Tattoo!

As many people already know I went and got my tattoo on Monday, October 5. Stacey Knight at Eye Of the Lotus was nothing short of spectacular. I went in for my consult sometime in August, just before I was done at the spa, they let me leave early one day because one of the girls called in sick, and I called all her clients, leaving a whopping two to come in, so I canceled those and headed to check out portfolios. I was going to start with Lucky Strike since it's right on St. Albert trail, but alas, they were closed. Jenna D and I headed further down the trail and stopped by Eye of the Lotus. I had talked to one of Kim's friends that weekend and recommended Stacey. I flipped through portfolios and stuck to Stacey. He was free at the time so we sat down and I had a few pictures to show him. Originally it was going to be two seperate foot tattoos, but after a quick chat he recommended one larger piece because the thought of attempting to heal two foot tattoos wasn't very appealing to me. We picked my right ribs and went over the material: A crown, a peacock feather and "Stay Gold" he drew a VERY rough draft. Crown, feather coming down the side and the bottom "Stay" at the top "Gold" at the bottom overall size I anticipated was less than 12 inches in length. We picked a date, October 5th at 2:00 PM, he told me it should only take 2.5-3 hours for the outline, but would book me for 4 in case I was squirmish.

Nonetheless, the 40 day wait couldn't have taken any longer. I started worrying about it looking poor, it not being what I wanted. My nerves were through the roof because I had NO idea what to expect. I was starting to think I was crazy for doing my ribs for my first tattoo. Regardless the day of October 5th was long and stressful leading up to 2 pm. I went to my normal 8 AM classes till 11 AM, at 11 I headed down to earls on campus for Jenna Birds Birdday Bash. I made her the Atomic Cupcakes (thanks Swoo for the tip)
I waited in riverside lounge from 12 till 1 filling out sudoku, talking with Joel. I hopped the bus at 1:12 with Jenna D and headed on down!
Showed up at 1:30 and got started from the second I walked in. This is the story of the process:

Stacey pulled me into the room and showed me the idea for the tattoo. It was HUGE to say the least. And needless to say I was absolutely stunned with how amazing it was. It was large, but perfect. I dont think I could have asked for more. The size was still an issue though, not to fear! He had a smaller stencil made for me, the perfect size to reach from my armpit down to my hit. Still MUCH larger than I anticipated. We threw the stencil on. Unfortunately Stacey said he might be to ill to tattoo me, he hadnt decided on he felt too bad to do it or if he could tough it out. He went for a smoke so I could check out the stencil. Jenna D was super excited, and so was I. He came back in and said he would be good to go. Sometime in this process he asked if I had any other tattoos, and I said no. He gave me a look and asked me if I was sure about it, I said yes. I laid down and he fixed some stuff up on the stencil cause he changed his mind about some of the design. We got started promptly at 2:00 PM. It was scary, I was nervous. The first hour was rough to say the least, finding my hip, stomach, and upper ribs to be the worst. We stopped for an hour break. I ate an orange. We started again. I had my music up pretty loud and laid there, calm, for an hour. Jenna D was kind to go grab me a new magazine from 7-11 and we started again, this time with me sitting. The last 40 minutes sucked hard. My back hurt the most and I wanted it to be done asap.
At the end I loved everything about it.
Its beautiful and fantastic and I couldnt have asked for more. I go back December 17th for bolding and Ill split colour into a few sessions.