Melanie's Marilyn

A trip to the laundromat on Saturday yielded a meeting with a young lady who had a couple visible tattoos on one of her feet and an ankle. Fortunately, my curiosity got the better of me because, when I asked her about them, she revealed much better work, namely this phenomenal Marilyn Monroe portrait on her inner right forearm:

This stunning work was created by the incomparable Virginia Elwood at New York Adorned. I have been fortunate to encounter Ms. Elwood's work previously here and here.

Melanie is a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe and she is proud to wear this icon on her sleeve. Clicking on the tag for Marilyn Monrow below will reveal other Marilyn tattoos that have appeared previously on Tattoosday.

Thanks to Melanie for sharing this phenomenal portrait with us here on Tattoosday!

KERMITMENTS

valentines day. do we have problems with commintments ? tell us !

LADIIIIIES

I GOT THIS INKED

Christine send us this picture. thanks a lot !! very nice pieces.

Tattoosday's Bonafide Bags Giveaway!

Last month I enviously watched as the good folks over at TattooSnob had a contest in which they gave away some really cool items from Bonafide Bags. I reached out to the good people at Bonafide and asked if they'd like to do something with our readers, and they were very receptive to the idea.

So check these out:

Bonafide's Japanese Koi (left) and Traditional (right) Designs

Bonafide's American Pride (left) and Day of the Dead (right) Designs

They're very sturdy and look really cool - perfect for a trip to the supermarket or the beach. They're made from recycled plastic and my lovely bride is already rocking her Japanese Koi bag. There are two sizes of each design. Check out Bonafide's website here for more product specifics, including close-up views, as well.

How do you win a set? Leave a comment on the post below and winners will be randomly selected and receive a matching set of these Bonafide Bags. That's one large all purpose bag and its matching lunch/gift bag counterpart, or a $15.00 value. I have three sets of each of the four designs, so that's twelve winners in all.

Now, let's see if we can outdo the readers at TattooSnob. They garnered 63 comments/entries in their giveaway, so our goal is 70 reader comments by Saturday, February 19, at 11:59 PM, EST. Tell us which one is your favorite design, or any other related comment, and you'll be eligible to win!

Note: I have a filter on comments so if you don't see it right away, it's because I need to approve each submission to make sure it's not spam.

USER SUBMISSIONS / I GOT THIS INKED

Thanks to Demetri for reminding us that we had originally planned to post some user submissions too. Demetri is the first one to show one of his new pieces. If you would like to submit something too, mail us at grandtattoo.blogspot.com@googlemail.com

DAVID BECKHAM

david beckham. i looove him. -DANA

SUPER ROUGH

ghetto style. kinda cool.

HANDS AND SHIT

GET THIS INKED

i flipped through an old fairytale book ( not the one above ) and found some pretty cool colored illustrations that would make a kick ass tattoo. where do you find your inspiration ? hit us up !

GRANDTATTOO.BLOGSPOT.COM@GOOGLEMAIL.COM

HERON PRESTON

i used to check mister heron preston's blog pretty often. it delivered a nice stylo-nyc-fashion-hipster-coolness-vibe. that used to be. things have changed. the blog is now called firebird got a new design and is not that fascinating anymore. the only two pictures that provided interest where these :)

MUSIC BABY

this jam is golden. classic hiphop -beat. nice.

Jenise's Tattoo is Decorative and Practical

Normally I would have prefaced this as a "Tattoos I Know" post, since the contributor, Jenise, has been a friend of mine since 1984. However, since we haven't actually seen each other in person in over twenty-five years, I've never actually met her tattooed self in the flesh.

Nonetheless, Jenise has been a fan and supporter of Tattoosday since its inception and has, from early on, told me that "one of these days" she'd send me shots of the tattoo circling her right wrist. Imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, the pictures finally arrived this week. So here it is:

Jenise credits Clay at Willie's Tropical Tattoo in Daytona Beach, who inked these in February 2008. The piece was "designed to reflect [her] Hawaiian bracelet and it took [the artist] 2 hours to get it just the way he wanted it before he put the stencil on...".  As for the words "Peanut" and "Shellfish," the tattoo also acts as a quasi medic alert bracelet, indicating two foods which make her seriously ill. So there's a practical aspect to the piece, as well.

On a humorous note, she added "NO... these are NOT the nicknames of my children, I have been asked that more times than I can count".

Thanks to Jenise for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!