Inked

So my baby sister (Hilary) graduated from college on Saturday (more on this later). In honor of the third and final sister undergraduate graduation we decided to mark the occasion in a special way.

I have two tattoos already. I got one on my last day of school from high school. My good friend Amber and I got them together. I had that one for 8 years before I decided to touch it up and add a little pizazz to it. Hilary had always mentioned that she wanted one, but hadn't yet taken the plunge. I thought my other sister Leslie would never go for a tattoo. She wasn't a fan of mine when I first got them and just never seemed to be really interested in tattoos in general. However, last month Hilary and Leslie went to visit Michigan State's Vet School (where Hilary will be in the fall!) and on the trip they started talking about tattoos and thought it would be cool if we all got matching ones. We're pretty close so it just seemed like a cool idea.

So for the past month we've been thinking of ideas and emailing back and forth different pics. Leslie and I happened upon the same one and we all thought that we could agree on it. Funny side note, the original pic came from a funeral home. Ahahaha. We just thought that was hilarious. Here was the original pic:


We have several reasons why we chose this one, which I like. I never just get a random tattoo with no thought. My first tattoo had little thought, but did have some meaning. I've been more and more thoughtful as I've matured and decided that this tattoo would be layered and layered with meaning. So some explanation below:

1. Obviously there are three of us, so three was a common theme.
2. We are all pretty peace-loving people. Leslie really liked the idea of a dove (which is a symbol of peace) so we were looking at different representations of doves.
3. We all love, love, love Bob Marley's song "Three Little Birds"...it's a great song and it also has a great message. The refrain of the song is "Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be all right" which is a mantra we all tend to live by.
4. Finally, the flying birds is kind of symbolic of the third and final sister graduating from college. You know the saying "flying the coop," well we have all flown the coop (symbolically anyway) now that we are all "adults" and on our own from our parents.

So we had been talking about it, and we decided to have a sister bonding time on Hilary's graduation day. So after we got home, unpacked the cars, ate dinner with the fam, we covertly sneaked out to get tattooed. We had to sneak because my dad does NOT like tattoos and has not wanted us to get tattoos...like EVER. In our entire lives. Too bad for him, we don't always listen to him. Once it is done, what can he do but accept it?

So we went to Artistic Skin Designs on the Westside. We chose this place because it is close to my house, I got my second tattoo there, and they were open late-ish. We headed over, negotiated a price, filled out the paperwork, and got started.

Unfortunately the original design had to be slightly altered. They thought it was too small in the original format, but in order to keep the size under control (which was only a concern because of the location) we changed it up a little.

Leslie has developed an anxiety issue over the past few years (I'm gonna have to blog about it later...it's kind of funny), so we decided she would go first so she could not build up her anxiety watching us. Plus I could sit in there with her in case she did have an anxiety attack. She deals with them well, but it's helpful to have someone there to assure everyone else she is ok. And in true Hilary style, she forgot her ID so she had to run all the way home and get it and come back.

So here is Leslie getting started:


Here Leslie is trying to look brave and grin through the pain. The tattoo artist was talking to her to make sure she was ok and wasn't about to fall off the chair:


A good detail shot of Leslie's work:


Once Hilary got back from her ID run, she and I both got into our chairs. I took a pic from my chair before Leslie took the camera so I could focus on my tattoo.


Hilary's tattoo artist went by the name "Freak." No joke. It says it on his card. Here she is with Freak, grinning and bearing it.


Leslie came in to snap a pic of me right as I was finishing up. Sadly, the only shot she got was one where I looked like a completely loony toon, but oh well.


Here's my finished product:


And the final shot...all three sistos and their tattoos!