Hiya stampaholics,
Uniting under the sun of mutual stamping obsession is fun isn't it? Today I'm reviewing the new Cici & Sisi Jumbo plates I ordered from Amazon. For those of you who didn't see the first post on the Cici & Sisi plates you can find my original post
here. This post is fairly pic heavy so I'm just going to dive right in with that caveat that if you are interested in a particular element such as size comparisons of images from different places or the stamper itself or tips and tricks for using these sets you can scroll through first.
Cover inside the faux leather binders before you get to the plates.
Each set contains 6 individual plates with roughly 24 full sized images and 12 smaller sized images. The plates themselves measure 14.5 x 9.5 cm, I went ahead like the obsessive compulsive woman I am and did a close up of all the plates for you to see. I liked the results so much this is how I'm doing my reviews of plates from now on.
Set 1
The back of each plate has a stiff plastic board attached (think MoYou London style). Both Set 1 (white) and Set 2 (pink) have the website embossed on the backs for ease of recognition though on further inspection I have found no such website exists.
Set 2
Note that as the sets progressed they continued the numbers in a linear fashion instead of restarting the count which I like.
The Stamper
As I said before each set as a whole comes with a small squishy grey stamper and a metal scraper. Do yourself a favor and throw the scraper away it will just scratch up your plates and ruin your good time. I saw some other ladies had some mixed reviews about the stampers that came with their sets. The stampers are roughly 2.4 x 2.6 cm. They are squishy consistency
with a slight firmness. These are NOT the sticky type of stamper (unless you file it) but do
mold relatively well to rounded nail beds. Furthermore because they
are gray you can see any white images you choose to stamp very clearly.
My stamper did not come as some did in an extra oily configuration. It came slightly squishy with little to no sticky component. Things that bug me about stampers tend to be a lack of flexibility and durability which is not a deficit for the stampers I received in my opinion. However I put some tips and tricks below to prep your stamper if you run into these issues. I ended up filing my stamper which resulted in better image pick-up and an increased sticky component to the pad. In short the stamper is a marshmallow in hiding.
Tips/Troubleshooting
- Oily Stamper: Wipe the stamper head over a few times with pure acetone on a cotton ball to remove as much of this component as possible. Let dry completely and then repeat until the oily residue is gone.
- Stamper Wont Pick Up: Take a nail file/emory board in soft grit. I use the Harmon Face Values ones from Bed Bath and Beyond. Starting with the softest grit side gently rub the surface of your stamper head holding the stamper still and letting the nail file slide back and forth (2-3x's back and forth so essentially 6 motions total). Head still not sticky? Flip the nail file over to the higher grit side and repeat the same action. This should whip your stamper right into shape.
The Images
Size Comparisons
The images are varied as you can see, and the full size nail images are around 2 x 1.5 cm. To give you idea of size here are the measurements of some of my more reached for plates below. Thinking on this I think I'll measure out all of my sets at some point and create a page to which you can easily refer but for now see below.
MoYou London Plate Pro 08 (non-XL) - 1.5 x 1.3 cm
MoYou London Plates Explorer 10 (XL) - 2.2 x 1.6 cm
Bunny Nails HD B - 2.5 x 2 cm
MJ Plate VIII - 2.2 x 1.7cm
Fab Ur Nails Fun 2 - 2.2 x 1.7 cm
Vivid Lacquer 007 - 2.0 x 2.0 cm
Cheeky Jumbo 2013 - 2.0 x 1.5 cm
Bundle Monster CYO - 1.7 x 1.9 cm
As you can see these are on the more substantial sized end of things measuring exactly the same size as the Cheeky Jumbo plates. So in the spirit of reviewing I went ahead and stamped out every single image on all of my plates and once again enlarged them for your viewing pleasure. Phew - werk! I had no major problems with my plates, and even if I did that's why I live for Amazon because the minute something goes wrong with my plates I can ask for a replacement of that plate or the set and wahla it's done. That's also why honestly I don't like ordering directly from sites for my plates unless it's Bundle Monster because their customer service is beyond reproach! Now you may notice a few of my plates have repeat stamps at the bottom where I couldn't get the image to pick up especially the first plate. That's when I decided to file the stamper, but I have some more tips and tricks for you.
Tips and Tricks
- Image Won't Pick Up: Clean off your plates with nail polish remover and then file the stamper as instructed above. Still not working? Then try switching your stamping polish. I used Wet N Wild Black Creme for this entire review unless I definitely could not get an image to pick up then I switched to my gold standard Konad Special Polish in Black Pearl. DO NOT FORGET TO CLEAN THE IMAGE WITH NAIL POLISH REMOVER WHEN SWITCHING STAMPING POLISHES ON A FINICKY IMAGE!
- Image Still Wont Pick Up: Change the stamper and keep your gold standard stamping polish i.e. on one of the images I filed the stamper and stamped with WnW and got no pickup. I switched to Konad SP and still got no pick up. I finally switched to my XL stamper that is sticky kept the Konad and got excellent pick up.
- The Corner Images Won't Stamp: This is all about technique and knowing how to manipulate the plate to your comfort. Flip the plate over so the corner image is closest to your scraping hand and angled in the direction to which you want to scrape. Do not over scrape the image. Attempt one clean scraping 2 max to get a clear image and pick it up with your stamper. Trust me this will work..
- My images are smeared: Probably because you didn't do a clean scraping. Try going over the image again to clear out excessive polish and use less polish over the image in order to prevent flooding the area.
- I have tried all of your tips and my images still won't pick up: You are SOL...lol just kidding! Contact Amazon and have them replace your plates. Honestly I work very hard to make sure it is not my technique that causes an image to misstamp or not pick up. That's why I also test everything on paper first. If you are doing all of these things changing your stamper etc and it still isn't working you need to draw a line in the sand. Again Amazon has great customer service so it shouldn't be that difficult to work out.
So thoughts? I was fatigued in all honesty after swatching out everything and editing so I didn't do any nail art related to these plates yet, but after my results I'm fairly impressed. These plates are very reasonably price of $29 per set which is roughly $5 per plate and with super saver shipping anything over $25 ships free so it's a win win. Well at least my wallet says it's a win of sorts lol. You can find the Cici & Sisi plates
here. Happy stamping and thanks for reading! I'll see you next post...
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