sbhikes

I have an appointment in three days to fill in the one rose in my tattoo that didn't get finished in the first round. In the mean time I assumed the peeling would stop by then. It will have been exactly 2 weeks when I go in for my appointment. Right now there is still a little sunburn-like peeling just around the edges on the clean skin, not on the tattooed skin. It's not everywhere. Most of it has cleared up, but there is a little, especially in the more detailed spots on the leaves. I kind of continue to hope it'll be all gone by Monday, but I can't believe how long it is lingering. If this doesn't stop by Monday, do you think I'll be turned away when I show up? Should I reschedule now so that I don't leave his night empty?

Gosh I don't remember any pain while healing my back of calf tattoo. My round the ankle tattoo swelled up horribly the day after. I put a cold pack on it when I got home from work. It felt good but didn't do much. I took a couple walks during the day. After the first few steps it always felt a lot better. By the 2nd day I was able to lift weights at the gym--squats and bench press. By the 3rd day I was able to do my Olympic lifting class--clean and jerks. On the 5th day I went hiking 8 miles. The hiking is great because it seems to make the scabs come off. It's almost been two weeks and that sunburn-like peeling around the edges just won't go away. Hopefully it'll be gone by Monday so I can start the process all over again with round 2 of the great ankle coverup project of 2013.

I really love those molars. The whole thing is really nice.

I'd be happy if a stick figure came out of my brain.

I just posted a topic on weird tattoos. I'm not sure if my examples are "new school", whatever that means, or part of the trend you are talking about. I do wonder where people get the ideas.

Do they ever keep these ideas in a folder somewhere? What I would really love to do is be able to ask to see a folder of ideas they've wanted to do and pick one.

How do people get weird tattoos? What I mean is, I subscribe to Our Endless Days and a couple other blogs and watch the tattoos scroll in each day and sometimes they are really super weird. I would not ever come up with ideas like that and I can't imagine if I did that I could ever communicate to another person the details of my crazy idea. Here are some examples. What did the customer say? "Please give me a skull and flowers and put an afro on half the skull with the eye popping through? Oh and put green octopus tentacles at the ends of the bones." Really?? How could anybody think of this? Or how about this one. "Please give me a brown rose with the outside petals looking like a sunflower and the inner ones black like a bowl of hearts with white outlines." It's beautiful but how does one muster the creativity to ask for something so unique? I didn't even know what this was until I looked at it for 10 minutes. How does someone describe this to an artist? Or do they? Okay, I want a tiger that's a stand-up comedian with a flower on its chest and a foot standing on a skull. Put a fish swimming up the cord into the microphone. I'm not criticizing these tattoos. I honestly would like to know how one goes about acquiring such strange tattoos. I could never think this stuff up myself but it would be so cool to have something weird like this.

I subscribe to some blogs where I can watch the pictures roll in all day. Every now and then there is a picture of a sheet of flash. I like to pretend like I've walked in and these are my only choices. Which would I pick? I'm thinking I might do this if my favorite local shops have one of those flash sale days. I'd go downtown, check their sheets and pick the best thing. It would make a great story to tell all my non-tattooed friends how I got a tattoo on the spur of the moment for no reason at all.

The thing I don't like about healing is how the tattoo looks so awful. I want to show it off right away but have to wait about 3 weeks for it to look good. And this time around my tattoo wasn't finished in one go so that will add 2 weeks to the amount of time between starting the tattoo and being able to walk around showing it off.

I get my big blue ankle roses finished on Monday!

I love that octopus. It's very cute.

Well, yes, but you can almost call me that, too.

My boyfriend (who has no tattoos) was away for 2 weeks. I did not tell him while he was gone that I had started the coverup on my ankle. I wanted to see how long it would take for him to notice. I went to go pick him up from the bus station. He was across the street from me waiting for the crosswalk to change. He noticed before he was halfway across! Wow, he's more observant than I thought. I have no idea if my tattoos bother him or not. He's not really the controlling type. I know they make him pretty squeamish when they are new so he doesn't really want to give it a good look yet.

I love all the small tattoos on your arm. They all look great on you.

Twice recently I got tattoos on different Monday nights. The first one was on my back. I couldn't really do squats with a barbell for at least a week, and even 2 weeks later it was still pretty sensitive if the bar had a lot of knurling. I could not do bench press for a week. The second one was on my ankle. The following day it was terribly swollen and painful. I took a walk and it would actually feel a little better. The day after that I felt okay to lift weights and by the third day I went to my olympic weight lifting class without any pain or discomfort. Both times I went for a hike on Saturday and I swear the hiking and sweating speeds up the peeling process.

