I Got A New Tattoo!

Hello everyone! 

I am now going to start greeting you at the beginning of every post because it just feels really weird that I don't. I only never did because after looking at other bloggers most of them don't greet their readers or talk to them on a one-on-one bases, so I thought was the thing to do, but now I am saying screw it! We are all friends here so I am going to treat you like a friend.

So how is everyone doing? OK? Great? Bad? If that is the case I hope you feel better soon! I am doing fairly well for someone who just had all four of there wisdom teeth removed yesterday (Friday). However, that is not what I am here to talk about, today I am going to tell you all about my newest tattoo I got about a month ago. If you watch my youtube videos or follow me on any social media website (which you can now follow me on Bloglovin by clicking here) then you may know that I took my last trip to Stockholm, Sweden before I move there in the next year, depends on if there government allows me, still waiting for the paper work to go through. Anyways (get back on track Makenna!), I was in Stockholm for two weeks before I had to go back to school and on the last week I got a new tattoo. I did know before traveling that I wanted to get my second tattoo done while I was there to make it even more meaning full, it will make more since after I explain what it is. (If you are interested in reading about my first tattoo then you can click here to be taken to that post.) The first week I went in Stockholm Classic Tattoos and asked them if I could get the three Swedish Crowns on my right pointer finger. This is what they look like if you didn't know, two crowns centered above one crown under them:

The tattoo artist who's name I don't remember at the moment told me that the crowns would not fit and at the most he could only do one crown. This was the second time I was turned down for this tattoo and was a bit pissed about it. The first was because I wasn't heavily tattooed, and then now this. "Well thats just great, I am never going to get this tattoo" I thought, but there was another design I had been thinking about getting. I had not though about it as long as I had about the crowns, but there was one reason shouting out in the back of my mind that just wouldn't let me say no. I was turned down when I walked in to get my first tattoo, which was supposed to be the crowns and ended up with the one I have now. As I stood in the shop arguing with myself weather or not to even get a tattoo after my idea had been turned down I made the rash decision to do so, and I pick one the one I have now, even though I had only though about getting it for about a month. For me when I make rash decisions like that they always have turned out to be the best decisions I make, so I did it again. 

For a second time I was standing in a tattoo shop with a rejected idea, so I picked my next best one. My second tattoo is three birds sitting on a tree branch, but not just any branch, the branch of my family on my family tree. Two of the  birds are larger, and are on either side of the small third bird. This is supposed to represent me with each parent on one side of me. The branch is also just as important; it has 10 leaves on two separated arms extending from the branch. There are 6 leaves on one and 4 on the other. The 6 stand for one person each in my immediate family: my grandmother (MawMaw), grandfather (PawPaw), uncle (David), aunt (Tammy), cousin (Sam), and my sister (Breanna). The 4 leave represent the pets that have been most important in my life: Zana, Noella, Sadie, and Dexter. Zana and Noella have both passed, Noella just this past Auguest while I was on my trip. She is the reason I got the leaves, at first I wanted the branch to be naked because my favorite time of year is fall/winter, but that all changed when I got the email about here passing. 

I spent a lot of time going back and forth between two different places on my body: my forearm right beneath the bend in my arm or on my back under my shoulder blade, but towards my side/rib area a bit more. I chose my forearm because I wanted to be able to see my family everyday, since I will be moving over 5000 miles away from home, I want to know that my family is always there no matter where I am. It is not just a symbol for me, but them as well. That I am not forgetting about them or trading them in for a new family, but that my life is taking me on the path less traveled by and I will never forget them or stop loving them.  

Here is a picture of the fantastic artist tattooing me: 

The whole process took less time than I thought it would. It took about a total of 40-45 minutes from the time I walked in to the door and out again. The tattoo part took only about 30 minutes compared to an hour and half to two hours for my first tattoo. My very lovely friend Nellie, who not only took time out of her day to take me to the shop, filmed/took photos the whole time. So now you can not only read about my experience, but you can also see it from start to finish if you would like. If not then you can skip the video and keep reading. 

It did hurt, but not as much as my foot. One thing that was different was I bled a lot more than my first tattoo not just during, but even after I was done and went home. This tattoo also hurt for a few days after, which was something I didn't experience the first time or even this time when I touched it up. It felt like my arm had been dangling off the bumper of a car and skid on the asphalt for a few miles. I could not unbend my arm due to the pain, and when the scabs grew I couldn't unbend my arm do to the fear of them ripping off. As gross as that sounds it is true; when you bend and unbend your arm your skin stretches and pulls, so when you have skin still healing it is not good to move it as much. The good news was I only had to deal with one week of discomfort before it healed, while even today my foot is still on its last leg of healing. This tattoo did also cost more ($220) than my first ($100), but it was well worth it. I am very happy with the final result and love it every more each day. Even my family has given me their blessing. I told no one in my family that I had got a new tattoo, nor that it was front and center on my arm. My mom was the first to know. I showed her in the car on our way home from the airport, although she wasn't to happy she understood why it was so important to me as have my other family members. I never really got the "your never going to get a job again!" lecture, until I brought it up with my grandparents. Lucky for me the industry I want to work in doesn't really care what ink you have on your skin, but the ink you can put on a page. I am 100% happy with my tattoo and love to show it off whenever I get the chance, which is a lot around here in Houston since it is STILL 90 something degrees everyday! Anyways, as much as I don't want to say it I must: this is probably going to be my last tattoo *awwws and booos*. I know, but I made a deal with Daniel that I would only get two since not only do I have to live with them the rest of my life, but so does he. This is what you do in relationships my friends, and it is called compromise. I do not hold anything against him for it either, I completely understand where he comes from and how much he had to give to be ok with the two I have now. 

