Ink Love: This Next

Meet my new tattoo, ok ok, this isn't mine. But I will soon be sporting a similar one. I'm thinking of doing my "mad to live" like this instead of my ribs. What are your thoughts?

Ink Love: Collar

So this was not the inspiration for this post, but I feel it can't be ignored. I'm in love with collar bone tattoos right now and Rhianna's is a lovely example. It says "never a failure, always a lesson" and while I think the sentiment and the fact that it's written backwards is lovely, I'm also just lovin' the placement. So I figured I would share a few more of my favourite collar bone ink spots.
This is not actually a fav tattoo so much as an excellent photo. My inner(very inner) art nerd just loves the composition.
I wish I could read this, the text is lovely as is its placement right along the bone. If anyone can read it let me know!
This one almost looks fake but it's none the less lovely. I like the period, it gives the single word a solid statement.
I think I've shown this one before but I still think it's just gorgeous. Birds were a big trend in tattoos this year but this one seems timeless and classic and like it was meant to be part of her body.
This is a popular statement for tattoos, in many forms. The placement is nice and I believe it goes with the bottom picture.
I like that they serve as a reminder to push through and to keep going. It's similar to how I feel about my wrist tattoo which serves as a reminder for me to always push myself to strive for more.I've shown you this one before but I still think the white ink is so awesome.

Generally I'm against names on ones skin (though my sister has her daughters name on her foot). But this just looks so lovely.

I love the sentiment in this, again, I suppose I'm big on tattoos that are reminders of a mantra or goal.

Ink Love: My Ink

As promised, this, my friends, is my tattoo. It was my second and I got it about 3 years ago when I moved to Boston. I got it the day before Christmas eve with my then boyfriend. It says "Fortune Favors the Bold" which is one of the english translations of the latin "Fortes fortuna adiuvat". It was originally written by Terence in the second century BC but is most often associated with Vigil's Aeneid and it is believed to invoke the goddess of luck. To me it was to signify my choice to leave the path I was on, my major, english, my new home, North Carolina, and pursue a new path, music in Boston. It was to remind myself to be bold in my choices and to not hold back when it comes to the things I want. Living in North Carolina, away from my family and my boyfriend, and losing my best friend was a really difficult experience and I felt in a lot of ways I could have just given up or felt sorry for myself, but I refused to allow the things that had been difficult in my life define me and the tattoo was my way of constantly reminding myself to chase my dreams, no matter how tough it was. Do you have tattoos? What do they mean to you? Or do they mean anything? I would love to know, even if it's just tattoos you've thought about or are thinking about getting.

Ink Love: Beautiful Mess

I adore this tattoo. It's too bad you can't read it but I just love this picture. The cut of the shirt, the messy messy hair and the tiny, subtle tattoo against the dark city background. I love it. That's all.

Ink Love: Le Love

I love this picture, though it makes me miss my ex(let's call him J shall we?). He is covered in gorgeous tattoos and nothing made me feel safer than being wrapped up in his colorful arms. I don't think I could ever be as covered in ink as this girl is but she none the less looks lovely and this picture is just too sweet.

Ink Love: Mad To Live

OK kids, this is the tattoo I want. Not sure if I just want this simple one line or if I want to do the full quote and endure the full pain. I'll admit I sort of like the simplicity of this. It doesn't really need to say more. But the full quote...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn...

What do you guys think?

The World at My Feet

Oh my my! What pretty feet! And how much that must have hurt. I love this tattoo, such a quirky and literal take on having the world at your feet.
This one is also beautiful, and perhaps made more beautiful by the incredible color of her skin. I love how simple these tattoos are with just the outlines. It really shows off how they flow with the body. Lovely, just lovely.

What I'm Listening To:

Bad Things- Jace Everett

Ink Love

"Beth Loster, 24, a San Francisco writer and waitress was a student at UC Berkeley when she met a young man who said, "Hey, we have tattoos in the same font."
The text of her tattoo - "clad in the panoply of love" - came from "Science & Health" by Mary Baker Eddy. His tattoo, also in a "typewriter" typeface, was in Latin. (She can't recall the translation.)
The text of Loster's next tattoo was written by that young man, who had become her boyfriend. Before leaving for South America, where he was going to study, he left a note on her refrigerator that began, "this is on account of my loving you forever." That phrase - in the form of a tattoo - offered her comfort when he was killed in a car accident in Brazil."

This story is so sad but so beautiful, I thought I would share it with you.

Ink Love: Light As A Feather

All this breakup nonsense has really got me thinking about my tattoos and which one to get next. I've decided to go home to my tattoo guy who has done my other two for the sake of familiarity and trust that I have for him. I was after all in his wedding. I still really want to get "Mad To Live" tattooed on my ribs, but I'm also really loving the five by five tattoo and what it means in the wake of this really tough but transformative time. In the mean time I'm satiating myself with pictures of gorgeous tattoos like all of the fine feathery lovelies. What do you think?

What a lovely tattoo, it's so intricate! While we're on the topic of birds I figured I would share a few feather tattoos as well. This one, with the small portrait is just gorgeous.
This is so cute, I wish I knew the story behind it. Perhaps she's a writer? It must have hurt something awful though.
A big feather on the side, it moves nicely with her body don't you think?
I love peacock feathers! A friend of mine has one of her ribs that is forever sticking out of her gorgeous maxi dresses. It always makes her seem like a mysterious exotic queen.

