Male birthday card making for Visible Image

Good morning and welcome to my fortnightly blogged design team make for Visible Image. For today's inspiration I am sharing a birthday card for a man, I think most of us find these quite tricky to do! Visible Image have a whole "drinks cabinet" of stamps designs which work so well for these cards. From gin to whisky and even cocktails. They all have coordinating dies too which makes layering cards a dream.  There are live links in this post which will take you straight to the VI website. You can check out the whole range here. For my card today I chose to work with the fun

Bring on the beers set

with their co ordinating dies 

I used one of the sentiments from Birthday wishes. This set really is a must have in your stash. It's worth having just for the stars accessory stamp which I use so much on birthday cards. 

 I also used both the positive and negative die cuts using the awesome and versatile

  Framed Fibres layering die. 

This is what I got up to;

I used a rectangle of inky mop up distress inked card, which had blues and brown inks on it. I die cut the aperture for my card using the Framed fibres die. I then stamped and clear embossed the birthday sentiment from Birthday wishes. and the cheers stamp from the Bring on the beers set

Using the star cluster from the Birthday wishes set I repeat stamped it onto a black piece of card using Picket fence distress oxide ink, cut to fit and stuck under the aperture. 

Using the stars again I randomly stamped them using gold ink around the frame of the card.

I stamped the beer images onto white card. I always make these in bulk as they are so useful for my cardmaking and I don't have to start from scratch each time. 

I die cut them out 

with their co ordinating dies  and coloured them using distress pencils.

I added glossy accents to make the drips and froth on the glass and added some glitter to make the "head" stand out even more. 

I also stamped and die cut the bottle caps adding gold pen accents. 

While everything was drying I die cut a white and gold framed fibres

 and replaced these into the aperture, turning one upside down, so that they created a really "fizzy" background. I stuck my card onto a black card blank die which I cut and made from a piece of 350gsm black card. 

I then glued my images in place, adding foam pads to the glass and front right bottle to add dimension. 

Here is my finished card

with some close ups

and one final shot.

All the Visible Image links are listed below;

 Our kind, friendly and supportive customer Facebook Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you join us.  You will be warmly welcomed and see lots of inspiration from the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity. 

 I also organize a monthly artist trading card swap in the group.  We celebrated 2 years of swapping in May. Whether you are a new stamper or a seasoned one you are most welcome to join us. Over 150 members, worldwide, have taken part since it started. It's been such fun and it's so lovely to receive a unique piece of art from your partner in the post. The details and sign up for each swap are posted in the group on the 23rd of the month. The November sign up is open now for our "Shine Bright" swap, but you need to be quick  if you would like to join us, as it closes tomorrow, 26th October.  There is no "monthly" commitment, just join in when you have the time and if you live in the UK can you choose to post to the UK only if that suits you best.

The main Visible Image Facebook business page is here

Visible Image also has its own You Tube channel here where you can see videos and Lives to give you lots of inspiration and ideas. 

Their Instagram page can be found here 

Pinterest here

and their website is here. 

There are some fab seasonal offers currently on the website for autumn and Christmas. The autumn ones are here with up to 30% off some sets. You can also get 30% off their Christmas stamps and stencils using the code CC30 Do check them all out. Stock is limited and when it's gone.. it's gone! 

 You will also find me on Instagram here; @jane.tyrrell where I share many more samples than I have the time to blog. 

Back soon, 

Bye for now

Jane x

September stalks in

Good morning I see that September has stalked in today. Autumn is just around the corner now but I should be grateful as this summer has been so delightful. I cannot remember such a good summer since that of 1976.
However I do have so much to look forward to with Mother Nature..the acorns are ripe

and it will soon be conker time!

It is also the start of our next challenge over at Country View Challenges and for this month the theme is "Planes, trains and automobiles". All the details can be seen here. 

So back to the theme.. I will confess initially it had me really stuck as I own very little of any of these. I had a good root around and found some suitable stamps.  So for my first Design team project today I used a real oldie Tim Holtz clear Visual artistry stamp set (I don't know if Stampers anonymous even sell these clear stamps these days). 

The stamps are of a truck and an old vintage American car

I stamped them out using watering can archival ink. I also found some tiny Tim (!) stamps to use. I inked up some card and also die cut one of my fave dies...the world die.

I made any inky background, just playing with different distress ink washes and also some stencilling through Tim's clockwork stencil. My colour palette now has a more autumnal feel to it.

