sham shui shoppin'

So, went back to the good ol' Sham Shui Po district yesterday on my glorious much needed day off. Honestly, who could ask for more than a whole district selling wholesale everything?! Love it. Weather was miserable, which made it even better, coz as soon as it starts drizzling here in Hong Kong, the general public act like it's one of the 7 plagues, and do 1 of 2 things.....

• stay indoors
  
• try and poke taller people's eyeballs out with umbrellas
  

i prefer the 1st option.... and that was the case yesterday. I spent so much time buying crap for friends in London, that i didn't even get half of what i went there for (got a hairclip quota to meet for Miss Cheyne). 

Here's some Christmas crap i'll be sending across the vast pond that is the Atlantic....(none of my friends in the UK read this... as far as i can tell, so there's no spoiling anyones Christmas!)

Here's the rough overview....i got all sorts! Rat Fink wacky wobblers, Lollipop mirrors, cookie compact mirrors, stationary (i love stationary so so so much), pens, flannels that look like cake..... all awesome shit i tell ya!

here's some close up's for y'all coz i'm guessing blogger wont let the pic come up larger....

these mirrors sure need a clean.....

these are little animal shaped notepads. For some reason the monkey and the cat can spell just fine, but the panda.... not so gud!

Oh, and ....i'm a horrible person, i know, but i couldn't not get this!

I'm sorry Milo, but you wear it well....

Anyways, not much else to blog about.... other than i am getting more and more restless about moving back to London, and just wanna get shit sorted. There's so much to get done, but until we have a 100% confirmed buyer for the studio, i don't wanna start getting rid of stuff/packing etc etc....ya know?!

We've had a bunch of interest from all sorts of people, but nobody has 100% confirmed, and until that contract is signed, i just feel stuck in a state somewhere between nonchalance and absolute fury. It kinda sucks!

Anyways, today i spend 4 and a half hours tattooing a pixie. It was a fucking big pixie.... the motherload!

@morrow i'm finishing (i hope) the C'O'D phoenix....so there won't be no decent tattoo pics for a while i fear.... oh....i'm tattooing ross on sat, so til then!

tattoos and passed out weirdo's

i'm too tired to think of a clever title.... no puns, no lyrics, no quotes. i'm sorry.

So, yesterday i got to do some nice pieces, started out the day with this big ol' thigh piece....

sat well, and all went smoothly, plus it was the easiest tattoo ever to get a photo of! makes a change i tell ya!

so then i had my buddy Cheyne come in for her 1st ever tattoo. She wanted to do it in 2 sessions, so we got all the lines n black shading done. colour won't take long, but i'm looking forward to getting this finished.

I am a back-stabber. yup.

So then we went out drinkin' and this atrociously drunk stranger came and tried to have a conversation with us.... then he passed out. So we all reverted to acting like children and kept ourselves busy for a good while....

i love this one, with his mouth wide open....

I just got given the coolest present ever, so i'll probably blog again later. I'm just tryin' to waste time, coz i had a last minute cancellation which sucks... normally i'd get loads of drawing done, but i'm not that far behind with all the custom stuff (for a change).

Gonna watch my new Elvis Costello DVD. here's some Costello for y'all.....

extinct

I thought true romantics had died out a long long time ago, but today we had 2 really sweet guys in getting tattoos for their wife.... hmm that sounds wrong, like they are polygamists... 

they were getting tattoos for their wives...... that sounds wrong too...... hang on......

they got tattoos for their respective wives.  OK? 

i was meant to do both but was running behind, and still had to design tomorrows pieces, so rob did the name of a newly wed on one guy (y'all shoulda seen her face when she saw it. priceless.) like..... wedding vows aren't nearly as serious as a tattoo!... while i finished up the toy tattoo i started a while back. (which i found out today is for his wife, coz toys mean happiness, and he wants his wife to always to be happy).

lastly, here's some festive milo pics for y'all to enjoy!

yup, ross has a moustache. don't ask. it took me the better part of a whole tattoo to notice too. wish i nver had!

you deal

Friday Tom from Macau (birthday ball playing Tom) came in to get a bunch of filler lined on his arm. I always find it amusing when someone comes in with a fair amount of coverage, and a couple hours and some lines later, they suddenly look really filled up... full? grammer?

anyways, we did 4 seperate pieces, and just got all the linework in... here's a few.....

this happy couple was squeezed in right at the top/back of his arm. her show is pretty much in that one spot it's impossible to reach with him sitting upright. i'm not gonna lay the bench down for a shoe, so i managed in the end!

hmm...what else? oh, we did this on his inner elbow section....

and when he bends his arm it looks like this....

and we also got this uber happy deck of cards done round his forearm. pls note* i didn't do the birds above, or the bullets below....*

i always stress when i'm doing linework right up to existing tattoos. i can't talk....barely breath coz i'm always so paranoid about following the linework straight over whats already there! stuff can get confusing sometimes! luckily, :touch wood: , it's never happened and never will!

