Hola my loves! Today we're going to continue my Stamping 101 series with Stampers. Sure plates are important to stamping, obvi, but stampers are just as important, if not more. Once you discover your holy grail stamper, it will literally change your world. Literally
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| I keep my heads in a pill organizer. These little lovely jars can be found at any drugstore. |
Stampers consist of two pieces, the stamper head and the holder. Stamper heads can usually be pulled out of the holder. If you have a head or a holder of the same size, you can change it up and use a different head with the holder. You can usually purchase the stamper heads by themselves, if you are either having problems with your stamper head or if you just need a new one.
The first stamper I used came in the MoYou USA kit i bought and it never really worked for me. I never got the hang of it, it didn't really pick up images, it sucked. It might work for some of you, but it didn't work for me.
The MoYou USA (there's a difference between MoYou USA and MoYou London) stamper is a lot like the Konad stamper. It's short with a small handle and a hard rubber head. These types of hard or firm stampers work best when you roll the stamper on the plate and then roll the stamper on your nail bed.
This stamper was hell for me. I tried priming it but it never worked out for me. But that right there is a great segue to Priming.
Priming is when you basically have to prep the stamper for use. Some hard stampers can be primed by lightly being filed with a nail file. That is not recommended for silicone or softer stampers. You can also try priming the stamper head with acetone or nail polish remover by wiping it over the head. A magic eraser (totally the same kind you use for cleaning your house) can also be used, and is very encouraged in the next stamper I used called the Creative Shop Stamper.
The Creative Shop Stamper was really a game changer for me and for a lot of people in the stamping community. It was one of the first stampers that used a softer silicone head that was semi transparent and was huge. Depending on the plate that you use, you can stamp a couple of different nails with one go.
My only issue with this is that it's so big, you can't really see where you're stamping so unless you pick up the stamper and bring your nail to the image, it's hard to get the image exactly where you want it on your nail. But it's amazing and because of it I purchased something similar, but squishier.
Chelle We Stamp, started selling this stampers that were labeled as sticky and squishy. And boy were they. I discovered that for me, the stickier, squishier stampers work best. These stampers look very similar to the Creative Shop Stamper; they even use the same holder, but the head is totally different.
I bought both the semi transparent and white version of this stamper. These are so very marshmallow-ey soft and have a slight tackiness that help with picking up images with finer lines or plates that are a little more shallow. The only real downside to these stampers is that since it is sticky, you have to keep them covered because of dust and if you have a pet, hair. Also, like the creative shop stamper, it can be really hard to see your placement. If only they made a clear version...
The clear stamper first dropped a couple of months ago in a lilac holder. I didn't really jump on the bandwagon until a clear version of the holder came out. It was worth it, but the stamper itself doesn't come without drawbacks.
Since this is made of a a harder silicone, I had trouble picking up certain images with it. It's one of those things that when it works, the image comes out beautifully. But I find this stamper is pickier than other stampers I've used. It won't work with certain polishes and plates. There's supposed to be a squishier, stickier version of the clear head and I'm totally looking forward for that,
Stampers usually come with a scraper but if I'm being completely honest, I just use a store card. You can use an old credit card, gift card, or anything that you can clean up easily, really.
That's it for this part of the series. Hopefully you learned a little more about stampers and scrapers.
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