Issues of Parley’s Magazine came out monthly and cost a dollar. In the 1830s, they might be bound in yellow paper wrappers with a large wood engraving of the kind old gentleman offering a copy to a little flock of children. The contents of the July 1836 number included an article by the editor on haymaking, an activity of which little readers in the city might know very little and an account of a family of six travelling down the Ohio River in a 36-foot boat with a cable, pump, and stove, a mere $52. Stories about domestic fowl, a mad dog, and larks suggest that animals were always a popular subject. Usually there were also snippets about pastimes and instructions for making useful things.
The September 1836 issue promoted making penwipers as a type of “amusing needle-work.” A writer could use a plain piece of black wood to discourage cleaning the pen with the fingers or sucking it in the mouth. 
Miss Leslie’s directions in the American Girls’ Book were recommended to those young ladies who would rather have something prettier on their writing desk. Canton-crape in a variety of colors should be cut up into pieces the size of a half dollar and the edges scalloped. Now pieces needed to be sorted into equal piles by color and fastened together by stitching through the centers with silk thread. Next a neat hole should be cut through the centers of all the pieces in each pile with a sharp pair of scissors. Run a silk cord through them like a string of beads, using as long or as short a cord as liked. cord.
More space in 1836 was devoted to the construction of pincushions in novel shapes, most of them lifted from Miss Leslie. A strawberry needed three triangular pieces of 
coarse linen sewn together and stuffed full with bran. The linen bag should be concealed in another bag of red cloth. The top of the red cloth should be gathered and stitched together before covering it with a bit of green velvet scalloped to look like the fruit’s green leaves. All that was wanted was a little green silk cord to imitate the stem and a carefully spaced pattern of small stitches of yellow and black to imitate the strawberry’s seeds. Directions for making a cluster of a dozen hearts for hanging off a mirror was also included.
My favorite craft project was a unique idea for using wine glasses in the November issue’s “Amusing Needle-work” column. This seems to have been inspired by a young lady with strong principles, who had no intention of admitting this kind of glassware into her home. She was almost as adamant about owning tea and coffee cups. “She thinks water a better drink than any other; and for this she uses tumblers.” If there were wine glasses gathering dust in young readers’ cupboards, they could make them into pincushions with very little effort. Here are the directions in full:
Take a common wine-glass, fill it with bran pressed down very tightly and heaped at the top; then take a circular piece of thick silk large enough to cover the top and sides of the glass; tie it on tightly over the top and sides with a ribbon, bringing it down a little below the place where the stem of the glass begins. Lastly, scallop or hem the edge of the silk covering. Such pincushions are quite convenient.