Crazy Little Thing Called Ink

Hey kids!

I came up with a totally crazy, but possibly totally awesome idea for more ink. That in a second. For those of you keeping score at home, the following dates will be noteworthy.


March 31-Finishing Lucy
April 18-Session 1 of Alice
May 8-Rockabilly skull at Roanoke Tattoo Festival
May 16-Session 2 (and hopefully finishing) Alice


I was originally supposed to go in for my second session of Alice on May 2, but I don't want to get tattooed 6 days apart. It's just a bad idea. I'm going to tell Phil when I get there for the first session. I feel guilty about it, but the convention was just such a great opportunity, I couldn't pass it up. In short, keep your eyes peeled around those times for pictures. There also may be another "look at me!" post once more work has been completed.


Now on to the crazy idea. I've been batting around the idea of getting bows tattooed on the back of my thighs. Kind of where thigh highs would hit. What I thought might be even better was to incorporate text looping around the rest of my thigh so it looks like a garter with a bow in the back, but the garter is made up of text. There could be a few obstacles to this.


One, thighs move a lot. Not as much as say, fingers or wrists, but enough that it could cause blow out and not age very well. I wouldn't be happy if the quote was unreadable in 5 years. Two, the text size may have to be quite large for it to age well. This would result in probably needing a larger bow, which may take up more space than I'm willing to take up. Three, I don't know what quotes I would use. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, it's hard to pick just two that I would want to have on me forever. I've got everything from song lyrics to Shakespeare to just generic quotes about love, life, and being awesome. The good news is I could probably get away with something fairly long as I have big thighs. For once, having big thighs actually proves to be useful! The idea is in its infancy and I know absolutely 100% that I want Mark to do it. No doubt in my mind. He did such a beautiful job with my back that I know he's up for the task. Plus, he could also make the bows look really good and fit perfectly with my personality. And I want him to do Beverly on my right thigh, so it's just easier to have the same artist working on two pieces in the same area.


So that's my current crazy idea. Whether or not it becomes a reality is debatable. I'll need to talk it over with Mark to see if it's even feasible. Though let's face it, he lets me get away with a hell of a lot more than most clients. If some random chick walked through the door wanting the same thing, he'd probably say no. Me? No problem. Ah the joys of a tight tattooist/client relationship. *gets all mushy*

And So It Is

So yesterday was the day. I got there 15 minutes late and Mark wasn't there yet (big shocker). It gave me time to eat since I hadn't eaten anything yet. I had several fonts picked out and I decided on the one that was still pretty, but would be legible for the future.

We got the placement on the first try and it doesn't look stupid when I have my arms down by my sides. It really wasn't that painful, but at this point, it takes a good bit to get my attention. Plus, we were done in all of about 35 minutes. Yet another reason to feel the love for text tattoos. I was wrapped up and out of the chair less than an hour after I got there. It was good to see Mark again. I forget how much I miss the cranky bugger's commentary. Hilarious.

I don't feel too bad about breaking my "promise". Most people haven't even noticed them yet. The ones who've asked are the ones who knew I was getting them in the first place. I feel like it was the right time to do it. I'm happy with them and they mean a lot to me and will very likely take on a deeper meaning in the next few months. If I'm gonna eventually have a full sleeve, everyone's going to have to get used to it.

Foot Cover Up Experience

In all the shuffle, somehow writing the experience of getting my new foot piece has gotten lost. Clearly this must be remedied.

After donuts next door I shuffled over to the shop. Mark was late, so I offered donuts to Jevin and Andrew. When Mark did arrive, he came storming in complaining about some woman in the parking lot. The mullet and aviators were what really made the visual. I wish I'd gotten a picture.

We opted for 3 roses instead of 4. Originally I'd wanted 4, but he just couldn't get them to fit in a way that would heal well. Fair enough. So we went with red, purple, and blue which are the colors of the birthstones of the women in my immediate family. So now I have a grand total of one tattoo with "meaning". Go me.

It hurt, but nothing that made me want to start crawling away. I was hanging off the edge of the massage table and Mark had my foot on his knee. He commented at one point that his leg had gone to sleep. That was met with a glare. Silly man. The worst part was right near my ankle bone. It's also where the swelling has been the worst. I started to feel a little out of it in the last 20 minutes or so. I think I've gotten to the point where I know there's only a little bit left and my body starts to let itself go a bit. The three donuts I had earlier did me right and I was fine. I may have discovered the secret to keeping one's blood sugar up during a tattoo. Donuts!

He bandaged me up and I was on my way as he had another appointment after me. As it turns out she's not from Atlanta and I was thrilled to shop at H&M over at Atlantic Station while she waited. Nice to know I helped a fellow fashionista out. :) I really like it. The color is great, I love the old school twist he put on it, and it looks much, much better than what I had. It totally accomplished the task of covering up the old piece. You can't even tell anything else was there.

