Important news for my Bloglovin'/RSS followers!

Hey kids! In the next couple of days, I'm going to be changing the address of the blog to blog.aliquidlacquer.com as part of my master plan, which will soon become clear. So I want to make sure that everyone following the blog through some kind of feed reader doesn't get lost in the shuffle! If you have a minute, make sure you're following the right account (most people won't have to change anything):

• For Bloglovin' followers: Make sure you're following this page, which connects to my underlying Blogspot address. That address isn't going to change.
• For other RSS readers: You should be following http://aliquidblog.blogspot.com. The RSS button in the sidebar redirects to aliquidlacquer.com, so don't use it until I've switched over the site's address.

Thanks guys! I'm really excited to show you what I've been working on...here's a little preview. ;-) (Yes, I know my nails look like crap!)

It's ALIQUID's One-Year Bloggiversary!! [Giveaway]

Readers, do you know what day it is? It's April 7, which means my little blog has been running for an entire year! The time has passed so quickly! It seems like only yesterday that I was posting my very first (not great) swatches...and now, exactly 200 posts later, I have over 600 followers on Bloglovin' and over 700 on Facebook! Wow!!

Writing this blog has been a great creative outlet for me, especially as my life has been a little crazy for the past year. Sometimes I feel a little down, but seeing all your comments and likes always cheers me up. Thank you to everyone who reads ALIQUID...I really appreciate you guys. <3

OK, no more sappy stuff--on to the giveaway!! I rounded up eight awesome ladies to join in the celebration with me!

As an homage to my blog, I decided to make an ALIQUID Lacquer polish based on the blog's color scheme! I call it Semper Aliquid Novi, which is Latin for "always something new". The phrase comes from Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who said, "Africa is always bringing us something new". (To the Greeks and Romans, Africa was a mysterious land full of strange creatures like dog-headed men.) I think it's a nice reminder not to let my blogging get too stale and repetitive, but to always try and broaden my skillset!

ALIQUID Lacquer Semper Aliquid Novi. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Semper Aliquid Novi is a khaki-colored crelly with matte glitters in shades of teal, green, yellow and grey. It's available for sale in my shop, but I'm also giving a bottle away!

Read on to see all the giveaway prizes and enter the giveaway!

ALIQUID

One bottle of ALIQUID Lacquer Semper Aliquid Novi plus one bottle of winner's choice

Ships to: International

The Mercurial Magpie

Two ALIQUID Lacquer minis and one lip balm of winner's choice

Ships to: US only

Ruby White Tips

Bottle of Ruby White Tips Chloe

Ships to: US only

Northern Star Polish

Three bottles of Northern Star Polish

Ships to: US only

SlothNails

One bottle of Deborah Lippmann Let's Go Crazy and a mystery SlothNails creation

Ships to: US and Canada

ColorMeSoCrazy

$10 gift certificate to Color4Nails or Llarowe

Ships to: International

Anne Kathleen

One bottle of Anne Kathleen Cosette and one bottle of Velvet

Ships to: US only

Loki's Lacquer

Two bottles of Loki's Lacquer of winner's choice

Ships to: Australia only

The Sparkling Hoard

Set of Nails Inc. minis and set of Sally Girl minis

Ships to: US only

Giveaway rules: Giveaway is open to anyone age 18 or older. Entrants must leave their email address and country of residence; all further entries are optional, but increase your chance of winning. Prizes will be assigned according to location. Winning entries will be verified, so no cheating! Winners will have 48 hours once contacted to provide a shipping address, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. Giveaway ends April 21.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ALIQUID year in review!

Happy New Year's Eve! (And Happy New Year to any Eastern Hemisphereites reading!) 2013 has been a momentous year for me in many ways--I got married to my wonderful husband, we moved to Boston, and I started my own indie polish line! And, of course, I started this blog. I'm proud of myself for keeping up the hard work of polishing, photographing and posting for nine months now.

