Need Some Design Help

[ETW Grumpy]

I'm doing this wallet for a friend. It's a biker style with a veg tan back and pre-made insides. I uploaded a graphic that I threw together in Photoshop to explain what I'm asking. It's not to scale or anything fancy like that, just shows the elements involved. The black line inside the perimeter of the piece represents the stitch line. My question is this, the graphics look kind of odd just floating around in space so I thought I might do a border with the standard border tools you would use, the ones that look like little sea shells or fans, but considering the subject matter it just didn't seem to fit. I have the meander tool set with a cross on top, but even the smallest one will crowd the graphics and detract from the tooling. I thought I might come in another 1/8" or 1/16" from the stitch line and cut another line and bevel it on the inside of the cut basically framing the graphics. I might also do a little texture right inside the frame but not much. Hopefully all of this babbling makes sense. Can I get some opinions on my idea and maybe other suggestions too. Thanks y'all.

Levi

Edited June 17, 2014 by ETW Grumpy

[jmann8686]

You could always do some backgrounding around the images. Just another thought

[ConradPark]

Hmm, another suggestion could be that instead of tooling a border you could 'airbrush' a color difference, let say from almost black in the edges that blends in to light brown or something. If you do not have an airbrush you can get a similar effect with dabbing lightly with a sponge - try on a bit of test leather first though! The design can either be colored in with acrylics later or you color them first and protect it with a laquer so you can just wipe of the color that get on top.

[ETW Grumpy]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm still deciding.