Ramen Card

This card was made for a friend who I really love going on excursions, eating noodles with. In Chinese culture, there is a tradition to eat long noodles on your birthday because it symbolizes living a long life - and since my friend is also Chinese, I wanted to emulate that.

I know we had enjoyed many warm noodle soups together but unfortunately the string that I had was not the warm off-white or pale yellow that noodles are known to be. In fact, I thought that the bright white string would look a bit off-putting if I had used it. I decided to try a technique I had heard a peer use all the way back in junior high when we were making dioramas - which is dying materials a different colour with tea! I recall my friend had used a tea bag to blot a piece of paper to make it look more aged, and I decided to try to dye this string using barley tea. I left it for a day, then took it out, dried it overnight and was so pleased with the colour - it really looked more like noodles!

The cat themed naruto is to represent my friend's love for cats and kittens.

I wish I could improve on this card by making the noodles a more natural shape. I was having trouble sticking the noodles onto the card with the double sided tape and glue I had at the time, but it is definitely something I will keep in mind in the future.