Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Nail Stamping Tips

One thing I realized the last few times I used my latest Bundle Monster set was that I kept messing up. At first I thought it was the plates themselves, however after doing things a little differently I was able to get perfect stamps every time.

If you are new to stamping or are having trouble, see below and let me know if these tips help!

- make sure your scraper and stamper are clean before you start. The stamper may be a no-brainer, but if the scraper is still dirty from your last time of usage it may not scrape the polish evenly which may lead to extra streaks of polish on your stamper when you pick up the design or miss parts of the design. Also be sure to wipe the scraper in-between stamping.

- try different polishes. Having trouble stamping with a particular polish? Try one if these:
- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
- dark, highly pigmented polishe
- thick polishes

The Insta-Dries are the only brand I am confident is saying are really great for stamping with. I'm sure there are other out these, but these I really prefer (second of course the Konad Special polish).

- when picking up the design I find some brands of plates are different, play around and decide what pressure is right for picking up the design on the stamper. For the most part I find a light rocking motion from one side to the other works best (Konad and Bundle Monster), however some other plates may need more pressure to be applied in order to pick up the design (Born Pretty Store). If you are trying out a new design test it out a few times before deciding the best way to continue.

- my top tip: make sure you thoroughly clean the plate with acetone to ensure all dry/old polish is removed from the design. This was my main issue! I would use a design for the first time and it would stamp beautifully, the second time + always gave me trouble! I had been using a polish remover to clean the plate, but it wasn't good enough. Once I started using acetone I had no problems at all with picking up any nail design!

Hope these tips help, do you have any of your own, I'd love to hear them! Happy Stamping :)

7 comments:

  1. Great tips! I find that brand new stampers give me trouble as they'r too shiny and smooth to pick up and grip polish effectively. So I always use a nail file to rough up the surface of the stamper and that solves the problem right away! Makes it better at picking up polish and transferring it to the nails =]

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    1. Thanks for the tip, glad you enjoyed the post!

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  2. Hi,

    Thanks for the tips, they are very useful. Lately, I've been having a problem of my own. I noticed that when the image is "flat" (no details, for example BM 311, the lozanges at lower left), the stamper never picks it up entirely. Does anyone else have the same problem and do you have any advice?

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    1. I had some issues with the second set of plates Bundle Monster released. Your best bet is to contact them directly for plates with shallow designs, I did and they sent me new plates :)

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  3. Thanks, glad you enjoyed the post :)

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  4. Great suggestion, thanks! Do you have BM 311 and did you ever try the lozanges? I've had the same problem with the same kind of designs on Cheeky plate N, the entire left row, which makes me think it has to do with that kind of undetailed image and the way I use the scraper...

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    1. I haven't used my BM plate 311 yet, so I am uncertain. I only own one of the Cheeky plates and it the one of the XL ones, I absolutely love it! the designs stamp perfectly every time.

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