Ratty Birthday

I’ve been feeling rather uninspired when it comes to making cards this year. I’ve enjoyed colouring images, but coming up with layouts that I like has been a struggle, and it’s doubly hard when it’s a birthday card for a fifteen-year-old boy…

Originally I was going to do a card with a footballer on it — my nephew plays in a junior league — but then I second-guessed myself, thinking that the images I had were more suitable for a ten-year-old boy than a fifteen-year-old.

With time running out along with the inspiration, I raided my box of previously coloured images in the hope of finding something appropriate. I ended up choosing this pair of Inktense ratties — my nephew had decided he wanted some of his own after meeting our girls a few years ago, so there was a reasonable chance he might appreciate it.

I die-cut the image and then fussy-cut it along the diagonal around the rats’ heads. A quick search through my patterned paper stash and I found a piece that made a decent background for the rats while also being plain enough to stamp the sentiment over. I created a mask so that I could stamp a single “happy birthday” from the sentiment next to the rats; however, I should have used thicker paper for the mask. The first attempt didn’t stamp very cleanly so I did it a second time, but the Versafine bled through the mask and onto the card… After cursing myself for a moment, I reached for a soft black pencil and created some shading around the text to cover up the smudges.

Once I’d glued it all together, I decided to add some white pencil behind the head of the rat who got all the cheese so that he would stand out from the background better. I used a spare strip of the patterned paper on the inside of the card so I could safely tuck in some cash for my nephew (though I forgot to photograph that bit, it’s so rare I do anything on the inside of cards).

This is the most recent card I’ve made. Now I just have to go finish writing up the blog posts for the others I’ve made this year…

Inktense pencils:

ground – 1740 Saddle Brown, 1800 Baked Earth
cheese – 1700 Mustard, 0230 Golden Yellow
feet, ears, tail – 0310 Mid Vermilion grey
rats – 2200 Ink Black, 2020 Indian Ink, 2120 Neutral Grey, 1800 Baked Earth, 2010 Sepia Ink

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Katzelkraft – rats de ville
  My Favorite Things – spotlight sentiments
• dies:
  Create A Smile – double-stitched rectangles
• inks:
  Versafine – onyx black
• pens & pencils:
  black ultrafine Sharpie
  Stabilo All – white
  ArtGraf soft carbon pencil
• paper and card:
  Strathmore Bristol smooth 300
  Prima – paper pad – cartographer
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable pearly shimmer

This image was coloured on 15 June 2018; day 15 of The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge