The Lacquer Legion: Garden

Good afternoon!  It's a hot one out today and I am pretty much dead from an intense workout this morning, but I found the energy to do a mani for The Lacquer Legion theme Garden.  I actually had a much harder time with this than last months theme Glam.  I mean yes garden; flowers, bugs, trees, gnomes, fairies.  The possibilities are endless.  But I couldn't figure out what to do.  Then I shared a mani I have coming up in one of my nail groups and everyone really supported my attempt at stamping so I decided what better time to go all out and try an entire stamped mani?!  So here's what I came up with.  I went with a tropical flower stamp, Pueen 72 plate.  It reminded me of the gorgeous flowers in Hawaii and I so wish I were there right now.  Then I used all of my beautiful Color Club Halo Hues and mixed them about on the image plate for some very colorful, rainbow like flowers.  It gave me a very warm weather, fragrant air, vacation vibe.  I hope you like how it turned out (remember this is my first time doing an entire mani with stamping) because I am totally digging it!

Here's the list of polish I used:

Bettina - Marshmallow (3 coats)

Color Club - Halo-Graphic, Blue Heaven, Cosmic Fate, Miss Bliss, Kismet, Angel Kiss, and Eternal Beauty.    

You can see more great Garden posts by following the Lacquer Legion Facebook and Instagram pages.  You can also find info for upcoming themes and the proper hashtags to use.  Check out #llgarden today to see how other bloggers interpreted the garden theme!

The Lacquer Legion: Facebook, Instagram

World Lupus Awareness Day

Today is World Lupus Awareness Day.  This cause is important to me because my grandma suffers from this disease.  She is sick frequently, medication only works for a short period of time before it stops working all together.  She has her good days, but her bad days are really bad.  Before we knew what was wrong she had been sick for so long, she basically weighed 80 pounds.  No one knew why she was ill.  It's upsetting that so many, including doctors, are unfamiliar with Lupus.  Even with treatment today she catches every little cold and virus that is going around.  I don't even take my kids (her great grand children) over to visit if one is remotely showing signs of having something because I don't want to pass it along to her.  So this post is just my small contribution to help spread the word about Lupus.

You can go over to the World Lupus Day website to read more about the disease.  I've pulled this informative paragraph from that site if you don't have time to check it out.  "Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). Chronic means that the signs and symptoms tend to last longer than six weeks and often for many years. In lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, which is the part of the body that fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs ("foreign invaders," like the flu). Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protect the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues ("auto" means "self") and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body.  Every day, more than 5 million people worldwide struggle with the often debilitating health consequences of lupus, a potentially fatal autoimmune disease capable of damaging virtually any part of the body, including the skin, heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain."  The Lupus Foundation of America website is also a great site full of resources and information. 

Purple is the official color for Lupus awareness.  The butterfly is the symbol for Lupus.  I chose to wear Color Club Eternal Beauty (2 coats) and I stamped a butterfly with a plain black creme over each nail.  No topcoat.  And please go to the end of the post to see other bloggers that are also supporting World Lupus Awareness Day!