What I'm Listening To:

The Funeral- Band of Horses

Ink Love: Color

Generally, colored tattoos aren't my thing. This isn't to say I don't appreciate them, but for me it's not something I would choose. That said I think these are some of the loveliest tattoo pictures I have come across. This girl is gorgeous. I love her frilly pink panties, her wild hair and of course the beautiful tattoo that cascades down her back. I've done a few nude or partially nude rooftop photo shoots with my roommate and I have to say, the feeling is quite liberating.
This tattoo I don't think is real. But none the less, it looks gorgeous. The colors are so vibrant and alive. It's a shame that tattoos don't always stay this bright, but that's why it's so important to find a good artist who is willing to do touch up for you every once in awhile. You must suffer for your art after all.

What I'm Watching:

Weeds (I'm totally addicted)

Ink Love: For the Birds

Birds seem to be a popular tattoo choice these days, and there are so many forms of bird tattoos.  I think this one is just lovely, so simple.  Again I love how they look as if they've just always been there.  Also, her lips are gorgeous!
Here's another group of small birds circling the wrist, it's so subtle.  I personally wouldn't get a bird tattoo but I think that they look really lovely on these girls.
This one is a favourite of mine.  I love the symbolism of the empty bird cage and the placement of the bird really high lights her lovely shoulders.  I also love that it is the only tattoo on her back, it really lets it shine.

Ink Love: Nerdgasm!

Confession:  I'm a nerd.  A fantasy nerd.  I love fantasy books and have since I was a kid, Tolkien, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, even, shhhhh, Twilight.  These tattoos are hardcore nerd tattoos and while I don't think I'll be tattooing a picture of Dumbledoor on myself any time soon I still think these subtle ones are a bit cool.  The above is the lantern from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which happens to be my favourite book.
This one is hard to see but it says mischief managed in white ink along her collar bone.  It's a reference to Harry Potter and the marauders map.
OK, I'm a big fan of the TV show Buffy the Vampire slayer and this tattoo is a reference to something one of the characters says often.  It means "I'm fine" and if you didn't know the show you would probably never get the reference, which makes me giggle a bit.

Ink Love: Octopus

OK, there's something vaguely dirty about this.  But I absolutely adore everything about it.  I would never get an octopus(sy?) but I think everything from the pictures makeup to the subtlety of the tentacles is perfection.

What I'm Listening To:

Annie and the Beekeepers- Dirty Laundry

Ink Love: Free Bird

How pretty and unexpected is this tattoo?  I love it's subtlety and how it looks as if maybe it's just always been there.  I truly feel that tattoos should look and feel like a part of you, not something just resting on your skin.  They should fit the curves of your body and accentuate them.  What do you guys think?

What I'm Listening To:

New South- Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

Ink Love

I'm still toying with tattoo ideas, so meet my new post subject, Ink Love.  Basically just pictures of tattoos that I think are interesting.  Not necessarily ones that I would like to get, but ones that inspire me.
I happen to think Evan Rachel Wood is a bit odd, but her tattoo is lovely.  I would never be bold enough to put a tattoo there but I think on her milky skin it looks sexy.
This tattoo is just super sweet.  I love the contrasts with her curls.

P.S.  Anyone got any pics of tattoos you've loved to send my way?  I would certainly love if you did.

Ink

I want another tattoo.  I have two already.  I have a pair of aces on my ankle which I got the week of my high school graduation.  Ace was my middle and high school nick name, it seemed appropriate that I commemorate surviving high school with that symbol.  It also looks hot with heels and is a great conversation starter.  My second tattoo I got the Christmas eve before I started school in Boston.  I had just moved from NC where my fairytail beach life with my best friend had gone horribly awry and I needed to start over.  I chose an ancient latin saying "Fortune Favors the Bold" to curl around my wrist like a bracelet.  This tattoo has several meanings to me.  It was about surviving a failed dream but also pursuing a new one.  When I moved to Boston I switched from an English major to music and made a commitment to a career I knew would not always be easy but that I was passionate about.  The placement of the tattoo around my wrist was very much an eff you to the mother who called visible tattoos job ruiners.  It was my promise to myself that whatever job I got it would accept me, ink and all.This brings us to my next tattoo.  Moving to NYC has been a rather epic moment in my life.  From the first time I remember stepping foot in Times Square at the age of 8 I knew that this was where I was supposed to be.  I have at last achieved a life time goal and I am loving it.  It makes it seem as if all the things that I've gone through in the past few years, not all good, have been worth it.  With that in mind, I want to commemorate this amazing summer with a piece of body art.  I am toying with doing the outline of the NYC skyline on my back left shoulder.  It would be similar to the above picture but it would be only the top line and it would not be so angular.  I've had some negative responses to the idea, cheesy, I would look like a post card, etc.  But it's my body, so if that's what I feel like, I'll do it.
I also really love the placement of this tattoo and the saying.  Moving to New York represented freedom and finding myself in a lot of ways.  Often I think of the placement of a tattoo before the actually image comes to me.
This one is not one I would get, I just thought it was lovely and creative and figured I would share.  Do you guys have tattoos?  Do you want one?  Got any great ideas for me?  Lay it on me!