(don't worry tom, i won't blog about how you tried to tattoo bullets round ur own wrist, and had to resort to getting a friend who's "learning" to tattoo fix them in his kitchen. i won't tell a soul!)

"just a little flower"

yeah right.

So, we don't take bookings over the phone, coz we take a deposit for each booking, but tues night i got a phone call from what seemed to be a really cute, slightly crazy girl, asking to book in asap. i was booked up tues, but has a little time at the end of the day thurs, and all she wanted was "a little flower." so i was just like "i'll pencil ya in at 9pm" figuring if she came, it wouldn't take long, and if she didn't come, who cares?!

She came. 

She was PREG-a-NENT!

Turns out she wasn't the one getting tattooed. Her gentleman (who spoke no english) friend wanted a flower above a..... very dark tattoo that kinda resembled water (i've cropped it out.) it was a cover up. Oooh, speaking of which, i'm gonna start a new tatt-ermonolgy. From now on.... on the rare occasion i mistake a cover-up for just a really horrible dark mess with no excuse, it's gonna be labelled an "I can't believe it's not a cover up". smooth like butter. innit.

OK, diversion finalized. So the "teeny tiny flower turned into a chrysanthemum (he wanted laurel leaves too) i love it when we can't understand each other and revert back to acting like monkeys, pointing any which way trying to get our point across! anyways,  i didn't get away til past midnight, but it was fun, so i aint complaining. 

So here's Thurs' doings....

There's a dog walking through the park....he's calling out my name...

....Then the owner barks twice... i think i'm going insane.  -The Bruce Lee Band

So today on the bus Milo decided it was a good idea to lick my ipod, turning the volume onto full blast! There's only so loud anyone wants to listen to 3rd wave Korean ska.... if at all! 

I left my camera at he studio today, which sucks coz i got yesterdays tattoos and todays to post, but alas, it'll just have to wait.

In other news, i just ordered the coolest thing EVER from ebay. It's on it's way in it's itty bitty box already..... can't wait! (i apologise in advance to anyone my new purchase will offend) But it's so so so cute and awesome..... here's a riddle/clue.....  "what's front and back but worlds apart?" hmmmmmmmm???!!!

     ::::                 :::::           

::::     ::::              :::            

           :::              ::                    

         :::                ::                     

      ::                     :                     

      ::                     .   

                 

      ::                     *                               *   

wow, that took way longer than it was worth!

    

still no clue?! here's another clue....(i'm making this way too easy for y'all)

"Honey I'm homely!"

So today was a well needed day off. My back feels like it's getting to that point, and it needed some rest. Last night we stayed up til 8:30am this morning watching tv, and we slept in til 4pm today.... so the day of rest started well!

We went into town, Ross headed to Mong Kok, and I stopped by the 2nd hand bookstore. I'm not sure why i keep going back, they never have ANY good art books, to be honest their art section is absolutely dire. I'll elaborate..... for example..... skim reading the spines, i see "leonardo" . Now, it doesn't take a genius to realise it's an art section, this book is most likely about Leonardo Da Vinci. It's not. It's Leonardo Di-fuckin-Caprio. Honestly.... art section...... retarded. (i wouldn't have bought the book on Da Vinci anyways, i already have the hugest gigantic library of Da Vinci anyone needs.

Anyways, i spotted these 2 identical books. selling for pittance... and the saddest thing is, they are both inscribed to the artists daughter. It kinda broke my heart a little..... like, i dunno.... just made me a little sad.

" for Rose, for loving & respecting her Mother"

"For Rose-( a wonderful daughter!) Best wishes..."

Obviously i know nothing about the artist or her daughter, or their relationship..... but i always figured if u had something personal like these..... and u wanted to get rid of them, you would just throw them away. Not put them in the shittiest store ever for less money than a beer!

Speaking of gifts from Mothers, my Mum's a pretty awesome gift giver. Last thing i got in the mail was a pink monkey key-chain. What girl could ask for more?! 

After not buying any books (it's so rare i ever step foot into a bookstore (especially 2nd hand) and do not buy a thing. ) I went to get groceries.... went home, and decided to bake some cookies... (by the way, these aforementioned cookies just got knocked onto the floor by Milo a few sentences back... )

The pink mixer was also a gift from my Mum, it was part of a 3 piece set, but i think this is the only part that made the move across the world with us....

Milo was (was being the operative word) being really cure in the kitchen

heart shaped chocolate chip cookies. Not easy making heart shaped cookies, when they aren't the kinda cookies u cut. I think i did pretty well. Shame nobody got to eat them... :( (well, that's a lie, my neighbor was doing her laundry on the roof while i was cooking, so i gave her one)

All i'm left with is the 1st batch which are pretty burnt (note to anyone making cookies .... place your best batch at the bottom of the stack, so when your dog knocks the Tupperware onto the floor, the worst ones get ruined....)

these spoons almost cheered me up from the cookie vs. floor match...

Anyway, i can always make more..... but for now, i'm just waiting for Ross to get home with a pizza so we can veg out and watch a film.