Today, June 13th, marks 2 years since Lucky 13 Lacquer first started taking orders!! How perfect is it that it falls on a Friday this year as well? To celebrate I want to do some very special things with/for you all! Here's a quick run-down of the announcements.

1. Starting off with sad news, the Sailor Senshi collection (except for Lady of the Moon) will be discontinued and removed from the shop on June 30th.
2. A collection inspired by The Avengers is being released today! It includes a freebie if you order the whole collection!
3. Everything except charity polishes, limited editions, and the new Avengers collection is 20% off with the code HAPPYBDAY2U from now until 11:59PM PST on 6/19.
4. To celebrate Lucky 13's birthday being on a Friday the 13th (so it's extra special!) I'm allowing 25 requests for any previously released polish that has been discontinued (NOT charity polishes, EXCEPT for Softening the Bad Things, sorry) for just their normal price! The 20% off birthday code does not apply to this.
5. Other miscellaneous birthday fun!

OK, so there's the short version, now for the long version!

The time has come to let a collection go so that new collections may take its place. I love the Sailor Senshi collection but it needs to clear out to make room for other exciting things in the works. Lady of the Moon will remain as a one-off but the rest of the collection will not be restocked once they've sold out.

Lucky 13's latest collection is inspired by Marvel's The Avengers, primarily the recent movie franchise, but also a little bit of the comics! There are 7 shades and if you order the entire collection you get one of them free!! The free shade is a green to black thermal inspired by Loki and the freebie version is 10ml with the option to upgrade to full (15ml) size. And because it's L13's second birthday, the first 2 people to order the complete collection will get a free upgrade to a full size bottle of Loki's polish, just make sure you add the proper item to your cart! (Update: the 2 free upgrades have been claimed!)

What's a birthday without a sale?! From now until 11:59PM PST on 6/19 you can get 20% off almost everything with the code HAPPYBDAY2U! You even get an extra 20% off of sale/clearance items!!

Across the months there have been many requests for discontinued polishes, and while I'm happy to fill them when possible I wanted to open up for everyone to have a chance at getting a shade they've been wanting!

Only 25 slots are available at this time, when they're sold out and the requests have been fulfilled I may release another 25 slots. Please bear in mind that by purchasing this item it is only a REQUEST, I must still have enough of the ingredients in stock to fulfill your request and if I am unable to fill the request I will let you know as soon as possible so we can go from there. Currently there are no shades that I am completely out of stock for but if an item is requested more than once it's first come first served to be fulfilled. I do ask that you limit yourself to 2 requests so that everyone who wants a discontinued shade has a chance at it!

These items will be mixed to order and will add a bit of time between ordering and shipping.

Please read through the "How to order" instructions on the product page!

Currently I have limited ingredients for the following shades:

• Hey, Who Turned Out the Lights?
  

Throughout the day there will be a couple other fun things like flash giveaways and coupons for your next purchase! Keep an eye on the Facebook page for announcements! The birthday fun will happen randomly so let's hope that Friday the 13th is YOUR lucky day!

When Lucky 13 was born a year and a half ago (wow, my baby is already 18 months!!) I honestly never dreamed it would be more than a small hobby where I'd make gifts for friends and perhaps make a sale or two. I truly never dreamed it would grow into what it is today! I won't get all mushy with you guys (again) but suffice to say I wake up every day thankful that I can do something I love and that I have so many amazing friends because of it.

However, with great growth comes great responsibility. Wait, that's not the right quote, I'm not Spiderman. Whatever! For months Lucky 13's growth was very slow but steady but in the last few months growth has jumped enormously, enough so that my usual business model just doesn't fit Lucky 13 anymore and it's time to change things up. Previously I had so few orders that I could easily mix things on demand and still get orders shipped within 2 to 3 days. I've always wanted to make sure that if there was a color and size someone wanted, they could get it. I most certainly can not do that any more, however.

Let's take Black Friday weekend for example. From Friday 11/29 through Monday 12/2 I received 88 orders totalling 461 bottles. I can't even tell you how much more that is than what I'd anticipated, it's just ridiculous! And with the Lord of the Rings releases in September I received more orders in a single day than I had previously gotten in my best month. These were huge signs that it was time to change how I was doing things.

Even before the Lord of the Rings releases I'd been wanting to switch from mixing on-demand and instead mix stock in bulk and do restocks (you know, like normal indies often do!) but I never found the time where I was both caught up on orders and I had enough free time to begin mixing in bulk. With the Christmas/Yule/winter-y holidays coming up (and my birthday!) I've decided that now is the time to switch over.

