My very first (presentable) stamping manicure

First of all: Merry Christmas to all of you and your loved ones!!! In Switzerland we celebrate Christmas Eve. My hubby and I will go out for an exquisite gourmet dinner with some friends - we do this since many years and it became a beloved tradition.

A couple of weeks back my wonderful sister of polish from Brazil sent two huge stamping plates my way. She probably got tired of me gushing over her beautifully stamped nails and whining over my inability to get any decent stamp on my nails - LOL!!! I had bought a tiny whiny plate from Essence along with equally minuscule stamp and scrapper and did not achieve anything but smears :-S

While everybody claims this to be a piece of cake and the quickest way to do nailart it actually DOES require some elbow grease to learn the trick. It is about using the right polish to stamp, to hold the scrapper at the right angle to move it over the pattern and lastly to take-up and apply the pattern in a soft , smooth roll. Just to tell you as much: it took me a fair bit of practise and questions to other Bloggers to achieve below result and yet I have miles to go to get anywhere near moderate perfection!!! In case you never tried, don't shy away just because of my ranting - it is not rocket-science and please consider I am not really gifted in any crafts involving my hands ;-)

This was supposed to become a skittlette. Oh man, I screwed up properly in my choice of colors and textures. It never looked anything beyond weird. I started saving the mani by simply adding a second stamped nail, well from there you can guess....

both photos taken in daylight

I used Essence Antique Pink from their most recent Vintage District Collection as Base Color and Maybelline Forever Strong in gold metallic for stamping. I left my pinkie as it was from my excursion on skittlette territory because the nail is very small and when having nubs it is minuscule.

indoors in artificial light (sorry for the spot on my index - bad cut from our office move :-( )

Final thoughts: having decent equipment is the starting point. Getting low quality products does not help to motivate practising. So a BIG thank you to my beloved friend in Brazil to have sent those plates my way and persisted in me trying and her patience (along with Nati from the Polish Polygot) to answer all my questions - "grand bisou" for the two of you <3.

What was your first experience with stamping? What are your plans for Christmas Eve?

I look forward to reading your comments - thanks for visiting!!!
Christine