Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-03-05
Making Wax Flowers.

OUR lady readers will find the initiating
of natural flowers in wax very agreeable
amusement for long winter afternoons
and evenings. The work is not difficult,
and with a little practice ornaments of
great taste and beauty can be made. The
materials can be obtained for a small sum
from any dealer in artists materials.
Some knowledge of the general form of
flowers is of course necessary to begin
with, nor should little artistic skill be
entirely lacking. Forms of various leaves,
of tin, to be used as patterns, may easily
be obtained, but the best limitations of
nature we have ever seen were made di-
rectly from the natural flower. A hand
full of blossoms may be purchased from
any florist, ami carefully dissected; then
by tracing the shape of leaves, etc., on pa
per, quite collection of patterns may be
gained. The British Trade Journal says
that the best white wax is required for the
art-pure, and free from granulation. The
consistency may need to be modified, &C
cording to the state of the weather, and
the part of the flower to be initiated; it
may be made firmer and more translucent
by the addition of little spermaceti,
while Venice turpentine will give it
ductility In preparing the wax for use,
it is melted with Canada balsam, or some
kind of fine turpentine, and poured into
fat tin molds; these give it the form of
quadrangular blocks or slabs about an
inch thick. These blocks are cut into
thin sheets or films, in one or other of
several different ways-by fixing them
fiat, with screw and stop, and slicing off
layers with a kind of spoke shave; or
holding block in the hand, and passing
it along a carpenters plane, having the
face uppermost; or causing the block to
rise gradually over the edge of the mold,
and cutting off successive slices with a
smooth edged knife.
The coloring of the wax is an impor-
tant matter, seeing that in some instances
the tint must penetrate the whole sub
stance; whereas in others it is better
when laid on the surface, as a kind of
paint The choice of colors is nearly the
same as for other kinds of artificial flowers,
but not in all instances. The white colors
are produced by white lead, silver white,
and one or two other kinds; for red, YER
million, minimum, lake and carmine; for
rose color, carmine, following an appli-
cation of dead white Ito avert yellowish
tints); for blue, ultramarine, cobalt, indigo
and Prussiau blue; for yellow, chrome
yellow, massicot, Naples yellow, orpi-
ment, yellow ocher and gamboge; for
green, verdigris, Schweinfurth green,
arsenic green (the less of this the better,
and various mixtures of blue and yellow
For violet, salmon, flesh, copper, lilac,
and numerous intermediate tints, various
mixtures of some or other of the colors
already named. Most of these coloring
substances are employed in the form of
powder, worked upon muller and stone
with essential oil Of citron or lavender,
and mixed with wax in melted state;
the mixture is strained through muslin,
and then cast in the fiat molds already
mentioned; or else muslin bag filed
with color is stepped for a time in the
melted wax. The material dealers sell
these slabs of wax ready dyed, to save
the fower-maker from kind of work
which is chemical rather than manipula-
tive. Some flowers require that the wax
shall be used in purely white bleached