Rainbow Star Stamped Manicure (fail-ish)

Howdy, everyone!  Today (well, late last night really) I tried my hand at some stamping.  I rarely do anything with stamps, mostly because my plates kind of suck.  I've got some new ones coming from Born Pretty Store (btw, feel free to use the code in the side bar for 10% off your order with them) so I'm hoping those will be a bit better.  If you'd like to see some examples of excellent stamping, I urge you to check out Kimber's Lacquer Korner.  She's a real expert at it and I'm in awe of her skillz!

Anywho, on to my stamping attempt.

I started here with 2 coats of Tidal Wave by Sinful Colors, a barely-there-baby-blue creme.  To create the rainbow effect for the stamping, I dropped 3 different polishes on the plate before scraping it in several directions.  Llarowe posted a little tutorial on her facebook about the technique last week, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I used China Glaze Sunday Funday, Barielle Cosmic Kiss, and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Limestone.

I'm reasonably happy with the result.  In fact, since this was my THIRD attempt at stamping last night, I'm freakin' thrilled to have accomplished this much.  Seriously, new plates cannot get here fast enough!  As you can see from my thumbnail in the above photo, the images on these plates really aren't large enough to cover all my nails, even when I manage to line it up perfectly...which really doesn't happen that often lol
 

How about you guys?  Are you master stampers?  Or novices like me?  Any tips?

Before I sign off for the evening, I want to remind you all to enter my Birthdanniversary Giveaway.  I've got 3 prize packs up for grabs and only about 20 people have entered so far, so those are pretty good odds!  The giveaway is open through July 18th, so don't miss out!

Thanks so much for reading!