Now the moment you have all been waiting for while I droned on, the final product! (without the redness of course)  

While I was there I also got my first tattoo fixed. As you may have read in my blog post about the first letter of the quote being not up to par. It was nothing that was done by the artist, but by my body: the ink was rejected on the bottom of the "L".  Here are before and after photos:
Before:

After: 

I would like to thank you so much for reading and watching, whether it is one person or a thousand it means the world to me. Thanks again and I will talk to you all again soon! 

xoxo, Gossip Girl 

Just Kidding! I just had to. I really do mean everything that I said though and if you have made it this far then THANK YOU so much again!! I know my post are long and I am sorry, but I can write what I feel/think better then I can speak them out loud. 

Talk to you soon,    

Makenna

Tattoo Story

About two months ago I got my first tattoo and I don't regret it for a second. I went about two weeks after my 18th birthday, I would have went the day of, but I really wanted Daniel to be there to hold my hand. I hate needles and had no idea what my pain tolerance was, but we will get to that later. Some people might think I just jumped right into it an never gave it a second thought, but don't worry I have been thinking about get a tattoo since I was 13. I have been waiting for a long time and even almost talked my mom into letting me get one on my 17th birthday, but I chose to go to Europe instead. I had also been looking at the same tattoo shop for years. One thing that has changed over the years was how many tattoos I was going to get and which ones I wanted. Before I started dating Daniel I wanted to get around 10 or 11 tattoos, they would all have been fairly small the biggest one would have right under my collar bone. Even thought I would still love to have many tattoos, being in a relationship means compromising. Daniel hates tattoos and in fact I spent months trying to even get him to go with me, but in the end we agreed that I was to get at the most two (even though now he is saying one is enough, but we will see about that). I thought about what I was going to get for a few months and I had it narrowed down to two things I knew in the future I would not regret. I originally want to start out small so I would know how it feels and what to expect by getting my first tattoo on the top of my right pointer finger on the part closest to the back of the hand. As some of you may know most tattoo shops will decline finger tattoos if it will be your first, because of the after care that is required. Knowing this I went into the shop a week before to check it out and make sure it was clean, but I also wanted to ask if they did finger tattoos. Sadly they said no. I was at a stand still, I wasn't sure if I wanted to get my second choice because it would be so much bigger and was said to be extremely pain full. I ended up going with my second choice which was a quote on the outside of my foot. I spent a lot of my time researching the placement and from what I was reading the side of your foot was supposed to be one of the most painful places to put a tattoo because it is filled with nerves and not a lot of muscle. I collected my courage and and drove 40 mins down to the shop scared out of my mind, but I wasn't going to back out. When we arrived I talked to the artist about the quote I wanted: "Lights on building and everything that makes you wonder". It is from the book "Perks of Being a Wallflower", which was later made into a movie in 2012. The quote was to long to fit on the side of my foot so I decide to just go with the first 3 words since I know the whole quote by heart, so I will always know the rest. This quote stuck to me and has a few different meanings to me. The first is quite literal, I love walking/driving thought a big city at night with all the different color lights shining. This is also one reason why Christmas is my favorite holiday, because of all the lights. Seeing all the lights just makes me happy and feel like anything is possible. It also is a symbol for this time in my life that I want to remember for as long as I can. Now on to the needle in the skin part. While he was setting up and putting the stencil on my foot I was quite nervous. It wasn't about if I was making the right choice, but about how bad it was going to hurt. As he turned on the machine and guided the needle towards my foot I prepared for the worse. In all honesty it was nothing how I thought it was going to be. It didn't really hurt as much as people had said, but there were parts that hurt more than others. The best way I can describe it is a cat constantly scratching you over and over again. I did find it true that if you talk to somebody during the process it does lower the pain, however it also caused me to twitch because I was not paying attention to what was being done so I would focus on the pain when it would hurt the worse and I wouldn't twitch (which was always on curves). It took about 2-2 and half hours to do the whole thing, and let me say I give a lot of props to the people that can sit there for 6 or so hours, the longer it took the more I could start to feel the pain. Over all I was pretty proud of myself for going through with it and am so happy I did.

After we were done the artist covered the tattoo and gave me instructions on how to take care of it. I will say the after care was way worse than the actual pain. Since the tattoo was on my foot I was not allowed to take a shower longer than 5 minutes with cold/semi-warm water. I am a girl, the shortest shower you can get out of me is maybe 20 minutes, so I had to resort to baths with my foot hanging over the side. I had to do this for 3 weeks, but I gave up in the middle of week 2 and just stuck my foot on the rim of the tub were the water coming from the shower head wouldn't hit my foot. I also had to put unscented lotion on my foot 3 times a day for 4 weeks. Another problem I had was shoes, I spent days looking for sandals that wouldn't touch any part of my tattoo, but I did finally find a pair. The worst part about the healing process was waiting. I really just wanted to see what it looked liked under the scabs and having dreams that half of your tattoo falls off really doesn't help. It was about exactly 3 weeks when the first scabs started to fall off and took about another week and half to completely heal. There was only one things I would like to fix about the tattoo and it is my fault. The L in lights, the ink did not take to my skin at the bottom curve of the L and the artist did warn me that the sides might not accept the ink due to the different skin type on the sides of the foot, and it could have also been when it was healing I didn't do something right on that spot and it took the ink out. You can see where there was ink, but it just looks faded. This can be easily fixed and I'm sure if I went back to the same guy he would just go over that small part for free since it is just a little curve. The reasons why I haven't gotten it done yet was mainly because I haven't had time to drive into the city, I had just finished the healing process, and I really didn't want to restart it again. Also it is a flaw and I kinda like it because nothing is perfect. I may get it fixed when and if I get my second one.