WITH more than 50 tattoos from her neck to her feet, Sarah Fealy has well and truly modified her skin.

Designs range from a teddy bear to a crow on a skull.

In fact, her knuckles feature “MODI” on one set of four fingers and “FIED” on the other hand, rather than combinations such as “Love/Hate” or “Stay/True”.

“Everyone gets such deep and meaningful tattoos and to be honest after working in a tattoo shop you just kind of think it’s a joke with people trying to outdo themselves,” Ms Fealy, 23, a mother of three, said.

“I just like simple, little quirky things and people are looking down, they’re expecting to see this in-depth thing and it’s just ‘modified’.”

The Wodonga TAFE student from Urana says she got her first tattoo, a butterfly the size of five cent piece, on the small of her back at 14 and reckons she’s spent a week of her life being inked.

“I think I’ve got 53, but every time I count them I forget one or two,” she said.

She will have the opportunity to display her body decorations to the world when a heat of Miss Ink Australia is held at the Albury SS&A tonight.

It’s the first time the competition has been held on the Border with organisers expecting 10 entrants.

The winner and runner-up of the Albury heat qualify for a national final in Melbourne in September.

“I’ve always wanted to do pin-up modelling and get into the whole tattoo promotion side of things,” Ms Fealy said.

“So I thought this would be a good place to start and you get to meet like-minded people.”

Ms Fealy, who has two girls and a boy, aged from one to five, relishes the permanency of tattoos and hopes to eventually be covered from chin to toe.

“I want a full body suit right up to my chin line,” Ms Fealy said.

“By the time I die, just before I die, I want to get my last tattoo.

“I would be pretty sad if I ever ran out of skin to tattoo because I would have to start tattooing my face and nobody wants that.

“No one can ever, ever take them away and you’ve always got them.

“There’s only a few permanent things in life and that’s death, taxes and tattoos.

“Somebody asked me what I was going to do when I was old and all my tattoos started sagging and I said I’m going to be fabulous.

“If I get old and they sag and people don’t like looking at them they don’t have to, as long as I like them it doesn’t matter.”

Ms Fealy also has 13 body piercings and concedes some people may think she’s “a bit of a freak”.