So you know by now I have my new beautiful body art right on my upper arm where I can show it off all summer with tanks tops and bathing suits but still easily hide it with a short sleeve shirt if I need to cover it up. What you don't know is the tattoo story, every tattoo has a story associated with it right? I now have five and everyone has a meaning and a story attached.
I talked about my others on my now defunct beachy soup blog, if I talk about them again I want to go more in depth with their individual stories. Today's post is dedicated to the story of my newest tattoo, the beachy sugar skull.
When I make major life changes I feel like they should be celebrated with tattoos, 3 years ago this week I moved to the beach. It was a huge risk but with it also came huge rewards, I knew I needed to mark this life transition with body art but I didn't want your typical from the tattoo shop wall piece. I wanted something that was all me. I searched online for ideas and stalked Pinterest for every beachy tattoo they had, I found a few okay things but nothing that spoke to me.
Then one day last year I bought some sugar skull bookmarks from Books-A-Million and with them came a brilliant idea. What if I had a sugar skull drawn up with beach flowers and seashells, a beachy sugar skull if you will. I immediately texted the best artist I know, my sister. I told her my idea and sent her a picture of my sugar skull bookmark as well as pictures of some local beach flowers called Indian Blanket that grow in our dunes.
A couple days later she texted me back with the design above, I held on to that design, saved my money, and did some local tattoo artist research and portfolio stalking. Finally, after almost 9 months of waiting and researching, I took the plunge and made a tattoo appointment.
I could not be happier with the result, I've got this great custom piece of art designed by my sister that I can carry with me forever. Long live skulls and beaches.
Do you have any tattoos? Do they hold special stories and memories?
I love that your sister designed it for you!
ReplyDeleteI love how colorful your design is!! So cool that your sister designed it. My dad drew my butterfly that I have on my upper right shoulder blade and that was my present for my 18th birthday from him and my mom.
ReplyDeleteIt's so pretty and colorful, and so awesome that your sister helped out! Love it!
ReplyDeleteI love when a tattoo has a meaning and a story! I mean, I guess it should if you're going to look at it forever but we all know someone who has a tattoo that makes most people say WTF. I really like the color in the cheek part!
ReplyDeleteoh i just love the story of your tattoo! it's perfect!
ReplyDeletemy first tattoo... my cousin was a tattoo artist, and we were visiting them for the holidays. it was NYE and because we were out of town, i didn't know anyone, and he'd just broken up with his gf and didn't want to go anywhere. so he's like 'you want a tattoo?' and i said 'sure!', i opened my lord of the rings book, found a quote and googled the elvish translation... a few hours later, i had a tattoo. hahaha.
I know we already discussed this via email, so no need to respond. I'm just telling you again how much I love your tattoo and the story behind it.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the tattoo!!! It looks awesome and I love when people get things custom made. It just feels so much more personal to me (but I'm also a graphic designer and I cannot imagine putting something on my body that I didn't design :P). I'm also a huge fan of colorful tattoos. Yours is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI love your tattoo!! One of my tattoos is in my mother's handwriting and says: Love, Mom. I have it on the inside of my left wrist, so I get to see it all the time.
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