new stamp carving material

For many months (has it been a year, even?) my favorite stamp carving material, PZ Kut (AKA "The Orange Stuff") has been unavailable. I have long ago used up the last little bits of the sheet a friend so generously gave me (before she knew that she'd never be able to get it again, I'm sure!). But my husband has come to the rescue, finding a new stuff that comes fairly cheap and appears to be a good alternative. I shall call it "The Black Stuff." However, I'm not sure if it's a great alternative at this time. For starters, it's difficult to transfer an image, it being black and all. Pencil marks do show up, but it's not that crisp, decisive line that you're used to seeing. Additionally, it appears to be too squishy inside. Now, this beats CRUMBLY any day of the week (and I have mountains of crumbly carving material that I ought to just throw away). I'm not sure if this may just be because my knife is dull. I hope to change out my knife as soon as I get to town for more blades so I can keep you posted on that. But yeah, at this point, it seems to be too squishy inside to work for knife carving.
On the other hand, using the special "V" shaped carving tools, and not carving too deep, I found it to hold a great deal more detail than some other materials I have used and think that it is a sufficient replacement for the orange stuff ... for now. The price is right and it works okay. I do not think that it's a perfect replacement, and still yearn for the awesome texture of PZ Kut.

Summer!

The projectitis has mellowed these days, as the sun is shining and the days are longer, I find myself playing outdoors much more than in the past months. Not that I've stopped the creative pursuits altogether. I did make a lovely collar for my dog -- we got the standard black collar, and I've embellished it with a pretty brocade trim, sequins and beads. Maybe there will be a pic later.

I've been making more cards out of my hand-carved stamps, but there haven't been any new stamps lately.

The cool thing on the stamp front is that I was interviewed in our local entertainment weekly paper about my favorite hobby of letterboxing, and about stamp carving. Here is the article.

The other cool thing was that our dance troupe had our annual big extravaganza evening of dance & music (and yummy cookies) and it went off really well, and the costumes that we worked so hard on looked fabulous and it's such a relief for it to be over now, too. We had fun, and the audience had fun, and it was worth all the trouble and time and expense.

So yeah, I've been busy, just not busy making cool projects to share here. I'm sure there will be more very soon!