Stamping Plates 101 - The Rectangular Ones

 

Why stamping?

I think the main reason to start stamping is that we saw something awesome and wanted it on our nails - either thinking 'Ooooh, that girl's nails look amazing!  How did she do that?!' and discovering it was stamping and not nail vinyls, or seeing a stamping plate with some amazing designs and thinking 'MUST.HAVE.NOW.'  Mine was a blend of the two.  I remember buying tons of stamping plates about 8 years ago from Konad and sucking at stamping; like, I could barely pick up a tiny little butterfly to stamp on my nails and I had zero patience :(  I remember the times... it was sad times.

Stamping vs nail wraps - I find vinyls and wraps too fiddly; placement is always tricky and if you had to lift it to re-place it again, its lose some stickiness and then boom, barely any wear time.  They're also pretty pricey for what they are and I just got annoyed by them in the end!
With stamping, it's all about making it unique and it's easy too!  You can pick your background colour and your stamping colour and even do gradients, blends and all sorts to make it exactly the way you want it.  Woo hoo!

 

 Which plates should I choose?

There's a ton to choose from, so I'm going to start which my favourites in the larger, rectangular variety category.

A couple of notes:

- All plates you buy brand new should have a thin, blue film over the images side of the plate to protect it from scratches.  If you see superficial scratches, don't worry, it's doubtful they will pick up when you stamp, but if there are big ones and they do affect your stamping, contact the supplier, because that's not cool. 

- Also, some have a plastic backing, some don't.  If they don't, watch yourself - they can be mega sharp on the sides and you can scratch/cut yourself.  Even the Uberchic ones with the thin backing and rounded edges are still sharp.  We are dealing with stainless steel here, after all.

- All plates are my own and were not send to me by the manufacturer, so these are my honest reviews on these plates.  If anything is sent to me and I review it, I will inform you explicitly.  :)

- I am just getting started with blogging, so if my photos suck, I'm really sorry- I am working on this whole photo taking malarkey and promise they will get better.  To add to my woes, taking plate pictures is hard because of the damned reflection!  :(

 

 Moyou London

Moyou London are a friendly UK based company but they do ship internationally and they release 3 new plates every Friday!  This is good and bad - good in that you can always have up-to-the minute designs, bad in that your bank balance depletes unusually fast!
Their plates are stunning.  Like I would hug them if they were big enough and if it wasn't really, really weird.  They make me freak out about how beautiful they are, as all awesome stamping plates will, and they make me want to swatch immediately.  Moyou also have a series called XL where the images are a few millimetres bigger for those of us with longer or bigger nails- I usually go for these as I have more chance of getting the entire image on my nail if it's not a full image plate- as shown above.  They cost £4.99 a pop and only come in the rectangular size in a cute sleeve specific to the collection you are buying.  Don't confuse these with Moyou from the USA - they sell the smaller disc plates.

 Dashica

 

 

Dashica ship internationally with a spend of over €75 (this is way too easy to hit!).  These plates, like Moyou, are absolutely beautiful- so far I have only tried the Infinity plates, but there are 3 other sizes in her plates.  I chose the Infinity ones as there is a choice of full images and nail sized designs on each plate and I am always more attracted to those images on the Infinity plates.  The designs are unique and I love the fact that you have some Hello Kitty and cuteness thrown in for good measure!  These are the same size as the Moyou plates and the quality is excellent, and they do not come with a protective sleeve for storage.  These are only €4.99 each, which is a freaking steal.

Uberchic

 

 

Uberchic ship from the USA, and if you live in the UK or Europe, take about two weeks to arrive- delivery is $10, which isn't bad.

There isn't a huge collection of these plates- just 2 sets at the moment, consisting of 3 pretty large plates, which are sold at $24.99.  I was going to buy both sets, but the second set had a load of nautical and holiday themed images, which didn't really float my boat.  Oh dear, pun unintended believe it or not!  Set 1 is awesome and if you love peacocks, flowers and pretty prints, you will love it.  They just came bubble wrapped and have no sleeve, which would've been cool to have. Again, the quality of these plates is fantastic and I love them, even if they are a little more pricey, but you do get about 30 nail sized images on each plate.

Born Pretty Store

 

 

Born Pretty is a company that offers free international shipping from China, so delivery to Europe is usually around one to two weeks and they do not come with sleeves.

They sell everything cute and shiny, including some brilliant nail plates in the classic small, round discs to the more recent launch of their larger, rectangular places- again, the same size as Moyou and Dashica plates.  These are crazy cheap, around $4 and you can often find them cheaper on ebay, which is weird, and there are always 10% off codes floating around for you to use on their site(mind you, this is only on full price products, and lots of products are always reduced by some amount, so it doesn't shave too much off, but great to have all the same).  Nail stamping groups I am a part of on Facebook often post cheaper plates from BP coming from eBay, so it's always good to keep an eye out.  These are the same size as Moyou and Dashica, but like I said, they have the little disc ones too.

 

My Online Shop

 

 

These plates ship from a lady in the Philippines from her website.  I haven't ordered from there but she told me shipping plates to the UK would be free, which is cool.  The massive plates called MJ plates are $18 each, and a friend I made on a stamping site on Facebook sent me two of hers as she didn't use them and they are the Hello Kitty and cartoon character ones- they are just too adorable.  $18 is a lot but the images are pretty unique and have around 30 images on each (obviously this varies) and the quality is amazing.  Sometimes there are discount codes around, I missed the last one, and they usually give you about 10% off.

Sugar Bubbles 

 

 

Rainbow Connection sells these in the UK and they also ship internationally.

I only have two because I just wanted to try them as they looked cute and they're £7 each, which is steep seeing as they are smaller than Moyou, Dashica and BP plates and no protective sleeve.  They stamp well and the designs are super cute (that's what sucked me in!) but I'm not sure I would buy these again as they are not value for money compared to the above ones I've mentioned.  Maybe if they were cheaper, I'd change my mind, but I have a ton of other plates capturing my attention right now so I'll probably give these a miss in future, unless they came out with something so cute I just HAD to have.

It scares me that I could talk about stamping plates forever, which is why you will have this one post about the larger, rectangular ones, and another about the smaller, classic disc shaped ones!  So watch this space for another post coming soon! :D