Month: August 2014

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally got my tattoo yesterday. I am so happy with how it turned out and with the whole experience. I am also hugely relieved. I wasn’t worried about the pain. Seriously? I birthed not one, not two but THREE 10 lbs babies, one without medication and two after more than 20 hours of labour. The thing that I was most anxious about was the thing that most vexes me about photography and occasionally blogging – that it wouldn’t turn out in reality to be anything like what I had cooked up in my head, and (unlike photography or blogging) that I would be stuck with it forever. For a girl who fears committing photos to frames, this was commitment on an epic scale.

As I mentioned, when I first started thinking about getting a tattoo, it was because I had fallen in love with the idea of a shooting star design, which morphed over time into three shooting stars. When I decided earlier this summer that I was finally going to bite the bullet and do this thing for my 45th birthday, I spent hours looking at various star and shooting star tattoo designs online, but nothing was speaking to me.

When I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, I commissioned Beloved to help me create something – you’d be amazed how often it comes in handy having a classically trained artist in the house! We had just started working out a design when a friend mentioned her tattoo of the word “balance” and that resonated with me. Not the word balance itself, but the idea of a word tattoo. I am, after all, a wordy sort of girl. But which word? There are ever so many of them from which to choose! And when the right word suddenly presented itself to me, in the grocery store of all places, I felt that inner zing when the cosmic tumblers click into place. Shine. Of course! Once I had the word, there was no going back.

You know what was 100x more painful than the tattoo itself? Choosing a font. Oh. My. God. I kid you not, I looked at the word “shine” in more than 600 fonts, until the word itself lost all meaning and just became a shapeless blob. Handwriting fonts, gothic fonts, serif fonts, san-serif fonts, curly fonts, elegant fonts, typewriter fonts. Once I start dithering over fonts for a project, it becomes a black hole that sucks me in for hours – oh how I love to play with fonts. Imagine the pressure of deciding on one that would be permanently engraved on me! Here’s just a wee sample of the ones I played with:

And once I finished dithering over fonts (I changed my final design three times this month!) there was the whole star thing to work out. Multi-coloured or monochrome? Solid or outline? Oh, the agonizing. Finally Beloved and I worked out this one, and I knew it was perfect.

Unfortunately, when I presented it to the tattoo artist, she was concerned that the definition in the scribble would be lost unless we went with a much larger tattoo than I had envisioned – the lines would just bleed together into a blob. She played with it a bit and we decided on the outline version you see in the final design. I also dithered for a bit on whether to get it on my ankle or on my wrist, but I have heard that the wrist tattoos can be a bit more painful. Not that I’m overly concerned about it, but the ankle tattoo is also a little easier to conceal, should the need ever arise. I also toyed with putting it near my clavicle. Oh the choices!

If you’re thinking about getting a tattoo, I can’t say enough nice things about Amanda (Pickles) at Sacred Ink Collective. She’s patient and empathetic and not afraid to tell you what she recommends based on her experience, but she was also willing to listen to what I wanted and why I wanted it. I had booked an appointment with another tattoo shop that comes highly recommended in Ottawa, but I felt condescended to when I went in to pay my deposit, and they flatly refused to offer any insight into my design ideas. I ended up switching to Sacred Ink on the recommendation of a few friends and I definitely recommend them if you’re thinking about inking!

We resized the stencil twice and messed with the placement once before we were both happy with it, but I’m pretty sure she would have let me go on tinkering for quite a while until it was exactly what I wanted. The tinkering actually took longer than the tattooing. (See? She’s so nice and so patient!)

Despite the fact that I know I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, I admit that I was a wee bit worried about the ouchy part. I’m not particularly squeamish, but who likes the idea of 100 pokes per second with a needle? It did hurt a bit in some spots more than others, but Amanda’s rhythm of on and off made it entirely bearable. Once the needle stops, so does the pain. I grated a chunk off the knuckle of my thumb with cheese grater the day before yesterday, and I am getting more residual twinges from that than I am from the tattoo 15 hours after the fact. This morning I feel a vague patch of itchiness, and that’s about it.

In all, it took less than 25 minutes of actual poking for her to finish the design. I am so pleased with the result – it’s exactly what I wanted, and I’ll be happy to show it off well into old age.

