Black and grey lettering tattoo on the ribs showing the words Each day is a gift and not a given right, framed by a ribbon bow and scrollwork.

Ribbon and quote script on ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo on the side of the ribs shows a ribbon bow at the top, with scrolling ornamental swirls and a small heart down the left. The words Each day is a gift and not a given right run in script through the centre. The shading gives the bow and scrolls a soft, dimensional look against the skin, and the design fills the side of the torso vertically.

Lettering Ribs Ribbon Bow Scrollwork Heart Script Quote

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

The ewe lambed in the top field before light, and the lamb came backwards, so I had my arm in up to the elbow in straw and frost. Dad held the torch steady and said, "Mind her," the way he always did, though I was minding her already.

Keep reading

Afterwards we sat in the kitchen with tea gone cold. On the back of the feed merchant's calendar, in his square capitals, he had written a line he'd copied from his mother's hymn book: Each day is a gift and not a given right. Mum used to tease him for pinning up sayings like that beside the rota. Nobody teased him now. The radiator ticked, and through the window the yellow twine on the gatepost, which Mum tied every spring to mark the first lamb, had gone grey with weather.

I told him the lamb was alive, which was what mattered, and he nodded slowly. Then he said the bank man was coming on Thursday, and we both looked at the calendar, at the square for Thursday with nothing written in it. He tore off the page and folded it into his shirt pocket without a word.

In the morning there was a ring round the sun and the frost lay thick as salt. I took a fresh length of twine down from the shed, tied a bow on the gatepost with two loops the way Mum had shown me, and walked up the field with the lamb wobbling after me on its new legs.