December 1948

Madonna Christmas settings

Last-minute gifts you can make

CHRISTMAS is near, but you still have time to stitch these easy, original gifts. They'll be used again and again, with pleasant thoughts of the giver, long after Christmas, 1948.

Pick a personal card for each friend

How to put partitions in drawers

STATIONERY, envelopes, pencils, pens, stamps, and labels jumbled together. Jewelry mixed with cosmetics and hairpins. Playing cards, score pads, and pencils in disorder. A muddle of socks and handkerchiefs... combs, brushes, and nail files... knives, forks, spoons.

Have you any traditions at your house?

WE NEVER bought any evergreen branches at our house. Father always went out in the woods and cut them from a tree.

Holiday Decorations in fresh colors

SPARKLING new colors-- and a bolder use of greens and reds-- set this year's holiday decorations in a class all their own. You'll find pinks, lots of white, gold, and cerise giving a fresh look to your Christmas bells, and candles, and evergreens.

Glamour plants to liven your rooms

NEW containers-- brand-new ideas for settings and lighting-- exciting new colors and shapes like the smooth, wide-open amaryllis blooms shown opposite-- secrets of better handling-- these are the big news in house plants.

... for easy, informal living

DOES your family need more elbowroom? That extra space for midnight snacks and handicraft and bridge parties ... be a dream of the too-far future if you have a conertible attic, basement, sunroom, or breezeway. You may ... find that rearranging your furniture in the rooms you're ... now will turn the trick.

Pay yourself those high wages

IN PORTLAND, OREGON, a packinghouse worker bought a few acres of suburban land, dug a basement and mixed concrete for it, and built a house for his family. A 70-year-old retired minister and his wife, 65, purchased a concrete mold and started a home in Florida from scratch. A group of Des Moines firemen organized a building bee to provide homes for themselves and their families.

A fine plan--a fine house

A HOUSE is as good as its floor plan. No matter what style of archi tecture you prefer or how beautiful the setting, if the house doesn't work the way you want it to work, it isn't the house for you.

Now you can slam the brakes on tooth decay!

A REVOLUTIONARY new way to prevent tooth decay-- by merely brushing your teeth with a dentifrice containing a new bacteria-killing and acid-neutralizing ingredient-- promises to make history. There is plenty of evidence that the new ingredient will mean fewer cavities for you and your whole family, fewer occasions for going under the dentist's drill, and a decided cut in your dental expense. Moreover, since decaying teeth can be focal points of infection, with repercussions thruout the body, it may mean an improvement in your over-all health.

Save your house from middle age

YOU look at this house and what was done to it and you see where you make your mistake. That mistake is this: You get so used to living in your house, so settled, that you don't realize how very far the world has left you and your house behind.

Gifts for your bedroom and bath

Milton Caniff's modern home

Hot from the oven for the holidays

OUT of the flour bin and sugar canister, off" the spice shelf, and out of the packages of candied fruits and raisins and nuts come the makings for festive Christmas breads and rolls. And out of the oven the fragrance of Christmas-- that big part of Christmas that happens in the kitchen. Maybe it's a pan of fresh muffins for a family holiday breakfast. Maybe it's a frosted Sugar Plum Loaf you bake for your neighbor.

Christmas symbols for your table

Turkey Timetable

New faces, new flavors for refrigerator cookies

Cheese for Christmas

Recipe contest offers $70 in prizes

Our new Better Homes & Gardens contest calls for recipes using crackers, cookies, and wafers and for recipes using cottage cheese. If yours is the best recipe we receive, you will be Cook-of-the-Month next July and $10 will be sent to you. If your recipe is one of the 20 chosen for the Honor Roll, you'll get $3. All you need to do is read the directions below, then mail us your favorite recipe.

how-to helps

A handy man to have for a husband is one who takes over the winter kitchen with the same dash and dexterity he shows at the summer barbecue. Winter meals and party foods vary somewhat from grilled summer fare-- but it won't phase the man who owns a Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book for Men.

Home furnishings answers

Trust your baby to eat enough

YOUR baby knows when he is hungry. He also knows when he is full. And he can signal, too, when he wants more of something. If you'll just trust these three instincts of his, he will do all right. He'll eat the right amounts for his individual needs at his age.

Christmas decorations

Tell us about your project

at your service!

WATCH this column for the answers to those little questions that face every family-- important questions because their answer will help you find better living. You'll find them on every subject --from remodeling your home to your baby's care and training.

Safe at home that's what you think!

THE ambulance driver eased the broken body of 3-year-old Jeanie into the ambulance, then turned to the policeman who was called when Jeanie fell off the roof of her home.

Your family albums for December

The issue of the year for those, like myself, who rate an unsurpassable performance of a Mozart masterpiece superior to anything else. It recalls the high art of Heifetz's early days plus a sentiment he has rarely matched.

Four brand-new silver patterns

We built a log cabin

AFTER moving four times the first two years Eddard (as I call him) and I were married, we were convinced we had to have a place of our own. But buying a home or having one built looked impossible on a country schoolteacher's salary.

Article

Building our house was strictly a family affair

THE day the lumber arrived, my brother Jerry and I climbed to the top of the pile, and drew the plans for the house. This is not the procedure recommended by architects and builders, but we were amateurs, and could make our own rules. Besides, we had no time for elaborate sketches and long discussions. The house Mother and Dad were living in had been sold, and we had just three months in which to provide them with another place to live.

Personality in your mantel

Ned more shelves?

Your dog and mine

The American Kennel Club lists 29 breeds as working dogs. Among them are Collies, German Shepherds, Doberman Pinschers, Boxers, Great Danes. Most of these have been bred thru the centuries as herders, guardians, and police dogs. They're all dependable, loyal companions.

How to judge good furniture

HAVE you ever had the chastening experience of buying a desk, table, chair, or chest-- only to have it fall apart within a few months?

How to remodel your closets at low cost

VISI-FLECTS --a great boon to women!

BUT IT HAS. It's called Visi-flects and it brings a brand-new principle to the old problem of laundering clothes. Different from soaps, or detergents, or bleaches, or blues, or water softeners, or what have you. It's wonderful. Let's see how it works.

Smart ways to wrap gifts

How to hang pictures

PICTURES are flattering touches that can make a dull room smart-- or perk up a colorless setting. But a picture is only as good as its frame and its placement. Even inexpensive prints take on importance when they're dramatized by unusual framing and adroit hanging. And a good original will look bad if placed in a cheap frame or hung in a too-big wall space.

DECEMBER GARDEN GUIDE

Plant hardy and half-hardy flower seeds in the Lower and Middle South. Perennial plants grown in coldframes or the garden may be set out.

The diary of a Plain dirt gardener

Dec. 2 It seemed foolish for an important chap such as I be-- or think I be-- to lie abed all day. Even if my throat is sore and my head and bones ache, and the thermometer says I have a fever.

A letter to your boy about army life

DEAR ED: Well, I hear the draft has caught up with you, and that you're going into the army next month. I was in the army a while myself, a good part of World War II, in fact.

Honored cooks

Dress up your money gifts

Versatile boot scraper

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

I surmise that Junior is approaching manhood. He has warned me that I needn't try to unload my Christmas neckties on him this year. Maybe my youngest'll take 'em tho.