My First Experience Of Stamping...

I was really eager to get stamping away when my new plates arrived so I waited until my little girl Gracie was in bed and got all my nail things out. I have to say that I did think I was going to get it straight away and I got very frustrated that it wasn't coming out perfect straight away until some other people told me that you just need to practice a few times. I wasn't sure whether I should post the pics as it was a massive fail, but actually it's good for other newbie stampers such as myself to see what my experience has been like.

So to start off with I had a little lap tray with all the equipment I needed and covered it with some kitchen roll as I'd heard this can get quite messy. Then I picked out a stamping plate, the one I chose was BM210. Next was to decide which polish I wanted to stamp with, well that wasn't too much of a choice as I wanted to use one of my new Konad Special Polishes and I only had them in black or white, so I chose white.

So the first step is to paint your nails as normal with a base and top coat. I used my usual Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Base and Top Coat for the base, then two coats of Orly Elsbeth's Rose, then the same Sally Hansen as the top coat aswell. I let that dry for about twenty minutes, and then I was ready to stamp.

I knew that I had to work quickly with everything and that all of the tools needed to be cleaned with nail polish remover after each stamping, so I soaked a cotton pad with  nail polish remover - at the moment I'm using Boots Conditioning Nail Polish Remover.

I painted the polish on to the plate, scraped, and then rolled the stamper over. Next was to transfer the image on to the nail, this is a little more difficult than I thought as it takes a bit of getting used to, to line it all up properly. But I think by the last two nails on my right hand, I'd got a little better at it (still not brilliant).

This Special Konad polish seems to dry very quickly, so you need to do each step as quick as you can, or the image wont transfer properly. It's also allot easier to roll the stamp from one side the other rather than just using a stamping motion - I'd learned this from watching several video's on Youtube.

All in all the process seems fairly simple, but I think perfecting it is going to take some practice. But I would highly recommend getting some stamping plates if you don't have any yet, as they are an excellent simple way of doing nail art, without actually having to be artistic. You are also going to be saving yourself allot of money, as nail art from a salon be pretty pricey.

I know my first attempt isn't exactly perfect, and I've not lined it up properly and some of the image hasn't transferred properly, but this post is not about showing you my magnificent stamping skills, it's about showing my first experience in stamping, so please don't leave me any mean comments. I'll keep you informed of how I'm getting on and no doubt I'll be posting nail of the days with stamping in them.

So for now that's all from me, take care all. Byeeeeeeeeeeee x :-)