Colour tattoo of a blue orchid with green vines and blue script reading Just Breathe, on the side of a torso above the ribs.

Blue orchid and vines with Just Breathe script

Botanical · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A blue orchid with shaded petals and a yellow centre sits at the centre of the design, surrounded by curling green vines and tendrils. The words Just Breathe are written in blue script beneath the flower, with the vines wrapping around the lettering. The bright colour and soft shading sit on a black bra strap at the top of the frame, with the tattoo spread across the side of the torso.

Botanical Lettering Ribs Orchid Flower Vine Tendril Script Lettering

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the blue orchid in the far house finally opened this morning, the one Mr Ashdown brought down from the Penzance nursery in a box lined with wet newspaper and wouldn't let me touch until it had settled. Three flowers on the spike, the lower petals so pale they look painted on with a damp brush. I stood in the humid heat with my coat still on and forgot about the boiler for a full minute, which Father would have called a sin.

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Things here are hard going since the frost. The vines on the north wall have gone black at the tips, and the glass cracked along the ridge where the snow sat too long. Mrs Pryce from the village brings soup up on Tuesdays and sits on the upturned bucket telling me I should go home to Bristol before the lanes close. I tell her the orchid can't be moved in this cold. That's true, though it isn't the whole truth.

Yesterday the letter from the bank came, the one you've been waiting for me to open. I read it twice standing by the potting bench, then I took the scissors and cut back the dead tendril that had been curling towards the window for a month. Under the cut the stem was still green and wet. I chalked two words on the slate by the door, the way Mother used to write reminders for the kettle: Just breathe. Then I sat beside the orchid and did exactly that, slow and ordinary, until the glass stopped rattling.

Come in spring, if the roads allow. Bring the good scissors. The orchid is yours to look at whenever you want.

Love, Nell