That sounds a little overly dramatic but I am surprised how my recent tattoos have made such a difference. My first tattoos were gotten in my late 20s. I'm in my late 40s now. Like most people I didn't know much about the differences in quality between tattooers. The tattoos I got were not very good and overall it was a disappointing experience. I went almost 20 years before ever getting another tattoo. I commemorated an achievement with a tattoo about 3 years ago. It was large and prominent which scared the crap out of me. I still haven't told my mother! But during these three years this tattoo has actually made my life better. People stop me on the street to ask about it and it lets me reminisce about the achievement. Because it has been such a positive experience I decided I would cover up my old crummy ones. I recently covered up my shoulder with a nice bird and wow, that has made a difference. When I wear certain shirts, the bird's face peeks out from the neckline. It's fun to shop now with the idea of how to show her off. I have gotten a lot of compliments. A lot of people without tattoos will tell me that they don't like tattoos but they like my bird. I'm currently covering up my ankle with giant blue roses. I was nervous to see how big they would be but so far, even unfinished, they seem to be changing everything. I am no longer ashamed of my ugly old tattoo. If anything my new tattoo improves how I feel about my body. I'm female and big-boned, kind of a weight-lifter body type, and it's a definite difference to feel good about the appearance of my body. I feel more confident and pretty. I kind of feel like I got my leg back. Am I the only one to have this sort of thing happen? P.S. My bird is in my images and the flowers will go there once they are finished.

Some of those bad tattoos are so childlike and so bad they are almost good in a way.

Two words for you Delicious: Thrift Shop.

These roses are unusual (from http://web.stagram.com/p/436134954046273325_6075972): And then this image has interesting roses. They have the little jelly candies in the middle and are also flat and opened on the outside with the middles still unopened. I think that is kind of interesting. I wish I knew what to call the jelly candies. (From .@mykechambers | #tattoo #tattoos | Webstagram - the best Instagram viewer)

What kind of rose would you call this? I don't know that I've ever seen one with the middle really low like this. Also, what are those red ball thingies called. When I asked for them I just said "red ball thingies".

I had a 20-year-old ankle bracelet of small flowers I have hated for pretty much all 20 years. Last night I went in for my cover-up. It is not finished. Here is the side that is done. I think it is done anyway. Here's the front Here's the side that isn't done where you can see the old stuff Here's where it meets in the back I lack any artistic skill so basically it was all up to the artist. My only suggestion was bigger flowers and then after he drew them and there was that empty space in the front, I suggested those red ball thingies. He's a genius as far as I'm concerned. Look at those amazing leaves! Even the leaves are beautiful. I was really scared when I saw how big he was going but oh my god, look at how nice it looks on my big fat leg! We ran out of time last night and I was getting pretty swollen and exhausted. I am really looking forward to seeing the final product. (P.S. The map and emblem of the Pacific Crest Trail were already there.)

Yes, very pretty. I am really very happy. It looks so much better big. Here's one side that is pretty much finished.

Ha ha I just violated my own statement above. My coverup pretty much covers half my leg all the way around. It's beautiful, or will be, because it's not finished. I think these roses are bigger than real roses! Oh well, I'm ruined now. Nothing to let me pretend I'm just a regular lady.

Just to be clear, I do not dislike beautiful sleeves with a lot of background. That is just not the look I would want for myself. I would either want something like those legs full of traditional tattoos that were posted in another thread or something like some of the beautiful arms in Victoria Elwood's portfolio with the huge flowers, birds, bees and lots of negative space. I only don't want to tattoo the front of my body because I'm still a working person and not so talented I can flaunt authority too much and honestly, I just don't see myself as a heavily tattooed person so it's like if I can hide them from myself when I'm naked I have a sense of security or something. Just being honest. I love to see women with lots of tattoos. I'm jealous of their free-spiritedness. For as much as I have done amazingly free-spirited things, I'm just still at heart a boring middle class white bread middle-aged lady. When I'm retired and my mom is no longer with us, anything goes though. Ride the rails, live on America's long trails, tattoo another long trail map on my other leg, get a huge Valerie Vargas girl head on my back and birds, flowers and butterflies ala Victoria Elwood all over my arms. Maybe.