My back piece took what felt like forever. Snatched hours before, after and even during my working day over almost 3 years.
When I first started thinking about my first tattoo, I was leaning towards some tribal on my lower back. I'd had a henna piece done on a holiday that my mum and I loved and she's offered to pay for it when I was 18. At 17 and 10 months I started working in a tattoo studio and realised I didn't want tribal like every other 18 year old girl I saw coming in. So I let the tattooist I worked with choose my first tattoo and she said it would be my present. So I got a palm sized butterfly on the back of my ribs took about 2 hours and I cried most of the way through. Nowadays tattoos barely make me flinch, but my first was awful, my side also swelled so much I couldn't sleep or move. Nice!
Didn't put me off though. Inspired by a piece by Ian Flowers we decided to do a few more butterflies, but it was never enough so H drew up my full back piece and we did bits whenever we could. It was all finished by April 2009 ready for my trip away for 6 months. When I got back, I had 6 Frangipani flowers added at the top for the months I was away. It does extend down but I don't think my bare bottom needs to be on the internet - haha! My next piece will either be extending my feet tattoos or my left 3/4 sleeve BUT one day I do want to work on my sides, and it will definitely flow into my sleeves / onto my chest a little. I love expandable tattoos and hate that my only boundary will be the end of a limb.
I think that's enough waffle - here a bad self taken picture of my back.
Tattoo by Hayley Hayes
I will be blogging about my other tattoos when I take some decent photos. Do you like tattoos?
