Sunday 27 January 2013

Sam Attempts Stamping

You may remember from my New Year's blogging resolutions post that I said I was going to make better use of my stamping supplies by posting at least one stamped manicure a month.  I regretted this almost instantly.  I've put it off as long as possible, but now the end of the month is fast approaching, and it'd be a shame not to even make my resolutions last through January...

She here it is, my first attempt at stamping in 2013.


Not wanting to throw myself in at the deep end, I just went for stamped accent nails.  Baby steps, you know.

I used Barry M Gold Foil and Teal, and Konad plate M83.  I think my issue with stamping is that I can't get it perfect.  When I do freehand, it's obviously not going to be perfect, because it's freehand.  But with stamping, there's no reason it shouldn't be perfect lol.  I do love that you can get such fine detail that I'd never be able to paint freehand though, and that you can get consistent results on every nail.

A few problems I encountered.

I'm rolling the stamp sideways across my nail, but then it misses off the top and bottom, since my nails and the stamper are quite curved in all directions.  I tried just pressing the stamper into my nail so that it was in contact with nail across the whole length, as I rolled it sideways.  On my index finger this ended up in all my polish getting smooshed up (you might just be able to make this out, although I hid it pretty well with the angle of the photo lol).  Is this what other people do?  Do I just need to let it dry a bit longer, or do I need to go for a roll across, roll up and down type manoeuvre?  Any tips are greatly appreciated!

Here's a close up of the non-smooshed nail.


A few little gaps but, all in all, I don't think it's bad!  Hopefully I can just keep improving from here :)

How about you - do you get on better with stamping or freehand?


4 comments:

  1. Your nails look awesome! I have the same problems when stamping though. I like to wait til my polish is completely dry so I can press down a little harder so the stamp gets the whole nail when I roll it across my nails.

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    1. Thanks Helen :) I'll try to be more patient in future then and let it fully dry first!

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  2. Hi Sam. When I stamp, I also make sure my nails are dry first - plus I put on a quick-drying top coat over my base coat. That way, if I make a really bad mistake that I can't live with, it's easy to remove the stamping by using a lint roller.

    When my nails are long, I have problems getting the image at the top and bottom. What I tend to do nowadays is to roll across my nail, angling towards the top a bit, then when I hit the other side, come down and back across the bottom of the nail. So, sort of a circular motion. It's not infallible, but works most of the time.

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    1. Ah ok, that technique sounds interesting, I'll certainly give that a go. Great tip with the top coat! Would some sellotape work to remove it as well? Not too sticky though...

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