jenfur427

I have three coming up that I'm excited about. One on Monday by Casey Cokrlic, he's finishing up the underside of my half sleeve. One on 1/19 by Tom Yosenik, we're doing a hot air balloon on the back of my calf. I work with both artists and have a lot of pieces by them. And the one I'm most looking forward to. I've wanted a Nightmare Before Christmas half sleeve for forever. Hubby contacted an artist that I follow on IG named Jay Joree and had her do a full render of my half sleeve, and paid for the tattoo! My appt is Jan 14th. It's going to be a painful healing month, yowzas.

Stares don't bother me. Touching does. There is no reason to come up to me in the store and start rubbing up and down my arm. It's funny, it seems to be a difference in region. When I'm in Dallas, where is seems like everyone has a tattoo, there is less staring and more people coming up and talking to me about it. In St Louis, when we go visit my father in law, it doesn't seem to be as common, so there are a lot more stares.

I'm fairly new to instagram, and mostly post pics of my kids and my chinchilla, but my user name on there is jenfur427.

I always go in with an idea, but let the artist put their spin on it. I mean, that's the whole reason I went to them, I trust them as an artist, so why not let them have some say in it.

The Nickleback one looks like a sharpie marker to me. Thanks goodness.

My calf tattoo drove me insane with the itching. It's been about 6 weeks now and it's still a bit shiny and the black looks flaky (i go to this artist all the time, and he really packs in the color). It's finally starting to look awesome. Well, until I went to my laser hair removal appt on Saturday and the girl went over the edge of my tattoo and now I have a big blister on it. :/

For me, face and throat. Although I've seen some amazing throat tattoos on some gorgeous women.

The tattoo on the back of my calf was like that. Super swollen, red about an inch outside the borders. That one was the hardest one I've ever had to heal.

My husband has pretty pronounced veins, so they've always gone by feel, not sight.

My husband isn't thrilled when I start talking about a new tattoo, and just politely nods but doesn't say much. Then finally I'll get tired of that game and finally ask "are you going to divorce me if I make an appt?" and of course he'll say no, and then I'll make one. He's not dead set against them, he has a 3/4 sleeve, his ribs done, part of his back, etc. I think it's because I'm the fill in piercer at a shop, so I'm around it often enough and get a hook up price that I've gotten more than he thought I would.

Reading all of the lower leg suckiness of healing makes me feel better. I was totally like "What the hell? I've never had issues for this long, and I have much larger tattoos than this one". I'm 7 days out, and today is the first day that I haven't wanted to curse randomly due to pain. It looked so gnarly too, all red and puffy. At least today it doesn't look so bad.

I'm on day 5 (today is Friday morning, tattoo was on Sunday afternoon). And it's still pretty bad. I think the worst is first thing when I get out of bed and the blood flow starts down that direction. The best I can compare it to is hot lava. The first couple of days, it made me grit my teeth, but yesterday and today, it's more like "Wait for it, wait for it. OH, there it is. Ow ow ow ow ow." As long as I keep it somewhat lotioned up, I can walk normally, but if it gets the slightest bit dry, I have to walk to my toes, so it doesn't stretch out the skin (being a girl, I've just been wearing heels, which helped a TON). Granted, my american traditional guy is pretty heavy handed, and really packs color in there. I'm a stay at home mom, so no time taken off of work. And just because Mommy wants to get tattooed, doesn't mean that I don't have 4 kids home that want me to play with them or go to the park. :) We went to a friends farm yesterday, and after walking around for a few hours, I was starting to limp pretty badly, but it is what it is.

I just got the back of my calf done, right in the center. It's a tiger's face, about 4x4 inches. And holy hell, it's been the absolute worst to heal. Especially first thing in the morning when I stand up out of bed, or randomly throughout the day, it basically feels like hot lava is flowing through my veins. It's terrible. Terrible terrible terrible. I have a handful of tattoos, including good sized ones on both thighs, and this is the worst. - - - Updated - - - And talk about swollen.

I go through the same thing every time I get tattooed. The first day, I'm super excited and love it. Then I go through a few days of "what the hell did I do?" (mainly through the painful healing part where you seem to bump it on everything). Then I love it.

That's Arlen. :) Garland is actually the town that they mention in Zombieland. :)