Nailed It | The Nail Art Blog: freehand

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Inktober 2023 - Day 18: "Saddle"

Yippee ki yay! A little bandana and saddle action for day 18.

I made a reel showing how the teeny tiny bandana process went too, so make sure to swing by my Instagram to see it.

Extra Christmas

My name's Katy and this morning I listened to Christmas music. It just felt right in the moment, and I harbor no shame about it! Halloween had it's time to shine, and now Christmas is on my mind, especially after getting the Shine Bright collection from OPI! So with a little push from OPI, I made this look featuring colors from the collection and Swarovski Crystalpixie exclusive shades that came with the colors.

I used all 4 of the Swarovski shades: Crystal Shimmer, Copper, Rose Gold, and Chrome.

All the gels used for this look are from the Shine Bright Collection, including:

Multi-Dimensional Diva
Dressed to the Wines
Snowfalling for You
Gingerbread Man Can
This Gold Sleighs Me
Twilight Tones
Optical Nailusion

I also used Alpine Snow (OPI) beneath Optical Nailusion for the base of the 3 middle fingers to punch up the contrast, and then some of the outline details were done with Kokoist gels Bluey White and Maxi Black. (They're amazing for detailing!)

Matte-ful Botanical

If I could poll the clients I work with to learn which collections from OPI they like the most, the popular vote (and electoral college vote) would wholeheartedly agree that it's been OPI's Fall collection every time since I've been working as a nail technician. So, to pay homage to past Fall collections and to scratch the itch to continue to make beautiful nail art posts, here's a fall botanical scene for you to enjoy.

All but the rusty orange (It's a Piazza Cake) are from the Washington D.C. fall collection back in 2016. The yellow is Never a Dulles Moment, the raspberry is OPI by Popular Vote, and the army green is Suzi - The First Lady of Nails.

Don't those seem fitting as we come to the end of day 4 of the presidential election?

All the botanical illustrations were hand painted over a blob of My Vampire is Buff (also OPI) with Black Hole (from INM). I topped it all with OPI's Matte Top Coat as well. (Has anyone else really been vibing with the matte top coats? It all started for me when I did a friend's nails back in September for Halloween.)

Inktober Day 31: Crawl

Happy Halloween everyone, and I hope you enjoyed Inktober! I had a blast doing it this year...probably the best year so far! I'm so happy to have shared it with you all, and I hope you like the last entry of this year with these creepy cute little crawling spiders.

The base color is Sandy from Zoya, and everything is hand painted as usual!

Inktober Day 30: Ominous

I watched a good horror movie last night, called Cadaver. I won't give it away, but there were definitely eyes where they shouldn't have been in the film. That gave me the perfect inspiration for today's "ominous" prompt. Watch where you step!

The floor boards were done with two Zoya colors: Louise and Noah. Then the eyeballs were done with White Porcelain and Black Hole (INM), as well as Shore Enuff and Sun Upon My Skin (China Glaze) and Hannah (Zoya).

Inktober Day 28: Float

It was pretty obvious with it being spooky season, and with a prompt like "float", that I was going to do an homage to "It"...the origin story for all creepy clowns.

The colors I used were Licorice (essie), White Porcelain (INM), and Having a Big Head Day and It's a Piazza Cake (both from OPI).

I also apologize for the late post. I was fully engulfed in a new (to me) docuseries called "The Vow,"

Inktober Day 27: Music

Is anyone else missing live music as much as me? COVID has just killed that this year, and I really hope it changes soon. But in the meantime, this is as close as my nails get to music right now.

On a base of Licorice (essie), I painted each letter in Sharktooth (Jessica Cosmetics), then outlined them in neon polishes including Chatty Catty and Skater Dater (Sation), Funky Yellow (Kleancolor), and Neon Heat (ORLY). Then I painted over the neon again with white. It's actually really simple and really effective if I do say so myself. I also added some neon glitter on my thumb with Phoenix (Pretty & Polished) and Frankenstein Spit (jindie nails).

Who else misses live music?

Inktober Day 26: Hide

If anyone has a cat, you're familiar with their antics. One of the cutest is when they're "hidden" but their tail or ears are poking out, but you pretend they're actually hidden, just like when a child plays hide and seek. So sebrodrick's Ghost Cat Collection was the perfect inspiration for today's prompt.

The background yellow is The "It" Color from OPI...one of my personal favorites.

Inktober Day 25: Buddy

There's one "buddy" that comes to mind for most people, especially if you're in Colorado right now and the snow is falling. Here's the infamous Buddy the Elf for day 25 of Inktober!

