lesson 3 in stamp carving 101...

My head cleared a little more today so i decided to have a little go at some simple, soothing stamp carving and today i opted for Julie's lesson 3 of the stamp carving 101.

Julie's design was a contained chevron pattern that could be repeat stamped seamlessly and was cool...but i couldn't see myself using it much...and as energy and coordination are in such short supply i thought i'd adapt it to a border that i was much more likely to use.  No point wasting time, energy and rubber on something that doesn't get me itching, right? ;0)

To help you follow along with my design process...i've stamped out my stamp at various stages during its evolution {as Julie recommends} and you can see the progress from simple chevron lines in stage one, adding the stitched border a la Julie in stage two, and the addition of shading in stages three and four:

its funny how doing it like this is less intimidating too...if i'd drawn out the finished stamp right from the beginning...i might have been tempted to think...help!  *that's going to take all day*...but actually...the whole process took twenty minutes from start to finish! :0)

and here is a shot of the stamp as it is when inked...and another of the tag I've created using my funky new border stamp!  I have to say, i'm rather chuffed with this little border stamp and can see myself using it in my journal or on scrapping pages in the future too...so well worth the effort, i'd say!