The Keeper stamp plate.

I was really inspired by this months' Craft Stamper magazine - lots of lovely projects in there - brilliant.

I actually have one of the stamps that was used in there too - which is a first! 

I bought it from Happy Daze  and two of their design team members are featured in the magazine this month.  Sadly I can't put any scanned photos on here as the magazine is not in the shops until 4th December (mine came early as I subscribe to it), but you can see some of the examples if you click the Happy Daze link above. 

One of those featured in the magazine is Paula a friend of mine - and I was inspired to have a go.

I decided to make myself an address book as ours is so old and is falling apart.

The trouble is people keep moving, and in the years I have had it some have moved 5 times - it is a real mess.

This book is really really thick and I used the largest size O wires to make it.  Lots and lots and lots of pages, and made this way so that I can just tear out any that get changed.   The covers are made out of mount board which I painted, inked then stamped, with images from the set of The Keeper stamps.  I was dreaming of a really hot steamy summers evening, with a few wispy white clouds just appearing over the horizon, and the sun. 

I have given it a couple of coats of varnish to keep it clean, so looks nice and shiny.

Sections of the inside pages are divided with tags, onto which I will put the letters of the alphabet for that section, once have all been entered. We have lots of surnames beginning with the same letter, and some letters of the alphabet haven't a single address, so this way I can divide it to suit our needs - which is not taken into account when you buy an address book - well it can't be can it!

At the back of the inside cover I have made a pocket which will hold 'business cards' which will be handy, and at the moment I am not sure whether to buy a journal stamp for the pages, or to just write them up by hand on the plain paper (Patrick has volunteered for that job!) 

I have a busy few days coming up, so probably won't be able to do any crafting until the weekend - but I hope to have time to visit your blogs to see what you are up too late in the evenings.

Have you see these before?

Firstly thanks for all the emails - I am feeling much better now thanks.  I slapped on the sunblock and went for an hours walk around the village. Bright sunshine, yet very very cold, but it was a real tonic to be out in the fresh air and getting some exercise.

Now swiftly changing the subject...................

Have you seen these before?

The window cleaner can this week and asked Patrick if I wanted some feathers for my arty crafty work.

I think he said that they were 'Hedgecock'  feathers - but as I rely on lipreading it is probably a totally different bird as I have never heard of a 'Hedgecock'.

Edited to day  -  thank you, thank you, thank you - for telling me its a Woodcock.  And thank you Paula for the Google link.  Now all I have to do is to work out how to paint with them!

What a beautiful little bird - I do so hope that it wasn't shot - but sadly I suspect that it might have been.  It's surely too tiny to eat.  

 I expected feathers akin to pheasant or partridge (as it is the shooting season around here with guns going off most days in the fields around).  Anyhow, I was greatly surprised when he opened his wallet (I know - and you're right - in these here parts it's rare you see a local open their wallet - and never to take anything out of it!) In fact this was a first for me!  He went on to say that artists use them for painting with.  They push them in a ???????? and then paint with the feather!

I think that they must be rather rare and he probably came across it on one of his shoots, but I would love to know more about it and the painting side of it.   They are so tiny as you can see by the small matchstick I photographed them against.  He definitely said 'paint' with them as opposed to using them as a quill in ink.