Dangerous curves ahead -- carving curvy stamps

I continue to work my way through Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's book, Carve Stamp Play. I don't know why, but turning small slabs of rubber into tiny pieces of art is so much fun that I can't seem to stop.

But I did slow down when I hit the next set of carving workshops in Julie's book. These were more challenging. Like me, these stamps had lots of curves. Dangerous curves.

When I saw Julie's bracket frame stamp, I thought, oh, this should be easy. Maybe too easy? Should I even bother?

Ah, how looks can deceive. It was very difficult to get those simple curves just right. Here's the evolution of my stamp, from first outline to finished impression.

I tried to be careful, but I still gouged the edges and squared off some of the curves. 

For more practice, I turned to the next exercise -- a cursive word stamp. My word? "Claudia," of course. Do you know how hard it is to find pre-made "Claudia" stamps? "Brittany," "Ashley," sure, but never "Claudia." (Bitter much?)

A little better than the frame (if you ignore those vertical slices in the "d" and second "a.") 

The next stamp I tackled was the versatile "Thank You" stamp. I was excited to carve this one -- I'll never need to buy another thank-you card! Plus, lots of straight lines! The hardest part was making sure I carved only every other triangle. (After I took this photo, I marked the triangles to carve with green ink, per Julie's advice.)

I made a couple of cards out of the finished prints. I'm not crazy about the color combinations, but I'm happy with the way the stamp turned out after I cleaned it up. (Compare the white triangles below with those above.) And the fruits of my curve practice? The smooth "O" and "U." 

I forgot to take in-process photos of this next stamp. It's supposed to look like a woodcut, and I think it does. I experimented with adding a second "interlocking" stamp for the flower centers. Still have to work on my alignment.

On to more interlocking stamps!