This is the fourth article in February of the School for Housewives 1904 series published on Feb 28, 1904, and is a very short article on dressing tables with china flower holders.

School for Housewives – China Flower Holders Table Trimming

The hostess who likes to entertain informally and often will welcome the little table centrepieces in china which the shops are offering of late.

Thanks to these, it is now possible to arrange the flowers for a luncheon or little dinner in fives minutes’ time.

When a number of entertainments are given during a single season, anything that lightens the labor of preparation without detracting from the daintiness of the feast is of real interest.

This is especially true of hospitably inclined households where but one maid is kept.

Almost any variety of flowers can be suited in these new dishes. There are tall effects designed for chrysanthemums, iris or American Beauties; vases of moderate depth for carnations, narcissus and their ilk, while shallow basins, having just the necessary depth, suggest a decoration of violets or lilies of the valley.

Many of the new ornaments include human figures, those, for example, of nymphs, shepherdesses, fauns and children.

Sometimes the figures support baskets, basins or vases, which form the flower holders.

Other models are made up of blossoms, rocks and different natural objects, without human figures of any kind.

The illustrations show a number of the new dishes appropriately filled.

An especially pretty idea illustrated is that of the boutonniere centrepiece, to which many of the new ornaments lend themselves especially well.

A number of little bouquets, intended for distribution among the guests, are attached to strands of ribbon, and arranged in the dish. The ribbons fall over the sides, and escape contact with the water. At the conclusion of the feast each member of the party pulls a ribbon and obtains a bouquet.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…

Around the Council Table – Some Interesting Talks with Housewives and Parents Good Recipes by Contributors Help Hints About the House

This is the fourth article in February of the School for Housewives 1905 series published on Feb 26, 1905, and is a short article on table decor.

School for Housewives – The Easiest Table Decorations to Make

No matter at what season of the year you elect to give a luncheon, roses are always to be had, and trim a table in the prettiest and most varied of ways.

A white luncheon may be given, with the whitest of roses gracing the centre, or those with just the merest touch of shell-pink tinting them. Or if pink is to be the color, a “wealth of exquisite blossoms come in the softest shades of pink; white for a red luncheon come buds and blossoms that make the cheeriest of decorations.

In June rose-luncheons are really the only seasonable ones to give; and then you might give a rose-luncheon every few days and have it different, using tiny June roses one day, wild roses another, and moss-roses, tea-roses, fragrant yellow briar-roses, and the delicate old-fashioned tea-roses – gathered from your own flower-plot – for the different days.

If expense doesn’t have to be considered, china with rose-patterns is extremely effective; and, as it snows skillful shading and coloring, it blends with almost any color of roses.

White is used almost entirely for table-linen – lace sets being highest in favor; but occasionally you see a rose-luncheon with a centrepiece embroidered with roses in their natural color.

A pretty decoration of roses – like that illustrated – was a central vase of cut glass (in the fashionable Colonial pattern) filled with pink roses and ferns.

LUNCHEON FOR SIX

The luncheon was for six, and set at intervals around the table were six little vases, each with its roses and ferns. At each place was laid a rose, apparently dropped carelessly there.

Candlesticks add greatly to the genera effect of a table, and a great many women get shades and candles of three or four colors, changing them according to the color of the luncheon they are giving.

Pink shades make, perhaps, the softest, most becoming light; red and green shades the most striking, but both red and green should be set closest to the centre, so that their direct light may not fall on the guests seated. Both lights are too strong to be becoming if they are close.

American Beauties make a most imposing luncheon. One was given with a tall vase full of the long-stemmed beauties for a centrepiece, wile from the base, raying out to each place, was a rose – the blossom coming just to the “stay-plate,” or beside it. The effect was stunning, and after the luncheon the hostess picked up the one nearest her, and every guest followed suit.

Pink roses in the centre, with bunches of great, single violets at each lace – each bunch having its long violet pin struck through the stems – make a pretty color-scheme that is accentuated when all the guests pin the violets on, before the first course is served.

For a spring luncheon, daffodils and violets are charming; and daffodils and mignonette the most spring-like combination imaginable.

Marion Harland