Traditional tattoo on an upper arm of an envelope with a red emblem, a black silhouette profile on stacked cards and a red rose, with a printed sticker of the same design held below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Envelope, silhouette and rose on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A bold tattoo shows an envelope with a red circular emblem and red line detail, layered over stacked cards that contain a black silhouette of a profile. A red rose with dark leaves sits to the left of the envelope. The linework is heavy and black, with grey shading on the cards, and the red adds colour to the envelope, emblem and rose.

Find an artist for this

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

The rose by the south wall was planted the spring the carrier stopped coming up the lane, so the village called it the waiting rose. Tamsin pruned it every March and never cut the hip that grew nearest the gate.

Keep reading

Each month a letter came for her brother, sealed in red wax with a ring nobody in Ashby could name. She kept them in a biscuit tin under the potting bench. Inside every envelope was a card with his face cut from black paper, so she would know him when he came home from the sea. There were seven cards in the tin, and the seventh was the last one that had come in his own hand.

On the morning the eighth envelope arrived, the wax was already broken. Someone had opened it on the road and pressed the flap shut again with a thumb of grease. Tamsin read the single line twice, then set it beside the tin and went out to the bush.

She cut the hip that had always been hers to leave, pressed it between two of the black cards, and sent the bundle down the lane with a stamp she licked herself. The next summer the rose ran red along the whole wall, and the gate stayed shut, which is how the village knew he had read it.

More like this

Two small traditional-style Tudor rose tattoos in red and blue on the side fingers of two hands pressed together, with black script lettering tattooed on the thighs behind.
Matching Tudor roses on two fingers
Fine line black heart and key tattoos on the fingers of two clasped hands.
Heart and key tattoos on clasped fingers
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of mountains, a river and pine trees inside a diamond frame on the inner upper arm.
Mountain and river landscape in a diamond
Traditional-style colour tattoo of a peacock with green feathers and red eyes on an upper arm, beside a partly visible tattoo of a woman's face on the other arm.
Peacock tattoo on upper arm
Black and grey fine line tattoo of a stippled wave inside an outlined triangle on the side of a thigh.
Wave inside a triangle on a thigh
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a curling wave with spray inside an outlined triangle, on the outer thigh.
Wave inside a triangle on the thigh
Two matching black cameo silhouette tattoos in ornate frames on the upper thighs of a person, in a traditional style.
Matching cameo silhouette tattoos on thighs
Black and grey blackwork and dotwork tattoo of a skull wearing a bowler hat, on a person's calf.
Skull in a bowler hat on a calf
Fine line tattoo of two outlined hands over a solid red circle on the forearm, shown on a person wearing jeans and a grey top.
Two hands over a red circle on a forearm
Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a curling wave inside an inverted triangle on the outer thigh, shown beside black shorts.
Wave inside an inverted triangle on a thigh
Black and grey blackwork tattoo of a woman with dark bobbed hair holding a cigarette, framed in a square, on the upper arm.
Woman with cigarette in a square frame
Black traditional tattoo of a crowned hand with a pointing finger on the outer thigh, with denim shorts at the top of the frame.
Crowned hand on a thigh

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.