We’ve been open for about 3 weeks now, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the support we’ve received from friends, old clients, new clients, and the neighborhood itself. Thank you to everyone that has come in to finally get the tattoos they’ve been waiting on as we got this place up and running. Thank you to our existing clients who have referred friends, and thank you to our neighbors for making us feel so welcome.

We started putting together tattoo idea books with all the sketches we’ve been shoving in corners and using to prop up furniture, so if you are looking for an idea, you can come check those out soon. Always wanted a tattoo of a sloth-spider? Sarah’s got you. How about a pig shooting laser beams out of its eyes? Brian’s your man.

Sheila got a lesson in coil and rotary machine anatomy this week, and Brian jammed a pencil into a steel tube so she can practice drawing with the weight of a coil machine hanging off the back. Based on her drawing below, we think she likes it…

We got some cool hand-painted window signs from our buddy J. Bruce (@ageoldsigns) with our hours, etc. Still waiting on our big outdoor sign, but all good things are worth waiting for. We got to see a progress picture of it and we’re stoked to hang it soon.

More shop-warming gifts from our talented friends this week! Mas Paz gave us a beautiful print and hung out with us for a day. We love his style and clean lines, and we look forward to having him back. Our friend Gus stopped by to check out the shop and gave us a really cool transforming 3D Japanese masks piece that had us all running back and forth to see both images. I’m sure that was comical for anyone driving by the shop that night. We have a small collection of art for sale now too, but we’re expecting more this week, so we’ll do a separate post with better photos once we have more up.

Funkapotamus Brian was thrilled to learn that the DC Funk Fest was right at our doorstep last weekend – one of the benefits of being right across from Howard Theater. And then to top it off, we discovered Granny and the Boys, who play on Sundays at Showtime right down the street. We snagged a CD and, what do you know, it has a cat on the cover – it’s like the universe has been throwing cats at us since we decided on our shop name. If you love dive bars and funk as much as Brian does, you gotta check out Granny and the Boys.

We’re still holding off on an official open house thing until we get our big sign up and finish a couple other minor projects, but feel free to come through and check out the shop. We love when friends stop by!