Guest Post From The Nailasaurus

Hi guys! My name is Sammy and I write a blog called The Nailasaurus and it's where I share all my nail art experiments with the world. When I started blogging back in April 2010 my nail art skills were limited to stamping but as my blog has grown, so has my ability and now I post all kinds of nail art, but still mostly stamping ;)



Today I'm going to share my top three tips for nail art stamping since I always get asked how I achieve my stamping manis.





1. Pick your polish wisely

You can buy 'special' polishes for stamping which are thicker and more opaque than most of the polishes you'd find in any normal collection. However, these can be more expensive than regular polish and don't always come in a great range of colours.

Test out any polish you can with your stamping plates. Look for ones that are 'one coaters', quite opaque and kind of thick. Some will work amazingly, some will be okay and some will just plain suck. It's all trial and error so just keep trying.

I've found that nearly every chrome will work for stamping and some holographics work great too, so dig out any you have lying around in your stash and get stamping!





2. Be prepared

Make sure you have everything you need ready and in front of you before you even think about applying your base coat. You will need your base coat, base colour, stamping colour, stamping plate, stamper and scraper plus any extras you have in your own routine.

If I'm not prepared for a mani and discover that I need to grab something from its storage place halfway through, say my stamping plate, I always ending denting my polish trying to get it out of its fiddly hiding place.



3. Don't rush, but work quickly

Stamping requires that you move quickly to prevent your stamping polish from drying in to the plate or while it's on the stamper. So work at a steady pace but try not to rush because, if you're anything like me, you'll end up getting flustered and the whole adventure will turn in to a disaster - everything that can go wrong probably will!



Without further ado, here is one of my stamping manis. I sometimes jazz them up a bit by adding extra details like rhinestones and glitter or colouring in parts of the design with a little nail brush. You can see all the details and a list of polishes just below.

Plate: Bundle Monster BM210

Base Colour: Essence Cool and the Gang

Stamp Colour: GOSH Metallic Purple

Barry M Cyan Blue for the details, applied with a tiny nail art brush.

Top Coat of NYC






Huge thanks to Chell for inviting me to write a post and I hope you guys enjoyed reading it!