I thought I'd celebrate my accomplishment by going back and picking out my personal favorite ALIQUID posts from 2013. There are a lot, so I broke them down into categories. Please enjoy looking back with me!

Swatches

Here are my favorite polishes that I swatched this year, in chronological order. Not surprisingly, they're mostly either multichrome or holographic!

Indigo Bananas Anansi: My very first post on the blog, I still think it's gorgeous! A glass fleck that shifts from dark green to purple.

Orly Sparkling Garbage: This green jelly with tons of holo glitter was my favorite release from Orly this year!

Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces: It seemed like the whole Internet was lusting after (and then duping) this Australian indie. Really glad I managed to get my hands on it! A purple jelly with purple and holo glitter.

Ninja Polish Divinity: A truly divine purple base with awesome orange>brown>green shifting shimmer.

China Glaze It's a Trap-eze!: China Glaze really achieved an indie-like vibe with this white base with rainbow glitter.

I Love Nail Polish Mutagen: The ILNP Ultra Chromes wowed everyone with their extreme colorshifting abilities and great formula. Mutagen shifts from silver through green, blue, purple, red and orange!

I Love Nail Polish Indie Go: A perfect shade of indigo with linear holographic shimmer and blue sparks, this is close to my ideal polish!

Nail Art

My nail art skills really improved over the past year. Here are the ones I'm most proud of (and the ones that got me the most compliments!).

Interlocking Dots

 The Rusty Skunk (click for the epic story!)

 Dotted Skittles Tips

 Green Colorblock

Teal Waterfall

Cave Art

Rainy Gradient Dots

 Christmas Tree

Recipes

Here are some recipes I've gone back to over and over. They're all easy!

Curried couscous: This recipe is very versatile because you can switch up the grain used, as well as the mix-ins.

Martha Stewart's "crack 'n' cheese": Literally the best mac and cheese ever.

Cinnamon craisin cookies: Sweet, spicy and tart. Another recipe that's easy to play with.

No-knead bread: A nearly foolproof bread recipe.

Meatballs and tomato sauce: Recipe courtesy of my sister, it's hearty and completely satisfying.

Language posts

I've really slacked off on writing about language, so I'll make sure to do it more often in 2014! Here are a couple of my favorites.

Haphazard Hypercorrection: The case of the disappearing h, plus Romans making fun of each other.

Regular Mice: Why is it "Of Mice and Men", not "Of Mouses and Mans"?

Thai Tones: A post on some of the amazing things humans can do with voice pitch.

I can't wait to see what's in store for ALIQUID in 2014! Have fun and stay safe tonight! Trudy and I will be back next year (i.e. tomorrow)!

The Versatile Blogger Award!

Hey all! In the past few weeks I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by both The Mercurial Magpie and Gelic--thanks guys! It's an honor! Now I have to tell you all seven interesting facts about myself and nominate some more bloggers to pass it on!

First, my seven facts, which will hopefully help my new readers get to know me a little better!

1. When I was about 12-13, I was super into The Lion King. I drew lions all day long, wrote fanfic (it was bad) and played on a Lion King MUCK. (If you're old enough to remember MUCKs/MUDs/MUSHes etc...well, you're old!) I also listened to a ton of Ladysmith Black Mambazo (Zulu a capella music) and even picked up a little Zulu. I still remember sawubona, which means "hello". :-P
2. Also around the same time period I started inventing languages. I think I was inspired by all the fantasy novels I was reading. I still do it from time to time, but I'm such a perfectionist I always end up starting over before I get very far.
3. My first major celebrity crush was on Colin Firth when I saw him in Pride and Prejudice (1995 version is the best!). I still love him <3
4. In high school my favorite nail polish color was periwinkle, but now I'm not as much of a fan.
5. I got my first cavity at age 26--not a bad streak!
6. I grew up listening to oldies, and I adore The Beatles, but my #1 favorite band is Barenaked Ladies! (Yes, I'm a 90s kid.)
7. My childhood dog was an antisocial Shetland sheepdog named Sandy. She was scared of my dad and most of her toys. Here's Sandy as a puppy:

 Well, I hope that was enlightening!

