New-ish Tatt

I finally got a new tattoo! Sort of... Let me start at the beginning...

On my 18th birthday I wanted to celebrate my new adult-ness. Since I've never smoked and don't have much interest in nudey mags, I decided to do the only other thing you can do when you're 18: get a tattoo! I had known what I'd wanted for years, an ocean wave and a hibiscus flower. I took this idea and a couple of pictures to a tattoo artist and got my first ink. At first, I loved it! But over time, sun damage, natural fading/stretching and just a change of perspective made me literally hate it. Here is what it looked like 8 years later:

I had been talking for years about getting it touched up or added to or covered up. But, every tattoo artist I'd talked to told me it wouldn't work and adding or covering up would just make it look worse. So I gave up... Until I found Frankie Orange.

Frankie Orange owns Orange Tattoo Company in Annapolis and has also traveled the world with super famous bands working on their tours. He even tattooed Britney's B Fairy on her back and the big cross Justin Timberlake has on his arm! Even though I was a little starstruck at meeting him, Frankie was super cool about the old wave tattoo. He said something could definitely be done to make me love it again. He was calming, confident, very friendly and made me feel for once SO COMFORTABLE about fixing this thing! So I made an appointment to get the tatt changed up with Brady. I was SO impressed with his work - he even drew the changes free hand right on my back with a pen before starting the actual tattooing!

Here is what it looked like in the middle. At this point, he'd added all the black and was starting on the color. The color you see it what was already there:

It hurt a tiny bit more than a remember but not nearly as much as my foot tattoo did! I was so happy with his work and he fixed all of the things I hated about my very first tattoo. Now I am so in love with it:


If you can't tell, it's on the right side of my lower back. Now all I have to worry about is keeping it bright and vibrant in the sun this summer!

And I even found this great FREE App called frametastic to display all my befores and afters in a cute way!