Amazon is an amazing thing, it is also very dangerous. Right
after Christmas I was tempted by the Amazon gods and spent $40 on nail stuff
(including shipping, for some reason saying ‘including shipping’ makes me feel
better about the expense). On January 2nd I got home from work only
to discover a mini Christmas in my mail box, I had four packages waiting for my
arrival. I gleefully opened them up and I am now the proud owner of my very own
stamping set. I got two different polishes (Konad black and white), a double
ended stamper, scraper, plate holder, and a set of 25 Shany plates (numbered
1-25). Needless to say I was super crazy excited to paint my nails.
This post is going to include my first and second attempt at
stamping my nails; I feel it necessary to admit at this point that stamping is
way harder than I thought. I learned many lessons with my first attempt,
spoiler alert: my first try turned out terribly. The plates came in a little
box to keep them organized (which I loved) and they all had a blue film over
the engraved side to prevent scratching during shipping. The blue film was
really hard to remove and I actually have only managed to get it off about 10
of the plates. So far I’ve found one plate that was scratched under the film,
it did ruin one of the designs but the design it ruined is the word ‘sexy’ so I’m
not too distraught at losing that one. For the first manicure I used Sally
Hansen CSM Shell we Dance?, and Color
Club Status Update.
Starting with my thumb: SH22, SH13, SH13, SH03, SH24
Starting with my pinkie: SH22, SH10, SH03, SH24, SH18
As you can see from the pictures, I ran
into a lot of trouble with the scrapping step of nail stamping. I found that I
couldn’t get the scrapper to have even pressure so it left some extra paint in
some areas. Speed is very important when doing stamping and I’m not a speedy
nail artist, so I had paint drying all over the place. If you are thinking of
trying nail stamping I would suggest having a lot of Q-tips handy and remover
for cleanup of your tools. I would also warn against putting on your topcoat too
soon, I figured I could put it on soon than normal nail art and ended up
smearing a few of them pretty bad. As soon as I was done with these I wanted to
try stamping again, but as I wasn’t feeling well, it took me a couple of days
before I had the chance to repaint (yes I had these jacked up nails for more
than one day). For my second attempt I used OPI Rosy Future and Goldeneye.
I used plate SH18 for this hand
It was hard to get the whole nail covered
The adorable squirrel lives on plate SH10
Practice makes a huge difference. For my second attempt I
took my time while working quickly (if that makes sense). If I didn’t like how
the stamp looked on my stamper, I took it off and started over instead of
trying to make it work. I think nail stamping is a lot like everything else in
nail art in that the more you do it the better it turns out. I really like the
finished product of these nails, the white on Rosy Future turned out so feminine and pretty. Each plate averages
6 designs and the whole plate set was only around $12. I’m really looking
forward to using at the heart designs for Valentine’s day J
I like them! :o)
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