon
have been drawn in pen and ink or color. This is then slipped over the
top of the middle finger, so that the hand becomes its body and the
other fingers and thumb its legs. With the exercise of very little
ingenuity in the movement of the fingers, the dragon can be made to
seem very much alive. The accompanying picture should explain
everything.

[Illustration: HAND DRAGONS]

Various games can be played with the fingers. Tiny caps and hats can
be made, features drawn with ink on the fingers and little tissue
paper dresses made. A whole play can be acted or sung by these tiny
finger marionettes.

Other Uses for Cardboard

Once you have begun to make things out of cardboard, you will find no
end to its possibilities and should be in no more need of any hints.
After building, furnishing, and peopling a dolls' house, a farm or a
menagerie would be an interesting enterprise to start upon. E. M. R.
has a stud of ninety-two horses, each named, and each provided with a
horse-cloth, a groom, and harness. She has also several regiments of
soldiers and a staff of nurses, all cut from cardboard and painted.
She chooses her horses from _Country Life_, or some such paper, and
copies them. Another enthusiast has a cardboard theatre in which plays
and pantomimes are performed.

It might be added that cardboard figures can be made to stand up
either by leaving a strip of cardboard at the bottom, in which teeth
can be cut and bent alternately one way or the other, or by slipping
the feet into grooves cut in little blocks of wood.

Cardboard Cut-Outs

There are