Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa, CJS-15 plate review

This week, I hit the zoo with my coworkers for a sorta teambuilding event... but really, wine tasting at the zoo!  Themed nails were clearly called for, and i could either go with wine or zoo, but the animals won.

Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa CJS-15

First, I painted one single perfect coat of Jade Extasy, a light silvery blue linear holo.  Side note, UGH do I miss Jade.  These are rather small bottles, but the formula is just perfection, seriously no cleanup needed, and BAM look at that rainbow!  Then I used a handful of different stamping polishes and the CJS-15 plate - it's called "Out of Africa" on their web page, but labeled only with the number on the plate.

Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa CJS-15

As with other Clear Jelly Stamper plates I've tried, the images are really detailed but very small. These plates always look bigger than reality on the web store, but even the smallest nails will have no problem finding room for an animal on each one, and long or broad nails could easily fit a safari's worth per nail.  My nails are about what I'd call "medium" size - neither nubbins or kid-size, nor truly long nails - with just a few mm of free edge and an overall length on my ring finger of about 13mm.  Still plenty of room on there for that utterly charming elephant.  <3

Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa CJS-15

To use these plates, a clear stamper is absolutely required, since there is no way in all 9 hells to line up the layers needed to create each image other than to see exactly where you're placing them.  In other words, this lion's mane is pretty adorable, but even 2 or 3mm off in any direction, and it's a beard or a weird party hat instead.  I also have a much easier time if I use my shortest clear stamper so there's minimal distortion and maximal visibility.  Short version:  accurate placement of the individual design elements is critical to anything from this brand looking right.

Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa CJS-15

For all of the CJS plates I've worked with, the depth of the etching and ease of use has been a little hit and miss.  It's entirely possible that because these images are already petitely sized, the smallest parts just dry all the more quickly and therefore end up being the most finicky to work with.  For the ones I used here (which is a solid 50% of the plate!), some images worked flawlessly (each blade of grass picked up with zero issues), while others needed multiple attempts to work out (both the body and then the stripes on each zebra took me a couple of tries to get a decent pickup).

Clear Jelly Stamper Out of Africa CJS-15

Bottom line:  CJS plates are a lot of work.  Because all the elements are individually separate on the plate rather than being in a continuous design, you have to decide the arrangement on each nail and the overall design of the whole yourself - more time consuming than my usual stamping mani, especially if using a lot of colors to boot.  That same snag is also what makes them super fun and creative, and if you find yourself often removing part of a plate design before stamping it to just get the good part, well, this plate is nothing but individual good parts.  The attention to detail is also incredible - I mean, check out the itty bitty tusks on the elephant!

Where to buy:  direct from Clear Jelly Stamper.

~Michelle

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