I love London. Not just because of it’s beautiful skyline, awesome red busses, great shops, Harrod’s, cream teas, people and Britishness, but also because London has Keely Rutherford. Keely is an amazing tattoo artist working for Jolie Rouge tattoo parlor, which is in one of the outskirts of the city if I am not mistaken. I currently only have one tattoo by her hand, but there will be a next one in May and I am thrilled about it!

It did not start with Keely by the way, my ‘tattood’ life, cause that started when I was 17. Since I can remember I would ask my parents if I could have a tattoo, and my father always used to say: Not as long as you are living under my roof! Well, that was not entirely true, as about half a year before I left the house, he actually went with me to get my first tattoo.

I am still not entirely sure if he knew back then what he was getting himself into. I wanted to start with just a small tattoo near my hip, and he would pay for it as he thought I would not go on with it. So on one beautiful Saturday I took him to the tattoo shop in my hometown to get it done. It was Asian writing, just two symbols, and he went with me to hold my hand. Eventually (and obviously!) I did go through with it, even though the girl before me was screaming and crying because her tramp stamp tattoo hurt sooo much. I had to hold my dad’s hand because it tickled, not because of the pain.

They were done very quickly and I was super happy with my tattoo. Back then I was skinny and I used to wear low pants that were on trend at the time, so it was all good. But, little did I know, getting tattoos is like an illness. It is so extremely addictive, o my gosh. The feeling of getting tattoos is soo good most of the time, and the way it looks on my super pale boring skin is so lovely, I knew right away this was definitely not going to be my last. It did take me a couple of years to find out what I really wanted to get done. Unfortunately when I was 21 years old I met a boyfriend I was going to be with for many years, who did not appreciate tattoos. And this is me being stupid (I have been before), listening to him and not getting it done.

When the relationship got worse (and I think him not giving me the freedom to do with my body whatever I wanted played a bit part in that) we broke up. Within two months after we were done and he moved out (yes, it was pretty serious!), I went to the tattoo parlor to get my second tattoo done, which was a lot bigger and a lot more colorful than my first one. I really like it, and a few years afterward I went back to get my Mario invincibility star done on my wrist, a tattoo I see a lot of times during the day and even though I do get to see it so much, I am still in love with it.

So, when am I going to tell you about Keely Rutherford you want to know? Well, it is happening! So a colleague at work said he bought the wrong tickets to this Justin Timberlake concert in London. As I wanted to go back to London for a nice weekend away soon anyway, and he offered me the tickets for free, I immediately planned my visit. I was already playing with the idea of getting a Disney tattoo which is not tacky like many of them are, and I already had my eye on Keely for a while. But, as she was located in London and did not really travel a lot at the time (I think), I now thought my Justin Timberlake weekend would be great to do it!

In the weeks before I went there I emailed her that I wanted to get a Beauty and the Beast tattoo, not in a traditional kind of Beauty and Beast-way, but I wanted to get something more abstract done in her Keely Rutherford signature super gorgeous style. She drew me the beautiful mirror with a piece of stained glass as seen in the beginning of the film, and she put some roses on it because those also play a big part in the movie. Some twinkles around it and the design looked perfect!

I was extremely nervous when I went to see her. Not just because of the tattoo and I did not really know what size it was going to be exactly, but also because it was a different country, so I had no idea what their way of working was, I was not sure if I was able to find the tattoo parlor, I was not even sure how much the tattoo would cost me! So in many ways I was scared, but as soon as I came in I noticed how lovely Keely actually is. I mean, on the one hand you could argue that of course she is, considering the cute and lovely designs she makes, but on the other hand I must say that tattoo artists are artists and they usually are pretty euhm, artistic. Some of them can be very rude even. Just some of them, many of them are totally awesome, you just have to pick the right ones, like Keely!

She did the tattoo, she sometimes gave me some time to cool down a bit as it can be pretty intense to get it all done in a few hours, but I was soooo happy with the result and having the chance to meet a lovely lady like her and get her artistic view on this Beauty and the Beast piece on my body, as soon as I got home I started to follow her even closer. This sounds like I am some kind of stalker, which I am not! I just mean I made sure I did not miss any of her Instagram posts and Tweets et cetera, to check what she was creating for other people.

One of her Instagram posts was a super cool unicorn head idea, and not long after she said she was going to visit my country. in 2016. Awesome! So I have asked her to put the unicorn head on my leg, and that is pretty exciting as it is a spot that cannot be covered up as easily as I can cover up my other tattoos. I mean, I am still a girl that wears skirts sometimes.. On the other hand, it is not like it is a neck/face/hand tattoo, so I think I should be fine. Plus, everytime I look at my blanc leg, I can only dream about that beautiful unicorn face that is going to be on there one day.

That day is going to be in a few months from now, and I am so excited to see Keely again, although I am not sure if she will recognise me now that she has become more and more popular, hihi. I would not mind, she is a great artist and it is an honor to have her work on me. Of course I will write a blog about that fantastic day in 2016 as well, but I just wanted to let you know that as soon as your start tattoos, it is hard to stick with just two. Some people get one and are done, but as soon as you hit that two tattoo mark, you will probably get more. I wonder if the same is going to happen specifically with Keely’s work, as this will be my second one by her hand, hihi 😉