Temporary tattoos!

These days, I'm smitten with all the clever tattoos out there, but I'm too wussy to get a permanent one. So I was THRILLED to discover tatt.ly, a new online shop offering awesome, designy temporary tattoos.

Which would you wear?

Tattoo girls

Although I'm not a tattoo girl myself, I'm loving these clever and charming tattoos. What do you think?

P.S. Nine awesome tattoos...
P.P.S. New Yorkers, come join me at this bike ride this Thursday! xo

(Via Tattoologist)

Wave tattoo

Ahh, this wave is subtle and beautiful. Do you have a tattoo?

(Photo via All Things Stylish)

Tattoo love

How fun are these color system tattoos? So cute for a couple.

P.S. The New York Times should write an article about how adorable and creative tattoos are becoming.

(Photo by Chris Glass, via Design Crush)

Karen E. Olson - Pretty in Ink!

Posted by Kate

I’m delighted to introduce you to Karen E. Olson, who writes the fabulously fun new Tattoo Shop mystery series for NAL. I'm completely hooked on this series that feature tattoo artist Brett Kavanaugh and a cast of characters that include her hunky police detective brother Tim and a suave, enigmatic Englishman named Simon Chase. Hmm. No wonder I love these books!

Here's Karen!

As a longtime newspaper copy editor, part of my job was to write headlines. When you think about it, a book title isn’t that different from a headline: It should be short and snappy and catch people’s eye. However, I was never a great headline writer, which did not bode well for me when I had to come up with titles for my books.

I was almost done with the first in my tattoo shop mystery series before I had a title. At least one that my editor loved. I’d sent her 50 title suggestions, but each one got shot down. Kristen kept telling me that they just weren’t what they were looking for. Finally, my husband suggested THE MISSING INK, which I thought was too silly, but Kristen said it was perfect (NAL loves puns, just look at their other titles).

Because I have a little bit of OCD (most women do, especially those of us who are moms), I decided that I would keep INK in all my titles. I went on the Internet and looked up words that rhyme with ink and found phrases to play off in the books’ titles.

PRETTY IN INK was easy. It would be the second in the series. It was also the first book I started writing with a title in mind. But what would the book be about?

I hadn’t thought that far ahead; all I could think of was the Molly Ringwald movie from the ‘80s. So using that as a starting point, I thought maybe I could write about some sort of young girl, a pretty young girl, and ingénue perhaps. I thought about a plot that could involve a Britney Spears or a Miley Cyrus or a Lindsay Lohan type of character.

But everyone would expect that.

So I came up with drag queens.

What’s prettier than a roomful of drag queens? All that glitter and glitz and makeup and sparkly shoes and feathery boas. Not to mention that the book takes place in Las Vegas, the glitz capital of the world. No, it absolutely had to be drag queens.

Drag queens with tattoos. Even better.

Now, I did not know any drag queens personally, and I figured I had to find at least one to interview before I could start writing. I don’t live in Vegas, in fact, I’m a plane ride and a connection away in New England. But Serendipity waved her magic wand, and during an interview, I was telling a reporter about how I needed to find a drag queen and amazingly, she produced a phone number. Apparently there’s a huge drag queen contingent in New Haven. Go figure.

I met Brett (remarkably he had the same name as my tattoo artist protagonist!) at the clothing boutique where he worked (and spent time trying on the dresses when there was no one in the store). He told me all his secrets (rice in his bra for a more natural look; two pairs of very tight Speedos to keep his, um, jewels in place). His drag name is Levitra Champagne.

I had a blast coming up with names for my drag queens: Britney Brassieres, Miranda Rites, MissTique, Shanda Leer. It was so much easier to name them than to come up with titles! I gave them a roomful of beautiful, buff boys to perform with at Chez Tango, just off the Strip somewhere near Fremont Street (have to keep it vague or someone might actually go looking for it). And then they start dying. It’s a murder mystery. What else could happen?

Do titles entice you to pick up a book? Do you like titles with puns in them? And if you could come up with a name for a drag queen, what would it be?

Be sure to visit http://www.kareneolson.com/ to find out more about Karen and read excerpts from her books.

And Karen is giving away a copy of her first Tattoo Shop mystery, THE MISSING INK, to one lucky random commenter today! Good luck!

Typography prints + tattoo

Brooklyn graphic designer Jessica Hische is my new girl crush. Not only does she sell beautiful prints, but she also has the raddest type tattoo.
And wouldn't this alphabet print be sweet for a nursery?

(Thanks, Lee!)

Calligraphy tattoo

Betsy Dunlap does gorgeous calligraphy for weddings and invitations. But her cutest project recently was a man's tattoo with his daughters' names. How tough and sweet at the same time.

Tattoo wedding

For some reason, I'm obsessed with tattoos at the moment. How cute is this tattooed twosome on their wedding day? Audrie pointed out that the bride's forearm tattoo says, "And the story begins..."

Ship tattoo

I'm not a tattoo girl myself, but if I were to get one, this ship one is really rad. Do you have a tattoo?

(Via Lost)

Tattoo girls

I've never felt compelled to get a tattoo (too wussy!), but how rad are:
* Jennifer's mustache tattoo
* this tattoo for those who love quotation marks
* and this tattoo of Henry Darger's Vivian Girls?

Bravo, brave ladies.

(Darger tattoo via Lost.)