FOR YOUR HOBBIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 June 1938, Page 4

FOR YOUR HOBBIES

PASTE FROM THE PANTRY. Paste is constantly needed in your hobbies and entertainments, but if your bottle is dry when the shops are shut —as so often happens —go to the pantry for help. Boiled starch is an excellent paste. Mix some starch to a thick paste with cold water, then add boiling water, stirring briskly as you do. It will thicken immediately, and you can easily judge for yourself the right amount of water for the thickness of the paste, remembering always that it thickens a little more as it cools off.

A small teaspoonful of starch is enough for just a little paste, and a good tablespoonful will give you a generous cupful. Rice will also supply you with a most useful paste. It takes longer to prepare, but is better for delicate work than the boiled starch. Boil a dessertspoonful of rice in a cup of water for about 20 minutes, then strain off the liquor, and, when cool, it will form an excellent paste, particularly suited to fine work. This rice paste has another excellent use which our young artists will appreciate. It will "fix” pencil drawings.

Dilute a little of the paste with cold water, making sure that you leave no lumps, then dip the pencil drawing right into it. When dry, you will find that it is completely “fixed,” so that the pencilling will not smudge or rub off. This does equally well for ordinary heavy red and blue pencils, as well as drawing pencils.