Constructive ideas expel destructive ideas from the juvenile mind.
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Through the author’s handicraft volumes, and magazine and newspaper articles, thousands of boys and girls who never realized they could make their own toys, have succeeded in constructing models which would do credit to Santa Claus’ master toy-makers.
The success of this new home industry has suggested the need of a volume devoted entirely to toy-making, and in Home-made Toys for Girls and Boys the author has brought together a large number of the toy ideas from his former handicraft volumes, and from his articles published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s Home Companion, Good Housekeeping, the Boys’ Magazine, and other publications, and he believes that as collected and arranged the material will be found a veritable gold-mine of toy-making information.
Go to any toy store and price the toys similar to those described within these covers, then estimate if you can how much the other toys you do not find would cost if manufactured, and you will. discover, that one hundred dollars would not cover their value. One splendid thing about these home-made toys is that the greater part of them require little more than the pick-up material found at home. Few boys and girls are given a one hundred dollar assortment of toys at a time, yet any one can own a collection of this value who is willing to spend the time necessary to follow the instructions given in this book. Probably, though, some of the toys will be wanted now, and the others one, two or three seasons hence, because, you see, the book is an all-the-year-round handy book with suggestions for every season. Some of the toys will be of especial interest to boys, yet girls who like what boys like will enjoy making them also.
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