You may use a plain heavy visiting card with flowers stuck through the upper left corner, or decorated cards of every style, pen and ink, water-colors, etc. Cards for stag affairs have Old English pictures on a soft gray background; souvenir postals make interesting guest cards; tiny fans, playing cards, ribbons, cards cut out of water-color paper imitating flower pots with flowers in bloom, cards decorated with sketches of brides and bridegrooms, kodak pictures of familiar scenes, boats, different sports--you can scarcely go amiss on your cards--the more original they are the better. The card is laid on the napkin at dinner or luncheon, or if it has an easel-like back is fastened to the winegla.s.s.
Graphology cards are an idea of the moment, and seem likely to prove more than a pa.s.sing fad. Before ordering a set of these, the hostess obtains from each guest a line in his or her own handwriting; the note of acceptance received can be used, if one is sure that a secretary has not been employed. These specimens are turned over to the stationer, who, in turn, places them in the hands of an expert graphologist. When the occasion arrives for which the writing was obtained, each guest finds at his cover a card bearing his name and a printed delineation of his character formed from the chirography.
For guest cards at a large dinner have in the center of the table a gridiron of flowers and from it run orange and black ribbons to each plate. Have the guests" names in gilt letters on these ribbons, and each ribbon ends in a favor, which indicates the special fad of the guest.
The oarsman finds a scull, the yachtsman a tiny yacht, the football captain a football, the hunter a tiny bear, the bowler ten pins, the poker player a miniature poker table, the glee club leader a tiny mandolin, and the man who wins hearts, a heart-shaped box with the miniature of a Gibson girl on its surface.
The girl who cuts paper dolls may make quaint and unique menu cards by cutting out little pickaninnies from shiny black kindergarten paper, then, little dresses, say of red, since this is the most striking combination, and pasting them on the plain cards.
The way to make them is to place a bit of black and a bit of red paper together, fold them shiny side out, and the red outside the black, cut out the dolls, one black, one red, then snip off heads, hands and legs of the red. This leaves the little dresses all ready to go on.
Before pasting on the dress make eyes and mouth in the little black head, by folding it perpendicularly and cutting out the mouth, then horizontally for the eyes. When the figure is once nicely pasted on the card, it is perfectly smooth, no sign of the various foldings appearing.
A dinner for a mixed company of talented men and women is made attractive by clever little quotations on the place cards. A general quotation in quaint lettering at the top of the card may apply to the feast; one following the name of the guest whose place it marks, may apply to the profession or personality of the guest.
"Who can display such varied art, To suit the taste of saint and sinner, Who go so near to touch their heart, As you, my darling dainty dinner?"
"Who would not give all else for two pennyworth only of beautiful soup?"
"Your dressing, dancing, gadding, where"s the good in?
Tell me, sweet lady, can you make a pudding?"
"Smoking and tender and juicy, And what better meat can there be?"
"The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed."--_O. W. Holmes._
"May your appet.i.te keep on good terms with your digestion."
"A good dinner is better than a fine coat."--_Proverb._
"Sit down to that nourishment which is called supper."--_Shakespeare._
"To thee and thy company I bid a hearty welcome."--_Shakespeare._
"No man can be wise on an empty stomach."--_Geo. Elliot._
For the Artist:
"Industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot."--_Henry Ward Beecher._
"He is the greatest artist then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature."
--_Longfellow._
For a Writer:
"Wise poets that wrap truth in tales."--_Carew._
For the Architect:
"He builded better than he knew."--_Emerson._
For the Actor:
"We"ll hold, as "twere, the mirror up to Nature."--_Shakespeare._
"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."--_Shakespeare._
For the Young Bachelor:
"A weather-beaten lover but once known, Is sport for every girl to practice on."
--_Anon._
"He had then the grace too rare in every clime Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, A finished gentleman from top to toe."