It's day two of healing and other than some swelling, it seems to be doing alright. I've got some light scabbing, none of this scaly business, and it hurts to stand for prolonged periods, but other than that it seems to be doing okay. Hopefully this means I can avoid a touch up. I'm supposed to check in with Mark in about a week, so maybe I'll pick up donuts for the fam as well. Might as well combine trips, right?

She's Blushing!

As seems to be my Sunday routine, I spent most of the day in tattoo shops. First I went to Ink & Dagger to chat with Kurt and work out a time to get Lucius finished. He's super nice about everything. We've tentatively set time for 6pm on April 17 and there's 1.5-2 hrs of work left. He needs to finish his tail and then he said there are some general things he wants to tinker with. So keep an eye out there.

Russ agreed to add a pirate hat on Ol' Blue Balls. That may happen around the same time. He said he was down with it. No one can believe I actually went through with it. Life is too short not to have a ridiculous tattoo. Or two. Or one with a pirate hat. Arg matey.

Then I went over to GFY to show Mark our antics. He was tattooing, so I kinda had to flash Andrew and him. He gave me a look and I blushed. I NEVER blush. There's only one other person in the world who can make me blush. Of course, when Mark pointed out I was blushing it made me blush more because I was thinking of said other person who can make me blush without even trying. Oh so funny. And probably the first time I've been embarrassed in a long time. I hung out there for a while, looked through the latest Prick (still hotter than the cover girl), and then went on my merry way. I need to schedule time to talk about my foot in a serious way.

In other news, I want to get my sternum tattooed. I have no idea what I want, but I'm sure it'll come to me. I've learned to just let the inspiration flow. Rushing things results in cover ups and that's totally no fun. Plus, you can't exactly tattoo on boobs very well. So I guess we'll see what develops on that front.

Adding On

So I've further solidified my latest ink idea. As I mentioned in the previous post, I thought I would use a quote rather than some kind of scroll work as the "lacy" part of the thigh highs. I stayed up way too late on Wednesday night looking for inspiration through music. A few lyrics seemed like they could work, but I wanted something that would go together. So unless I picked lyrics from the same artist, the odds that found two that would work together were pretty low.

As all good tattoo collectors and artists know, Google is your best friend. I simply searched "tattoo quotes" and through that found my inspiration. It's a quote from Oscar Wilde's play "A Woman of No Importance" and it goes "The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". And then the light bulb came on, champagne rained from the heavens and I knew exactly what I wanted. So my right leg will read "Every saint has a past" and my left leg will read "Every sinner has a future". Once I got that set in my brain, more ideas just came flooding out.

I already wanted another pin up girl on my right thigh, so why not give her a sister? One the inside(ish) of my "saint" side will be a blonde pin up with angel wings and a halo in a blue or light green dress. On my "sinner" side will be a brunette with devil horns and a spaded tail in a red dress. The placement would be when I'm sitting indian style and you're looking down at my legs, you'd see them both clearly. I'm leaning toward Danielle Distefano as the artist. I know I've mentioned her before and how I really wanted her to work on me. I think her style would be suited to my vision. I want these two to be more old school than Mae & Lola. They're fabulous, but a little more modern in terms of style. I think Danielle's work has the right mix of old school and pretty. Plus, she does really great color work.

So the plan as it stands now would be finish all my works in progress (Lucy, Alice, & Lucius) by mid-late May and I'm gonna try to give myself a break for a month or so. Then I'll get Mark to cover up my foot piece around July 4. After that, I'll get him to do the base of the bows and quotes so that Danielle will have the base she needs to properly place the girls. So it'll probably be early August for the bows & quotes, then 3ish weeks of healing time, and starting the girls in early September. Knowing me, this timeline will probably get squished up into a much shorter period. In a perfect world, I will be able to give myself a month off just to give my body a break. In reality, it probably won't happen.

Big Pimpin'

I can be such a shameless pimp-tress sometimes. I was on a separate website and someone (I believe she follows this blog. Wave if you do!) asked if anyone had any experience with Timeless Tattoo here in town. Being one of the few Atlantans, I jumped in with both feet and told her I'd never heard word one about them. They have good reviews on Yelp, hands down the most reliable review site on the interwebz, but it was mostly for the owner. Very little was mentioned about the other artists. I looked at the portfolio of the artist she'd picked and his work just didn't seem to suit what she wanted. So I told her to check out Overlord, Memorial 2, and Ink & Dagger. That, of course, got me to thinking who else I wanted to work on me.

I love Dave Kruseman's use of color. It's absolutely fantastic. I have no clue what I'd have him do, but it's so pretty to look at. I also really like Danielle Distefano's work. As I learned from Russ, she and another 13 Roses defector opened a shop in Grant Park. They actually had their big opening on Friday complete with $20 tattoos, which I missed. How come I always miss the tattoo sales? *pout* Anyway, I'd like to have her do something on me as well. So I may wander by at some point and poke my head in. It would help to have an idea first, though. I keep saying I'm going to take a break after I finish Alice, but who knows? I'm a sad, sorry addict.