Everyone has their own story, whats different is the way we decide to tell them. Shae and I have a total of 13 tattoos and each piece has it’s own specific meaning. We get that some people aren’t a fan of tattoos. We get that they’re not for everybody. However, it’s through these beautiful handcrafted pieces of art that we tell our stories.
Sydney
Most of my tattoos carry a theme of Family & Home. I like to represent the things that mean the most to me in life, which is why my Family First tattoo is one of my most treasured. As a server I get quite a few comments on my tattoos, and this seems to be the general favourite, because it’s a statement that I think most people live by.
The one piece I have that I fully drew myself is my Wolf. I created this in the second year of my Visual Arts Major as a creative project. The project revolved around Shae and I and the themes of having a twin. Twins are represented in old Greek Mythology as wolves, Romulus & Remus. So simply stated, this piece represents Shae and I!
That’s not the last piece that involves Shae though…let me introduce our Corn Cobs. Shae, myself and our two other sisters had been trying to come up with a great sister tattoo for quite sometime. It just hit us one day, corn cobs are the most perfect image we could get that represents the four of us. To this day it’s still hard to explain why, but we’ve held Corn Roasts for years that are pretty much big parties! We even have a photo of us as little babies all shucking corn, it’s just perfect!
My last piece that represents family is my Fern. This was my first tattoo that I went in with just a concept, and I let the tattoo artist create around that. I could not believe how happy I was with the turn out! Ferns was always a plant that we had in our garden when I was growing up, so I thought it would be a great way to represent both my Mom and Dad.
Since moving to British Columbia, I always like to rep where I came from, which happens to be the 905! It’s a simple but effective tattoo to represent the area code from Hamilton, Ontario. It’s also a great conversation starter, because a lot of people catch a glance and catch on to the number.
The Mountains are a pretty self explanatory tattoo when you realize I live in BC. What’s not explanatory is why I got it in Austin, Texas…it was just on a whim! It’s one of the pieces I forget about sometimes simply because it’s on the back of my neck so I don’t see it very often. It’s too bad because it’s such a beautifully simple tattoo.
The last tattoo I have that represents home is my newest piece; just a week and a half old. I went back to the artist who did my Fern to do another floral piece, which is a mix of Trillium, Dogwood & Wildflowers. Trillium is the Ontario provincial flower and Dogwood is the BC provincial flower, so I was going for a bit of a personal hybrid. I added in the wildflowers because that what I personally think of when I think of BC, because I constantly see them when I’m hiking in the summer and they are just stunning.
For my last tattoo we’re going way back to 2011 to when I actually got my first tattoo. It’s a lyric from Anberlin’s song Alexithymia “There’s more to living than being alive“. It’s a band that I absolutely loved in high school, and still do. It’s also a lyric that resonates with me then, and probably even more so now. Just an FYI, the ribs are a rough place to get a tattoo…especially when it’s your first one!
Shae
In my personal opinion, you don’t always need a story behind every tattoo. If you like it, that’s a good enough reason for me!
My first tattoo is Three Birds on the back of my shoulder. This is one that really doesn’t have much meaning, probably to the dismay of many for an 18 year old getting her first tattoo lololol. I just thought it was so dainty and cute, and fortunately for me only took like 5 minutes to do!
My second tattoo is another classic white girl one: A FEATHER! Again there really isn’t a specific meaning for this tattoo, feathers have just always been aesthetically pleasing to me! Just like Sydney’s script tattoo, this one is on the ribs and obviously was not the most comfortable.. the closer they got to the stomach was not good times.
My third tattoo is a lyric from While She Sleeps song Our Courage, Our Cancer “My inspiration, my guidance, my home.” The powerful message that is so passionately presented just really resonated with me regarding the importance of family. I honestly could have picked out more than one lyric from this song! Definitely recommend checking that song out!
My fourth tattoo are the Moon Phases on the back of my arm! Okay we about to get real cheesy. My husband and I will always live by the quote “Love you to the moon and back.” He himself has tattoos everywhere and he ended up getting a tiny little rocket ship. It was then when we decided I should get a moon to really go balls to the wall with that quote!
My last and most current tattoo is my Corn Cob that Sydney has already so wonderfully described above 😉
Are you a tattoo lover? Tell us about some of yours!
