Adventures in stamping

My feelings about stamping thus far ^

I have always admired the ladies that have perfected stamping, and I've wanted to give it a go for quite some time. I got a basic konad set several months ago, along with a few plates of singular images, I wasn't blown away by them though. I decided to order two sets of pueen plates, totaling 52 plates a few weeks ago, and these are my stamping adventures thus far.

Nothing to disclose

First, let me just say, I have been so frustrated the past couple of weeks to the point that I was in a nailpression! I was so unsatisfied with my stamping attempts. Between the images not picking up on my stampers, not getting the image to stamp fully on my nail, to scratching my image plates and ruining them..I was ready to throw in the towel! Or..throw my stamper across the room..
I used konad stamping polishes and a konad stamper. I have a winstonia stamper, but more on THAT later..

This was my very first attempt. I did a blue gradient, and stamped with pueen plate 44. This took me TWO HOURS. That doesn't even include the gradient time, that was two hours to do the stamping! I couldn't get the full image to transfer on my konad stamper to save my life! And when I finally did, it just looked a hot mess to me. I fairy dusted that shit to try to save it.

My second attempt went MUCH better, pretty flawless if I do say so myself. I had zero issues getting the image onto the stamper. I was satisfied with this one. Pueen plate 33.

This is my third and favorite stamp thus far. GORGEOUS! I hadn't painted my nails black in so long..I loved the color combo. I used pueen plate 25. Zero issues getting image to transfer to stamper and onto nail. At this point, after 2 great stamping sessions I thought "hey, this isn't so bad!!" Yea..

Then this mess happened. I had no issues stamping, but the colors I chose were just so wrong. It looked like a muddled mess from afar. I wanted to have cute nails when I went to the Kentucky state fair, but I think I failed big time (see: fairy dust). It seems like every time I go somewhere, my nails are a mess, but when I'm sitting at home and no one gets to see my nails, they're flawless. How annoying is that?! I used pueen plate 46.

I had a really hard time picking this image up, I also have a hard time lining it up right on my nail, which is something I definitely need work on. I also stretched the image a bit and it looks distorted from how I stamped it on. Pueen plate 49.

Throughout all of these, I had been desperately trying to get my winstonia stamper to work. I buffed and buffed, finally took some ladies suggestions and used a Mr. Clean magic eraser..finally! I found out that winstonia stampers DO NOT like konad stamping polish, this is the first time I used regular nail polish. Pueen plate 04.

I loved this mani. I opted to only stamp one accent nail, zero issues at all! Pueen plate 25.

This stamp session made me want to give up at stamping all together. I had tried to use pueen plate 39 on a mani for my mother, with little success. I tried my konad stamper, winstonia stamper, konad polishes, various brands of regular polish..and this was the best that I could do.

I've come to the conclusion that I will not give up stamping, just put it aside for a while. I also think that some pueen plates are shallow and that's why I'm unable to pick up images no matter what I do. I've read reviews and seen comments from others dealing with the same issue..so maybe it's not just me and my inability to stamp. I'm going to try another brand of plates, maybe bundle monster, and see how that goes. Someday I will be ready for MoYou plates :)