Here are the blogs I'm nominating for the Versatile Blogger award! They're all great nail blogs, so go check them out!

1. FingerFood
2. Pretty Tough Nails
3. Lacquer Buzz
4. UK Nail Runner
5. Paint Those Piggies!
6. Light Your Nails
7. Enigmatic Rambles

See ya later folks!

Six-month bloggiversary giveaway!!

Well, dear readers, today my blog has been alive for exactly six months. The time has gone by so quickly! I'm so grateful for everyone who's followed, liked and left comments. And to show my gratitude, I'm having a giveaway!!

The prize has been generously donated by Andrea at Indigo Bananas, which is fitting, since my very first blog post was a review of her polish Anansi (still one of my favorites!). Indigo Bananas is becoming well-known throughout the indie polish world for beautiful glass fleck, multichrome and holographic polishes. And now she's making glow-in-the-dark polish too!

That's right, the winner will get their choice of two polishes from Indigo Bananas' new collection! Here are descriptions of each polish (visit her Etsy shop to check out swatches):

• Medusa Transducer: charcoal jelly with orange-gold-green shifting iridescent glitter, a mix of microshimmers, and glows teal in the dark!
• Enchante: red jelly with black glitter, glows blue in the dark
• The Secret to Life:  dark purple jelly filled with a complex mix of flakies - pink, purple, silver, blue predominantly are visible, along with larger (real) silver flakies and violet iridescent shreds that shift color from green-blue to blue to violet
• Moonlight (Clair de lune): real silver flakie based polish that has purple, black and holographic microglitter
• Earthshine (Clair de terre): dark green jelly polish packed with many types of shimmer, flakies and glass fleck pigments. Larger silver flakes are interspersed with pink, blue, black, violet, red, gold and silver flakies
• Wise Up, Janet!: glass fleck based linear holographic polish that is lavender leaning lilac with a strong silver flash to it
• Great Scott!: medium blue heavy fleck polish with strong green-gold shimmer, and scattered holographic microglitter, glows strongly blue in the dark
• Hope: released for breast cancer awareness month, a linear holographic pink polish with subtle pink/gold shimmer
• Lime Warp:  bright, lime green glass fleck shimmer, with scattered holographic microglitter, that grows a bright green in the dark
• green, teal, and blue glow-in-the-dark topcoats!

Now for the nitty gritty: the giveaway is open internationally. You have to give your email address to enter (so I can contact you if you win!), but all other entries are optional. The winner will have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise I'll choose a new winner. All entries will be verified, so no cheating!

Giveaway ends on October 21 at midnight (EST)! Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Liebster Award!

I'm so honored--my pal Kirby at The Mercurial Magpie has nominated me for a Liebster Award! This award is designed to promote blogs with under 200 GFC followers. We can't all be superstar bloggers, but it makes me feel good to know that people out there enjoy what I write. I'm so grateful to everyone who follows and comments on my blog...you like me, you really like me!

Here are the questions Kirby asked me!

1. What inspired your blog name? 

 

Hmm, well, I wanted a nice Latin word because Latin is close to my heart (and also I'm bad at coming up with punny names in English!). "Aliquid" is snappy, has a meaning to go along with the somewhat random collection of topics I blog about (it means 'something, anything'), and it's similar to my name!

 

2. What nail polish color can you not resist buying? 

 

Purple and blue, definitely. I just checked, and those two colors make up almost a third of my entire stash!

 

3. You're rushing out the door and have 10 minutes to do your nails, what polish do you grab?

 

Oh god I would never do this, I would be too anxious about making a mistake and not having time to finish. I always give myself plenty of time to do my nails.

