Adventures in Stamping

Hi guys! It's looking like it's going to be another polish-centric week on my blog! Never fear, I have a review and swatches of a new Elf eye shadow palette coming up as well as a few other things up my sleeve, so if you're a makeup lover and groan when I post back to back to back polish stuff, there's something coming for you quite soon!

But, today I want to talk to you guys about my very first experience with nail stamping. I have been a huge fan of a lot of nail blogs for years because I just love looking at the nail art and designs people come up with. Not being a huge nail art person myself (I don't have a steady hand) I would always appreciate the nail art, but never be able to duplicate it. So when I looked into stamping, and realized that it looked pretty easy, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot.

I went through and looked at a lot of different stamping sets. I did a lot of research on nail blogs and watched a ton of youtube videos on stamping and finally decided I was going to go for it. I started out as cheaply as possible. I figured I would buy the bare minimum of what I needed, and that way, if stamping wasn't for me, I wouldn't be out a ton of money. So I went on amazon and found just a basic stamping set from Konad. I purchased the Konad Double Side Stamp set, which came with a double sided stamp and a metal scraper.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MZ8BK2/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And then I just purchased a single image plate from amazon as well. I got the Konad Stamping image plate M3. Which has a couple of different heart images, some star images, some flowers and some bows.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001LTVF2G/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

All told I spent less than 10 dollars, which I was pleased with. At least if the stamping thing didn't work out, I wasn't out much!!

So the items arrived in a few days and I promptly put them in my nail polish drawer. I waited a few days before pulling them out and giving them a try. I'll admit I was intimidated. But at last, today I decided to give it a try. First I painted two coats of a cream finish nail polish on to act as my base. I used a Revlon top Speed Polish in the color stormy. no rhyme or reason other than I wanted something that would dry quickly and also, I have really been feeling more fall time appropriate polishes lately.

When I was sure that the polish was 100% dry (I waited about an hour, just to be extra sure!) I pulled out my stamping supplies!

I decided to try stamping with the Wet n Wild wild shine polish in the color French white creme. The first design I decided I try was the bows in the center of the plate. I applied the polish to the image, scraped off the excess using the metal scraper, and picked up the image with the small side of my stamper. The image transferred beautifully to the stamper. I picked up the image with a sort of rolling motion then I applied the image to my ring finger using the same rolling motion. Aha! the image transferred beautifully. Not perfect, mind you, but hey, that was pretty easy! So I decided to try another image. I applied the polish to the image of the stars, scraped off the excess, and stamped! Again, super easy! I went ahead and tried some other images on my various finger nails and they all transferred pretty well. There was a bit of a smudging incident on my pointer finger with the heart design. And I was off center here and there, but overall I couldn't get over how easy this was! Hey, I can do this! Sure, practice is going to make perfect, but this was a lot easier than what I thought it was going to be!!

Overall I am VERY pleased with the stamper that I purchased. I think it does the trick super easily! I might invest in a plastic scraper, though, since I hear that the metal ones can scratch the surface of the plates. I am definitely going to be purchasing more image plates. This was a great, basic plate to start out with, but I am already dreaming of other images, and maybe even full nail designs! I am super glad I read up on stamping before I started so I knew not to waste my money on the konad special polish. While I am sure it works wonders, I already have so many polishes, and the wet n wild wild shine polish worked perfectly for this! I am thrilled with the results of my first stamping session, and can't wait to keep experimenting!