This could be seriously dangerous.

I know many of you may find this hard to believe, but I can’t remember ever having carved my own stamps. Not even out of potato, but surely I did that at some point as a kid? I don’t know.

What I do know is that this week’s 2D design class homework could easily become a new obsession. We had to carve four stamps inspired by art nouveau motifs, then use two at a time to create four designs: all-over, diagonal, horizontal, and vertical.

OMG. So. Much. Fun.

All-over design.

Diagonal design.

Vertical design.

My first attempt at a horizontal design.

While I thought the horizontal was stronger than the vertical, I wanted the horizontal to stand out more, so I tried off-setting alternate rows to break up the vertical line. But I squished the rows together too much and also ended up de-emphasizing the horizontal.

The design below is the horizontal design I handed in — with the alternate rows off-set but spaced apart a bit. Now *that’s* horizontal!

Now I’m dying to research materials I can use to make larger stamps and to stamp fabric. Wow, this could get ugly.

Since I’ve had a kind of slow week in many regards, I’ve been trying to catch up with a few things, like getting on top of my classes so that I am working on my assignments closer to when they are assigned instead of just before they are due. Working on my graphic design drawing class assignment last minute was a real pain this week, so I want to avoid that in the future!

I have also FINALLY sewn and sent off the skirt I promised my sister last Christmas! I actually made her one in March that turned out to be way too big, despite having taken her measurements. So, I relented and did a muslin based on her calculations of how much it needed to be taken in, and then finally just made the real thing that *should* fit.

Whew! It’s good to finally mark off everything I needed to do for the holidays. 2009.

I’m not sure if I’ll be back here on Friday, so, just in case I’m not, have a great weekend everyone!