 

4. Your house is burning down/you're on a deserted island/you're being abducted by aliens, etc....which 5 polishes would you take with you?

 

Tough question! Out the Door would have to be one of them. As for the others, I just can't decide...I would probably take a holo with me though, just because they're so amazingly pretty. :-D

 

5. What inspired you to get into nail polish in the first place?

 

It was very random. I was on a little break from work after passing my qualifying exam, and I was browsing the health and beauty subforum at somethingawful.com. I found the nail care thread and saw the amazing manicures people were doing in there...and I knew I had to be a part of it! It's a little funny because I'm not at all a makeup/beauty person otherwise.

 

6. What technique have you struggled with in the past and now mastered? 

 

I guess the techniques I can do well every time would be gradients and dotticures. I.e. the easy stuff. :-)

 

7. What technique do you still struggle with?

 

Freehanding! Still working on getting thin, even lines!

 

8. What is your favorite type of manicure to do? 

 

There are so many that I'm just doing now for the first time, thanks to the 31-Day Challenge, so get back to me at the end of the month! (I am a fan of dots and geometric patterns though.)

 

9. How do you organize/keep track of your polishes? 

 

Everything is swatched on wheels and numbered, then catalogued in a spreadsheet that lists brand, finish, and color(s), with as accurate color-coding as possible so I can see the exact colors I have at a glance. My polishes are sorted by brand and stored in my Helmer. (I loooove organizing things!)

 

10. What commercial brand is your favorite? 

 

Tough, but probably Zoya because they have a good variety of finishes!

 

11. What indie brand is your favorite? 

 

Indigo Bananas! 

 

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed learning all those tidbits about me! Now I'm passing along the fun by nominating eleven other blogs:

1. My Life in Turquoise
2. Royal Milk Tea
3. UK Nail Runner
4. Zvrk Nails
5. Fedora Harp
6. Little Night Flower
7. Polish and Repeat
8. Cambridge Nails
9. Painted Fingertips
10. Blingfinger
11. Nails on the Beach

 Here are my questions for you guys:

1. What are your favorite color, brand and finish?
2. And what about your single favorite polish?
3. What base coat, top coat and cuticle products do you like most?
4. What made you decide to start blogging?
5. Do you have any other hobbies besides nails?
6. What's your favorite type of nail art to do? 
7. What nail art technique would you most like to be really good at?
8. What mani are you most proud of?
9. What's your biggest "nail fail"?
10. What's your #1 goal for your blog in the future?
11. Textured polish: yea or nay?

Don't feel obligated to participate if you don't want to, but I hope you do! And don't forget to send on the award to more blogs! ;-)

Happy belated "birthday" Trudy [50th post!]

The other day I noticed Trudy was looking a bit mopey, and I suddenly realized we had forgotten to celebrate the second anniversary of her adoption (August 5)! So I'm publicly apologizing and presenting her with this lovely PNG I made all by myself.

We don't know when her actual birthday is, but her adoption day is more important anyway--it marks the day we brought our new best friend into our family. We've had two years of cuddles, kisses and playtime, and we're looking forward to many more!

On a less sappy note, this is my 50th post on the blog! I know it's not very impressive compared to all the big successful blogs, but I'm glad that I've been motivated to keep on posting. It's been a lot of fun so far, and I think it's just going to get better and better!

(Also, note to self: post more cute Trudy pics!)

New stuff on the blog, including ads and ad swapping!

I've been a busy beaver today! You may notice a few new buttons up above: first, "Things I Love" is a page of, well, things I love. Blogs, products, indie polish brands, you name it! Maybe you can find a new thing to love somewhere in there!

Second, I have a page called "Sponsorship", which explains how to purchase ads in my sidebar (only $2 per month!!). Or if you're interested in swapping ads with me for free, just use the promo code SWAP. I think it'll be a great way for me to meet new blog-friends!