A Victorian Writing Pad and Blotter
A Pretty Home-Made Christmas Gift

A very pretty writing pad and blotter, which could easily be made by any one who is a neat seamstress, was exhibited the other day in the rooms of a Decorative Art Society. The foundation was a square of heavy pasteboard covered with a cotton fabric showing a design of scarlet poppies and green leaves on a cream ground. At each of the four corners, where silver, leather, or china corners are used, were corner-pieces of scarlet satin, the color of the poppies, interlined with some stiff material that kept the satin perfectly firm.

Into the lower right-hand corner was slipped a piece of white blotting-paper, cut large enough o extend two-thirds of the distance to the top of the pad and two-thirds of the distance across the bottom. The upper left-hand corner of the blotting-paper was cut off in a slanting direction, and through two slits in the paper was passed a bit of poppy-colored satin ribbon, the width next to that known as “baby-ribbon,” and tied in a bow. The back of the pasteboard was covered with plain scarlet sateen.

The colors could be varied to suit the room in which the pad would lie, and if the maker’s time and skill permitted, very dainty ones could be prepared of the art linens, embroidered diagonally across the upper left-hand corner for the future owner’s initials; or white linen might be used, embroidered with small sprays of forget-me-nots, pink rose-buds, violets, or maidenhair ferns, the blotting-paper of the color of the flower chosen, the corner-pieces of art linen to match, with the initials embroidered in white on one of them. In the simpler or more elaborate forms these would find a ready sale at fairs and exchanges.

------ Published in Harper’s Bazaar, 1898.

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