What do you like to carve? My dad always carves the turkey on Thanksgiving, so he must like to carve turkey. I knew someone who always carved the birthday cake at work, so she must like to carve cake. I always carve the cheesecake, because I always get the strangest looks when I use a length of string or floss to carve the slices, so I must like to carve cheesecake. What? Think I'm weird? You got me there... but go ahead, try it—because it's the best way to get a nice, clean slice with no crumbles, which leads me to the real reason we're here:

I like to carve rubber. Specifically, the kind that doesn't crumble when you ink it with markers or try to clean with a damp paper towel.

I like to carve rubber! Specifically, the kind that holds ink well and doesn't make your stamping look like a smudged painting.

Did I tell you I like to carve rubber? Well, if I didn't, let me tell you again, and let me also tell you that my favorite material to carve and stamp is...

The Pink Stuff, a.k.a. SpeedyStamp, by Speedball. Why? Because I can find it locally, it's not as expensive as MasterCarve, it comes in a decent size and it's better than most other options. But that's my preference.

So what do you look for in a carving material?

The most important thing is carveability, because if it's difficult to work with, the next most important things, durability and ink retention, won't mean a thing. Difficult material will give you yucko results because you can't carve it well. Typically, the harder the material the harder it is to carve. But you can also have a material that's too soft and yields too much under the pressure of your blade. You'll end up with lumpy lines. You want a material that's hard enough to hold its shape but soft enough to yield to your blade with minimal pressure.

Durability is next, because if your stamp doesn't hold up to inking, cleaning and weather extremes, then the design you spent time (sometimes hours) carving won't hold it's shape. After more than a hundred stamps, I've seen some that have clogged up markers and left micro-stamp-balls all over inkpads. I've seen a stamp that has deteriorated to such a degree it is nearly unrecognizable. I've seen stamps that have split into chunks like icebergs breaking away from a glacier. You want a material that is flexible, rubbery and actually stretches rather than breaking apart like a chunk of styrofoam.

Ink retention comes in at No.3, because if the material doesn't hold the ink, you won't get a good stamping. Your markers will smear and streak, and it just won't look good in your book. You want a material that actually has a little porosity to it. That means it has a textured surface much like that of a fork-split English muffin. Magnified many, many, many times, of course! But the analogy still works: there are microscopic nooks and crannies for the ink to get into and give you a nice, clean stamping. Not surprisingly, the harder, less flexible the material is, the less likely it will be to hold ink.

While I'm on the subject of ink... when it comes to "washable" markers... don't do it. The ink is too thin to adequately coat a stamp and you just get puddles. Standard-issue markers will clean up just fine yet give you better coverage. But that's another show...

Size is important too, because if the material isn't large enough for your design, then...
But there are two ways to think of this:

1) it just won't work if the design just plain doesn't fit, and
2) even if you can digitally shrink the design to fit, you may find it very hard to carve, no matter how good you are.

Some of the most incredible, most detailed hand-carved stamps I've seen have been big. The top stamp on my list is that of Angelina, the Hirsute Beauty, of Boch's Circus fame. That one was at least 3" x 4" inches, and the detail was absolutely incredible. Why? Because it was big, all the detail was larger and easier to see. I'm sure it took a long time to carve that one, but I can also imagine how it was not all that difficult to navigate a blade through.