Poppy Luna

“I started Astra Lines because I wanted to provide a relaxing, safe space for my clients,” says Poppy Luna (opens in new window), sitting in her small, atmospheric tattoo studio. “When they come in, I want them to know they’re going to be heard and accepted. It’s not going to be tattooing as a way to make as much money as possible.”

Poppy has been working as a tattoo artist for 11 years, starting out in her native France and moving to Edinburgh in 2019. Over the years, she’s built a loyal client base from all over the UK with her distinctive blackline designs, inspired by fantasy, witchcraft and nature. She’s been self-employed from the very beginning - so as well as creating enchanting art, she’s handling her admin, marketing and her accounting on her own.

This year, HMRC launched a huge change to how sole traders and landlords file their taxes: Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax. Poppy was in the first wave of people affected, and she had to change her accounting from spreadsheets to MTD-compatible software. She’s now been using FreeAgent for a year and finding ways to make the change count for her.

Creating space to work

Poppy’s business has grown through a genuine understanding of her clients’ needs - and her own. “I used to work in a busy studio and it could become overwhelming at times,” she says. Sometimes the noise and bustle of sharing a space with four or five other artists triggered Poppy’s sensory issues. Sometimes clients felt uneasy baring large sections of their body with other people around. 

Sometimes, it just felt like neither Poppy or her clients could fully relax and talk. “I see tattooing as a holistic method. I look to help my clients turn a page or move to a new chapter in their lives so we do share a lot of deep conversations,” she says. “They want to be able to show up as themselves and share in a safe space, so around strangers… it’s not the best.” 

In 2025, she was able to finally realise her dream - a private studio, shared with one close friend, offering a peaceful and creative haven for her and her clients. Astra Lines is a quiet, calm space and, at first glance, looks more like a cosy living room than a tattoo studio. “We’re strong on neurodivergent and trans acceptance; we can take the time to talk here,” says Poppy, although she’s just as comfortable pausing the chat to let her eclectic playlists drift in the background.

With many years of experience as a freelancer, Poppy also knows how to create the space she needs to prioritise each different part of her job. She works best when she has time to focus, so she tries to reduce distractions. “Most of the time, I only have one client a day. I dedicate all my time to them, so they have my full attention.” 

She’ll divide her week between tattooing days in the studio, drawing days to work on her custom designs, admin days to handle her new enquiries, and accounting days to keep on top of her finances. Previously, an accounting day saw her sitting down with her spreadsheet to log the month’s income and expenses. Now, it means sitting down with her FreeAgent account to categorise bank transactions and upload receipts. 

Life on hard mode

Poppy finally got an autism diagnosis a year ago, confirming something she’s suspected for years. “It’s like doing life on hard mode. I suspect I’ve got ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] as well - if I don’t have everything clear and organised, then it’s chaos,” she says.

Because it’s important for her to feel on top of her finances, Poppy is incredibly disciplined. Unlike many other artists she knows, she treats herself like an employee, sending herself a monthly income and moving the rest of her money into a separate bank account for tax and expenses. “By doing everything monthly, I know exactly how much I’m saving every month and how much I’m spending.”

She has all three of her bank accounts connected to FreeAgent, so she can see her full financial picture. “The fact I could add all those accounts was good, everything is connected now.” She also uses Smart Capture to take photos of her bills and receipts, letting FreeAgent’s AI match them to existing bank transactions or extract the dates and amounts to create new expense records. Then she knows all her information is stored in FreeAgent when she needs it at the end of the year.

With that system in place, she’s never caught off guard by her tax bill. “Even when it’s January and time for taxes, I’m not stressing, my money is already set aside,” says Poppy. Sometimes she finds she saved more than she needs for her tax bill - now that’s the kind of surprise you want at year-end! 

The MTD shakeup

Thanks to her routine, even the changes introduced with MTD for Income Tax didn’t hold many challenges. The biggest change for Poppy was the requirement to keep digital records. No longer would her spreadsheet be enough for HMRC. She needed software - and she chose FreeAgent. 

FreeAgent was the right fit for two main reasons, says Poppy. “I needed something straightforward, I’m not a maths person at all. And I’ve had a Royal Bank of Scotland business bank account since I arrived in the country - so that added to the reason I wanted to use FreeAgent, because I could have this subscription for free.*” 

And, she adds, the guidance from FreeAgent has helped her get up to speed. “FreeAgent was very helpful. Every time I had a question, it was very clear on the website.”

Rather than having to submit a Self Assessment return once a year, Poppy now has to submit updates quarterly MTD for Income Tax. You don’t have to look far online before you see MTD scare stories, talking about increased costs (opens in new window), time sinks (opens in new window) and “five tax returns a year” (opens in new window) (a myth we’ve already busted) - but MTD hasn’t spooked Poppy. “I was already doing my accounts every month because doing it yearly would take too long,” she says. “For me, it doesn’t change anything and I get more regular updates, so it’s not bad.”

MTD for Income Tax was also the catalyst for a decision she’d been considering for a little while - getting an accountant. “With the opening of the studio, I thought it’d be better to have an accountant, and then MTD kind of encouraged me to do it because I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.” Her accountant will file her last Self Assessment return, as well as submitting her quarterly updates for MTD for Income Tax - and the first deadline is just round the corner on 7th August.

In the end, the hardest thing wasn’t MTD - it was handing over control. “I’ve always done it all myself, so it’s a little bit hard to let go - I sent my accountant a long list describing how I’m working with everything… But they seem to know what they’re doing.” 

Ultimately, Poppy has taken all the changes of the last year in her stride. “I like challenges - that’s why I like working on cover-ups.” Seeing not just an old, unloved tattoo, but the opportunity to transform it into something beautiful and deeply personal is a rare skill, even amongst artists.

“Most of my clients give me a lot of creative freedom, that’s one of my favourite parts,” she says. “It makes me feel very comfortable, like I can trust them as much as they can trust me.” 

Check out more of Poppy’s work on her website (opens in new window).

Photography: Luigi Di Pasquale (opens in new window)

*Get FreeAgent for free while you retain a business bank account with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank, or make at least one transaction a month through a Mettle bank account. Optional add-ons may be chargeable. Find out more.