So, as much as I loathe doing this, Lucky 13 will not be accepting any orders beginning December 10th (sometime soon after midnight the morning of the 10th, PST as always) until January 5th (again, sometime soon after midnight the morning of). When I come back what's in stock on the site will be what's available and when it's gone it's gone until the next restock. I'll try to keep things stocked as well as I can but it will take some time to get into the swing of things so I hope you'll all bear with me. With this change there should be a much better turnaround time between ordering and shipment.

Additionally, I'll be phasing out shorties in order to further streamline mixing and shipment. I don't anticipate any price changes but I will give ample warning beforehand if things do change.

Because I hate posts without pictures please enjoy this gravity-defying stoat!

As always I'd love to hear your comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, whatever!

A lot of you who follow my Facebook page and read my personal/behind the scenes post know that I have a wonderful, handsome little kitty named Sagan. He's often nearby while I'm working and is my resident box inspector...

...quality tester...

...printer warmer...

... and giveaway-winner-picker.

Recently he's been having some urinary issues that's been making him feel very under the weather. They got better for a couple weeks but yesterday they got much, much worse. He wasn't going potty normally at all and when he could go there was blood in it. He didn't finish his breakfast yesterday (and what he did eat came back up--in the litter box, too, how good of a boy do I have??), he refused dinner, and he vomited pure water and bile 4 times in 2 hours late last night.

Of course, at this point I'm terrified. It's 2AM and my kitty is just the unhappiest thing you've ever seen, I'm tired and hungry and trying to keep myself together and failing miserably at it. My best friend/girlfriend suggests she come over to check on Sagan and to console me and of course I don't turn her down. We decide that while he's obviously not doing well, he should be fine for just a few more hours until we can get him to a nearby vet. I eventually am able to get to sleep.

This afternoon I was at the vet the moment their walk-in hours began and they were able to call me in fairly quickly. The doctor looked him over and diagnosed him with urinary crystals and major bladder blockage. For those of you who don't know, in boy cats urinary crystals and blockage can be fatal within just a few days. She said that the best course of action would to be to keep him with them for a night or two, anesthetize him, insert a catheter, and help him drain his bladder and clear out the crystals.

However, it's going to cost $600 to $800 (depending on how long he needs to stay). I'm still paying off the $2000 from my own ER visit back in April, but there's no way I can risk losing my baby if it's at all avoidable. So now I'm back at home, without a kitty to hold and calm me, and worrying to death about if the treatment will work and if I'll be able to pay off my credit card at some point this decade.

I know that many of you have kitties of your own and some of you have even lost kitties to the same troubles Sagan is having. It's very difficult for me to swallow my pride and ask for help but it's unavoidable at this point; I can't do this on my own, even with the income Lucky 13 brings in.

If anyone is interested in donating towards Sagan's vet fees I have started a GoFundMe campaign which will track donations. You can also click Sagan's photo below to contribute.

I will be sending out thank you cards from Sagan and myself for anyone who donates $5 or more ($6 or more for non-US) and leaves their mailing info for me. If you prefer to donate via PayPal my email is Jessica S Owen {at} gmail {dot} com (remove the curly brackets and replace them with the correct symbols). You can send it via Friends/Family if you like or as just a normal payment, up to you. Make sure you include your address if you want a thank you card!

I have the most amazing fans in the world and I'm grateful to anyone who donates or shares this post with anyone. I love you all!

My original plan for the group NAMI donation had been to donate when Softening the Bad Things was completely sold out. Then I decided waiting a couple weeks would be good enough. Then the whole "life" thing threw everything out of whack and now here we are, nearly a month after the re-release of Softening the Bad Things, and I still hadn't gotten my sorry butt around to donating!

But I finally set aside some time to do it and it's great knowing NAMI can now use that money to help people! A few people who signed up weren't able to make the donation but in the end the following people donated $250!!

• Lucky 13 Lacquer (me!! But really you!! $1 from each bottle sold) - $100
• Gothic Gala Lacquers - $25
• Tahlia of Perks n' Quirks - private amount
• Glitzy Geek - $25
• Kris of Swatches and Sentiments - $10
• Annabelle F - private amount
• Barbara H - private amount

Thank you to everyone who donated, ordered, and shared Softening the Bad Things.

If you were interested in a bottle of Softening the Bad Things there are still about 10 full size bottles left! Once they're gone it won't be restocked for at least a few months.

As those of you who follow my Facebook page have likely seen that I've been having a rough time lately. While I'm so pleased the Lord of the Rings collections were so popular it had some very unexpected downfalls.