After care of the tattoo is pretty easy. It bled a tiny bit in some of the stars, and while I was warned it would scab and peel, I’m not seeing any signs of that yet. At Sacred Ink, they do offer one touch-up after the tattoo heals if it’s required, but I can’t see anything I’d need fixed. I deliberately waited until the end of summer to get the tattoo, as I’m not supposed to submerge it in a pool or bath for three or four weeks, and too much sun exposure could cause the ink to fade prematurely. It was only yesterday that I realized I won’t be able to shave over it for a week or so, either. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of keeping it clean and moisturizing it a couple of times a day.

What I’m most pleased about is what I was most worried about – Amanda was completely faithful to the design, with the exception of changing the scribble fill to outlines of the stars. I’m not sure I could trace it so faithfully with a pen and tracing paper, let alone malleable skin! I’m quite in love with it and hope the summer stretches long into the autumn so I can continue to show it off.

So now the only question is — what should I get tattooed on my wrist???? 😉

I was never particularly interested in getting a tattoo. “Why would you permanently emboss yourself with artwork that you wouldn’t hang on your walls?” was my all-purpose response to the very idea. It’s not that I was morally opposed to tattoos or even disliked the idea. I just couldn’t imagine committing to a single bit of art forever – which may, now that I think about it, be a generalized extension of my inability to commit to framed photographs as well.

However, one day last year it occurred to me pretty much out of the blue that *if* I were to ever get a tattoo, it would be a tattoo of a shooting star. Nay, a tattoo of THREE shooting stars. Now THAT is something I would love for the rest of my life, and something that will still be as meaningful to me in 30 years as it is today.

In a manner completely atypical for a woman who thinks instant gratification is far too long to wait, I have pondered and toyed with the idea for more than a year. Finally, the occasion of my 45th birthday seemed like the right time to finally acquiesce to impulse – even if that impulse was more than a year in the percolating.

Well, I didn’t quite manage to get the tattoo in time for my birthday earlier this month, but I do have an appointment coming up. I could have had it done by now, but apparently it’s recommended that you wait three to four weeks (WEEKS!) before submerging your tattoo in a bath or swimming pool or allowing it to be exposed to sunlight, and that would put a serious crimp in my end-of-summer enjoyment of our pool membership and trips to the beach. Looking at the forecast from now through Labour Day, though, I’m not sure I’ll be missing much pool-worthy weather if I do hold off, so I keep waffling on whether to wait or go ahead.

Funny, though, that in the same way everyone seems to have a white car when you buy a white car, I am seeing a LOT of chatter about tattoos on the web lately. I thought this post was pretty funny: Why You Should Never Ever Get a Tattoo (But Having a Baby is Fine), but it did make me wonder – do people really still think like this? If the 40-something moms I know are getting tatts, how taboo can they be? I figured tattoos these days are about as risqué as double-pierced ears – and yet more than one person has asked me if I’ll be getting the tattoo in a place that will be easily concealed at work. Hell no! If I’m going to bother, I’m going to show that baby off as much as I can! Mind you, I’m not talking about a full sleeve or something that wraps from my neck to my hipbone. At most, it wouldn’t be larger than a post-it note, probably on my ankle but I did seriously contemplate the inside of my wrist for greater visibility.

And no, I’m not sharing my tattoo design just yet. I need to save that for a big bloggy reveal! 😉

Inevitably, since I started talking about getting one, the boys (well, let’s be honest, the middle boy, my teenager in waiting) has asked if he can get one. Ha, I laughed at him. Of course not! Talk to me when you’re 45, babycakes. Although he then changed directions and started talking about an earring, which I am pretty much fine with – but that’s a conversation for another day.

So talk to me about tattoos, bloggy peeps. Are tattoos still risqué when the moms at the schoolyard pickup are sharing tattoo aftercare tips? Or do they still send out a negative impression in your opinion? Are tattoos mainstream, or do they still make people judgy? Do you have one? How and why did you choose your design? Do you have any regrets about having – or not having – one? You won’t talk me into or out of getting one, but I’m fascinated that there are still such divergent opinions out there on this!