For those of you who don’t know or have never noticed before, I am a tattoo aficionado. I have five currently but have wanted more for a really long time. I just haven’t got around to making time to get them done.

The five I have are on my hip, lower back, upper back, right foot and wrist. And I love them all….

Well, apart from one.

The lily I have on my wrist has bothered me for a long time. It was only my second one,  I was still new to being tattooed and when the artist put the transfer on my wrist, I was too nervous to ask for it bigger or move it a bit on my wrist. I felt the artist knew best, so I let him do his thing.

Original Design

Don’t get me wrong. He did a great job and I have had it on my wrist for several years. But every time I look at it, I wish it was bigger, covered more of my wrist and had much more detailing.

Old, faded and not great

So, what could I do about it?

Well, get it tattooed over with a bigger, more  colourful design of course!

I booked in to one of my local parlours that I knew did great work and where my daughter had two tattoos done. I had spoken to Thor who was going to do my tattoo and I had chosen a design of his featuring Hibiscus and Roses.

I had also found another design of his that I fell in love with. A really feminine perfume bottle with feathers caught my eye and I umm’ed and aah’ed over whether to get this on my arm instead.

I booked an appointment for 14th March and waited for the day to come around. About a week before the date I spoke to Thor about my indecision over the two designs and he suggested coming in a little early on the day so we could have a play with the two designs and see which one “spoke to me”

Thor had both of the designs ready in a size that would be suitable on my arm. I had decided that whilst I wanted the Lily covering, as it was slightly off centre,  I wondered if it would be feasible to have a design on the inside of my wrist that wrapped around to cover the original up.

Testing the two designs out, my heart decided that the vintage perfume bottle really was more my style but wasn’t big enough to have on the inside of my arm wrapping around. Thor suggested that he could reposition the feather and add some of the flowers from the other design and put them around my wrist.

A feather to cover a lily

Vintage Perfume Bottle

This would mean that I technically would have a quarter sleeve on my lower arm. This sounded absolutely perfect to me, so off we started.

Almost asleep!!

Thor started off by positioning the feather in the place I wanted it and the machine started to buzz. Now, having had tattoos in the past I thought I was ready for the feeling of pain as the black outline was inked in. However I honestly didn’t think the wrist would be as bad as some of my other areas, such as down my spine.

Thor doing his thing

It was extremely sore but manageable. However it only got worse as he moved further round towards the bony sections.

Bottle Outline Complete

I like to think I have quite a high threshold for pain, and only swore a couple of times when it touched a particular nerve but for the most part I felt okay.

Line work in Progress

Once the full outline was completed Thor started working on the perfume bottle. Originally the banner across the middle said “BEAUTY” but I wanted it changed to “GODDESS” in line with my blog and social media names.

Now a real Goddess

I had chosen a deep blue to for the bottle, which was adorned with creamy pearls and a yellow label. Moving on to the peacock feather, again blues and turquoise were the chosen hues.

Eventually after a four hour visit we had run out of time, and if I am honest my pain threshold was now at 0%. My flowers are yet to be coloured in, but another appointment has already been organised for a few weeks when I have another couple of days off.

Soon to be a lovely Pinky Red

Floral Creation

By the end of the evening my arm was extremely sore and slightly swollen. I took a couple of paracetamol and put a thin layer of the recommended cream and took myself to bed.

Jewelled Feather

Wednesday morning I was a little bit worried to see it was a bit wet and weepy, although it was around 15 years ago when I had my last tattoo so I honestly couldn’t remember how I had healed back then.

Thor had told me if I had any concerns to get in touch, but as it had been less that 24 hours I thought I would see how it went. Happily by lunchtime the swelling had gone down and the tattoo had started to dry out and scab over a little. This part I remember very well so I was glad I hadn’t panicked and called him unnecessarily.

If the pain of the needles is bad enough, then the drying itchy scabs are even worse. It is so easy to catch the healing tattoo or be tempted to pick at the scabs, but this is the worst thing you can do as you will remove the colour along with the scab.

I absolutely love the design. It is feminine, vintage and suits me down to the ground. Now I am healing nicely and waiting for my next day off when I have the appointment to get the whole design finished off.

Of course I will post the finished article for you all to see.

What do you think of tattoos? Especially on women? I would be interested to hear your thoughts on both mine and in general!

Till next time

Tx