On September 13th I received more orders in a single day than I had ever received in my best month. My previous method of filling orders had been to mix colors in a 4oz bottle, wait for orders to come in, fill the requested bottles, label them, and ship them out. Simple, right? It would take a couple days for larger orders but orders of just a couple colors would generally go out the next business day. But that's just not going to work when 300+ bottles are ordered in a single day. Thankfully I have plans to change how I prepare for orders and for new collections that should keep me from having too overwhelming of a to do list in the future.

On top of the unexpected influx of orders I've had so many other factors keeping me down. A sick kitty, one of my best friends is going through a horrible ordeal, and there's been nonstop construction going on with my apartment building. Most notably my windows are still unsealed and it's been below 40 most nights (but I can't justify keeping the heater on all night when I know it's literally going right out the window) and my flooring is supposed to be replaced which has taken my 430 square foot studio to about 100 square feet of living space, not including the bathroom.

Let me drive that home for you: I'm living in about a quarter of the space I'm paying for. And what's worst is my flooring was supposed to be replaced yesterday so I could move everything back to wear it belongs...but they won't actually be getting to my unit until Monday. Want to see what my beautiful workspace I posted about a few weeks ago looks like now?

Yep. I get to crawl over my bed just to get to the bathroom. And getting to my closet in the far back right? Ain't happenin'. With the crushing feelings of failure with being behind on orders and being forced into such a cramped "living" space my depression has hit an all-time low.

I hope everyone understands just how much I regret being behind on orders--I genuinely love doing Lucky 13!!! I love waking up every morning and wondering what I'll be making that day, who I'll be chatting with in comments on Facebook, all that awesome stuff! But apparently the cosmos are telling me it's time to take a weekend off.

Assuming they actually replace my flooring on Monday I anticipate being back to work as usual on Tuesday, which will allow me time to move everything back to where it belongs and a night to just relax in the comfort of my newly-refloored home and cuddle with my kitty.

When I'm back to working normally I'll have a new collection to announce and a new charity polish (with a twist. You'll see what I mean in a few days).

Thank you to everyone who understands, and again I'm so sorry about the delays. Life sometimes demands that we put ourselves before our passions, and it looks like this week is my week to sit back and relax.

A lot has happened since my last post where I mentioned my crippling back pain. I got to a point where I was unable to even stand on my own and I ended up losing consciousness from pain, falling (apparently while screaming in pain, according to my BFF) and hitting my head on the metal tracks that keep the glass shower doors in place; that....was not a fun day. My forehead still hurts. It didn't seem like too bad of a bump so I tried to relax and regain my strength but it just wasn't happening. And that's how I ended up spending all of last Sunday in the emergency room. Fun times.

It's a strange thing to say, but I'm "glad" I fell that day. If I hadn't I probably would have simply gone to make a doctors' appointment on Monday and had no answers as to what the underlying problem with my back was, but instead I was able to get an answer as to what was wrong and, more importantly, tips on how to heal and prevent this from happening in the future.

Turns out I had a bulging spinal disc (like a herniated disc but less severe) right at the base of my spine (between the S1 and L5 vertebrae) which was causing the pain. The cure? WALK. Walking helps stretch and strengthen the muscles in my back so slow, short, gentle walks and working up to normal speed and length. And to prevent it in the future he just suggested normal walks and light yoga--totally doable! And probably better for my health, too, I had been a bad girl and fell out of my normal walking habit.

Sooo yeah, that's it! I'm alive, I'm feeling better, I'm walking entirely on my own and at normal speeds for normal lengths. And I guess I'm gettin' into yoga! :-) Any videos or tips you can share with me?

I'm just going to copy/paste what I wrote on my Facebook, so sorry to those of you who see this twice!

I've tried so hard to put up with it, but it's just not getting better.

As some of you know, I suffer from severe back, knee, and hip pain, which is normally bearable if I just take it easy. But this move has definitely not been good for it; it's gotten so bad that I can't even walk to the restroom on my own (thank the gods for having the absolute BEST BFF in the entire world!) and I've collapsed more than once, nevermind how agonizing it would be to sit in a car for 2 to 3 days straight to get to Washington.

I'm still hoping I'll be able to open up shop again on May 1st but it may need to be pushed back a bit. Sadly all of my supplies are already on their way North so I don't have access to them. I promise I'll keep you all up to date and I'll keep both the calendar tab here and the calendar on my blog (I'll link it in the comments) updated as to what things are looking like.

I'm so sorry, everyone, I was really hoping this would get better on its own, but thank you all for understanding. ♥ And don't worry, I'm going to a doctor about it first thing Monday morning to get it under control!