A butterfly for Jay

If you follow me on Twitter or read my Phone Photo Fun Monday post this week then you know last Saturday after I work I finally went and got my tats done.

The blue one the guy ended up just redoing as it had faded so much and he didn't think his co-worker who originally did it did the picture we had justice, so he went back over the entire thing, adding in the detail the other guy originally left out (which I was fine with, but this guy seemed to really want to do it right, so I was like okay, whatever).

And then we added the little green one for Jay.

And yes, I got green instead of a reddish-orangey color like I had mentioned in my tattoo link-up post last week. I thought about it when I went to make a dummy image to take with me and... when I think colors, I don't really associate red with Jay and orange didn't look right next to the blue. When I think of a color for Jay, green looks really good on him. So I decided to go with a bright green, and I love it!

I went to the same company I got my 1st done at a few years ago, only at their newer location (I don't even think the old location is open, or if it is, they don't really promote it anymore), which I was hesitant to go to as when I stopped in there years ago to get my cartilage piercing changed before my wedding (when I got it pierced down in my college town, the guy used a blue hoop, which I didn't want in wedding pictures and wanted more of a silver hoop or a CZ stud so it didn't look odd) I had a really bad experience with the guy I dealt with - what should have taken 5 minutes took like 20 because he kept running outside to talk on his phone every 2 seconds and then when he switched the rings out for me, my piercing started oozing which it had never done before. But I had a coupon I received in the mail where I could get a $50 gift certificate towards a tattoo for just $25 (a similar deal we had used when I got my 1st tat), so I figured I'd check in there, as the guy that did my 1st one is based out of that location now also.

Well, he wasn't in, but the guy that was said he had 10 years more experience on the other guy. He gave a pretty good deal on it too - I only ended up paying about $25 more out of pocket than what I originally paid for my 1st one and this was for the rework on the 1st and adding in the 2nd.

As he was getting the colors ready, I noticed he had the Game of Thrones books (aka Song of Ice and Fire series) on his shelf and struck up a conversation with him about the books and the show. I guess he said he read them all after seeing the show, but still had them there as another guy in the shop wanted to read them.

He put his iPhone on for background music too - the 1st track coming up was "Jack Sparrow" by Lonely Island... took every bit of me not bust out laughing and singing along, as I needed to sit still! Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" (which is one of my favorite Maiden songs!) came on too.

It only took about an hour and didn't sting nearly as bad as I recall it did the 1st time. He said he's being doing it so long he's got a pretty gentle technique - last time I was squeezing hubby's hand when it started stinging, but this time I just sat on my hands and yeah... it stung, but not as much as I remember.

It's been stinging every few hours the last few days as it heals (basically when it gets too dry and I need to get it wet and put some ointment/moisturizer on it). But it's still looking good! I was little concerned that the green wasn't green enough, like you could still see some fleshy color in it, but he assured me that once it heals up it'll look fine and if I wasn't happy with it in a week or so just to call and setup a time when he's there to come-in and he'll do a touch-up on it for free (he said his touch-ups are always free, which is good to know in the future!). So I guess we'll see!

I've been putting A&D ointment on it - a girl I once met, said she rubbed Vaseline over her tats daily to keep the colors looking vibrant. She had had hers for years and the color was so bright and vibrant it looked like it was only a week or so old, that's how well it had kept it up! I really want to try and keep the color in mine looking vibrant and I read online that A&D ointment is really good for tats, so since we have several tubes lying around here thanks to Jay I figured I'd borrow one that wasn't getting used. Hopefully this works!