Review: UberChic Beauty XL clear stamper +DIY holder

(Press sample)

Hello!.

Don't you just love it when a bunch of things you love come together and merge into one great pile of awesome?

You know I love clear stampers. You also know I love XL stampers. I also love shrinking images. So far, I haven't had a stamper that covers all of these needs at the same time, but UberChic Beauty has come out with an awesome solution, an XL clear stamper head:

You may have already seen my video review of this stamper head; if not, you can see it in action here:

As you can see, the head is completely transparent; this means you can see through a huge stamper large enough to cover even long nails:

How long is long? Well, the diameter is about just shy of 1 3/4 inches:

So you might be thinking "Hey Michelle, what about a holder?! If I put it in my normal XL holder that sort of ruins the point, because the holder isn't clear!" That's a very good point! There are two solutions. One is to just use it without a holder--it's big enough that you can just gently roll it over your image even without a holder, and I show you exactly how long it took me to get used to using it that way in my video (spoiler alert--next to no time).

The second solution is to create a DIY holder for it. UberChic Beauty suggests a polywasher; here is the one I found at Lowe's, item # 24622:

There are two different ones in the package; this is the one I prefer--notice that there is a lip that comes in on one side:

All you do is slip the stamping head into the washer just like you would any other stamper:

Here's what it'll look like from the back; you can see that there's plenty of room to hold it, and you can still see through the head beautifully:

You can see exactly what you're picking up:

And exactly where you're stamping!

I've also heard tell of people using rolls of washi tape and the tops of medium Rx bottles to accomplish the same thing.

One very important quality of this stamp is that it's very squishy! Look how far I can press my nail into it:

But because this is big and squishy, there's something else you can do with this that you can't do with other stampers--you can shrink images! I show the technique in the video, but the crucial part is you need to be able to stretch your stamper out so it shrinks the image when it releases:

I recommend still being careful when you use this technique--I haven't had a chance to see how it holds up over time. During the few times I've used it to shrink so far it works really well; proceed with caution and try to make sure you aren't pulling one area more than others so you can minimize any potential durability problems.

Is this a must have? If you have longer nails, I absolutely think it is. In fact, I plan on stocking up on a few for making reversed-stamping decals and the like.

You can find this hunk of awesomeness in UberChic Beauty's store, and you can follow them on Facebook for new, updates, and to keep an eye out for sales!

Happy stamping,
M.