This little Christmas-in-October look with Buddy the Elf wasn't difficult to create, but it did require a few polishes:

Cement the Deal (OPI)
Pale to the Chief (OPI)
Get in the Expresso Lane! (OPI)
Chyna (Zoya)
Cece (Zoya)
Gravitron (Misa)
Tumble Bug (Misa)
Loop-de-Loop (Misa)

Inktober Day 24: Dig

There's not much explanation needed for the look I put together for "dig". So here are my little digger ants!

This was an interesting look to put together. First, I put down a layer of a textured Sally Hansen polish called Sugar Fix. Then, I painted one layer of Misty (Zoya) on top. The tunnel colors are also from Zoya - Chanelle with an outline of Emilia. I also used Emilia to add rocks in the sand. The ants were done with Courtney, another Zoya shade. Then, I used a matte top coat over the tunnels, and left the sand and rocks top-coat-less to maintain the texture effect.

Inktober Day 23: Rip

Here's some ripped jeans and a tutorial to go with them for day 23 of Inktober 2020. This was fun and EASY to do, so go try it yourself!

Click here to watch the tutorial on Instagram!

The base color I used is Don Wannabe from a discontinued line called Sation.

Inktober Day 22: Chef

I had an idea to do riff on the "holy trinity" of Italian cooking (celery, carrot, and onion), so when I hopped online to find pictures of onions, I stumbled upon this ADORABLE design of vegetables from Zhe Vasylieva and knew they belonged on my nails.

There were a lot of colors needed for these little veggies:

Sultry Solstice, Mahogany Magic, and Emerald Bae (China Glaze)
Whitley (Cacee)
Loop-de-loop and Cherry Blossom Awesome (Misa)
My Boyfriend Scales Walls (OPI)
An NCLA purple that's missing its name

Inktober Day 21: Sleep

Today's prompt is "sleep", so I wanted to just do a bunch of Z's. I thought it'd be cool to do them in different font styles too.

I looked up what the "colors of sleep" were, and the first, unresearched result I found said cool, dark colors like green and blue, so I used two OPI colors to meet that requirement: Amazon...Amazoff and Road House Blues.

Inktober Day 19 and Day 20: Dizzy and Coral

Thanks for your patience about yesterday. I was so wiped out at the end of the day I just couldn't muster the willpower to stay awake and do a thoughtful design. But when I checked what day 20's prompt was, I thought I could combine the two into one! So here is day 19 (dizzy) and day 20 (coral).

My little seahorse carousel was done with another Zoya Pixiedust shade (Levi) and a hot pink I LOVED (Byrdie), plus a classic OPI I've always enjoyed (My Boyfriend Scales Walls).

Inktober Day 18: Trap

Trap was tough for me to figure out. I kept going back to a mouse trap, then I got really gory with the face trap used in the Saw movies, but then I thought of a Venus Fly Trap, and that parlayed into the Mario plant, aka the piranha plant!

I used a few essie colors (Strut Your Stuff, Cascade Cool, Ruffles & Feathers, and Snap Happy), Can't Read Without My Lipstick (OPI), and my favorite INM black (Black Hole) and white (White Porcelain) for the little piranha plant. I liked the subtle dots I did on my "Rodent" post, so I did a little bit of that again with alternating colors.

Inktober Day 16: Rocket

Part of Inktober is knowing your limits, and while technically, the sky's the limit, sometimes you just have to keep it simple! So here's a subtle little NASA rocket for day 16.

This design was simple, and only needed 3 colors, all of which were essie:

Snap Happy
Licorice
Marshmallow

Inktober Day 15: Outpost

I literally had to sleep on this prompt because "outpost" didn't scream innovation to me. Then I thought about what it might be like to be stationed at an outpost, and how the isolation might start to drive you crazy. And that led to something even crazier than isolation...zombies! So here's my zombies breaking over the walls of an outpost.

I used all LVX polishes for this zombie takeover:

Jade
Aria
Serene
Anthracite

Inktober Day 14: Armor

I'm so happy with Inktober so far! It's really expanded my horizons and I've loved it so much! Today I got to do some fantastic nail art on a dear coworker and friend, so when I got home, I decided that the "armor" look for day 14 would be a little more simple, but it's still striking if you ask me!

Here's my little crab, nature's natural knight, all armored up for this debut.

This was a pretty quick nail art to make tonight, as it only required 3 colors:

My Boyfriend Scales Walls (OPI)
Demetria (Zoya)
Waverly (Zoya)

Inktober Day 12: Slippery

Here's to all the Mario Kart players out there, who are painfully aware of how terribly "slippery" bananas can be. And they always seem to appear when you're about to win.

For the background, I used Mezmerised from essie, and for the bananas I used a few OPI colors including A-Piers to be Tan, Towel Me About It, Get in the Expresso Lane, Never a Dulles Moment, and The "It" Color.