Black line drawing flash design of a cartoon mouse with round ears, a bow on its head and a curled spiral tail, with the words You Make Me Smile beneath it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mouse with bow and spiral tail

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A simple cartoon mouse is drawn in a single weight of black outline, with round ears, a small bow on top of its head and a long tail that curls into a spiral at the end. Small stray lines suggest whiskers and a little shading on the body, and the drawing sits on a plain white background. The handwritten phrase You Make Me Smile runs along the bottom in black lettering.

Fine line Mouse Bow Ear

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

Mabel Quint had run the haberdashery on Cobble Lane for forty years, and the only creature she had never managed to shift was the mouse under the cutting table. Every morning there was a fresh nibble in the selvedge of the lining silk, and every morning she swept the crumbs into her palm and told it off. It never once took the hint. It sat on the offcuts with its tail coiled like a watch spring and watched her lift the pins out of the tomato-shaped pincushion.

Keep reading

One wet Thursday a cerise bow went missing from the window display. Mabel searched the bolts, the button tins and the drawer of loose hooks. At closing time she found it on the windowsill, knotted neatly on top of the mouse's head, which looked rather pleased with itself. "Vanity," she said. The mouse flicked its round pink ears and went back to the silk.

On Saturday the bakery across the road was holding its anniversary tea, and Mabel, who had not been invited, had a hem to deliver. The mouse rode in her coat pocket with its bow at a jaunty angle. The baker's youngest, who had lost a front tooth that week and had stopped smiling at anyone, spotted it across the room and laughed so hard she had to sit down on a flour sack.

Mabel walked home with a bag of cinnamon buns and a small, unwelcome warmth in her chest. The mouse slept on the offcuts, tail wound into a tight spiral. "Don't get ideas," she told it, and left the lamp on.