I also added some alphabet stencilling.

I then added some random plane and automobile stamping (and a few clocks)

 I also die cut and altered some cogs.

Then it was time to put my card design together. You can see that I distressed the edges and mounted it on a Kraft card blank. The sentiment is by Lili of the Valley and it is up for sale in Dotty's Teahouse.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday Fall/autumn
Simon says stamp Work it Wednesday 1/3 stamping/celebrations
Creative Moments 3/3 anything goes
Try it on Tuesdays 1/3 take a ride
The crafty addicts 1/3 all about boys/men

We hope to see lots of you joining in with the planes, trains and automobiles challenge this month. Why not have a dig through your own stash and see what you have there to use and then share it with us? 

The details again can be found here.

Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Taking to the skies

Wow I had a real "bucket list" experience on Saturday when I took to the skies with my Hb as we shared a flying experience lesson. My daughter's new home is very near a private airfield and my Hb thought it would be great fun to experience flying a small plane. So that is just what we did!

Our pilot was a great lady called Emma who made everything so clear and yes we really did take control of the plane other than the take off and landings. 

This was our plane

and yes the oil and fuel need checking before take off.

During the hour we flew across to the  Isle of Wight and on the 2nd circuit we zoomed down to get a better view of the Needles.

It was such fun....and of course the hour flew by and all too quickly it was time to go back...

...........so off I went!

If you have never had a go at flying I would really recommend you try a flight experience..it was so exhilarating. I have no desire to become a pilot but just have that experience was wonderful.

My card today is a male birthday card I made for Dotty's which features stamped cars and planes. I stamped the background with Tim Holtz mini stamps and the dies are also by Tim. The sentiment is Clearly Besotted.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges;

Fussy and Fancy 2/3 add a sentiment
Simon says stamp Wednesday happy birthday
Lil patch of craft friends 2/3 anything goes
Crafty catz 2/3 anything goes with optional spring
Happy Little stampers 1/3 anything goes with dies
Creative moments 1/3 anything goes
That's Crafty 1/3 circles
Sweet stampin 2/3 embossing heat or dry I used dry embossing behind the globe.

Thanks for stopping by today. The wet weather for the last few days seems to be quite persistent but we are being promised some more warm sunshine next week. Fingers crossed.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Jazzing it up at the Ally Pally Crafting show

Good morning, after a hectic weekend, including a flying experience (yes seriously) and visiting the Crafting Show at Alexander Palace, I am here with my weekly Visible Image Design Team inspiration. It was so wonderful to catch up with Helen and Mark Alexander, aka Mr and Mrs Visible Image yesterday at Ally Pally. Their stand is always so "eye catching" and it's such fun to see mine and my teamies' work displayed.

 It was also fab to have seen every single stamp and stencil they sell on display. That's a lot of crafting goodies!

Ally Pally is such a cool building and although it was a wet day, the palm court is a warm relaxing place to enjoy a cuppa or lunch.

 Inside the famous stained glass window is a joy to see too.

Ally Pally also hosts lots of other cool exhibitions and musical events so today my
DT make features the amazing
Jazz it up stamp music set

I made a series of cards, all slightly different.

I used the keyboard as a border and the 2 jazz players as the focals. I stamped the keyboards in Black Versafine ink which I clear embossed to get some texture. The jazz players were just stamped.











I used a couple of sentiments...
Make a wish from Own it!

and also the Happy Birthday from the Go to words set

I also added some back ground music stamping in grey ink from Music speaks, keeping to a monochrome colour scheme (this works really well for male cards). Just using random first and second generation stamping adds some extra interest to the card

and the large star from Rock Out!

Here are 3 of them

Below is a close up of one so that you can see the background stamping details. I added a pop of red with a couple of the star stamps.

These stamps work so well for those "always hard to make" male birthday cards.

I would like to enter my cards into the following challenges;

Moving along with the times black, white and one colour

Simon says stamp a trio of something

Penny Black and more black,white and one more colour
Fussy and Fancy 1/3 add a sentiment
Sweet stampin 1/3 embossing heat or dry I used heat embossing on the keyboards
Simon says stamp Wednesday happy birthday


These are all the links for Visible Image;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide!

And the shop web site is here; where all these gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

I also wanted to share a couple of photo of Mr and Mrs Awesome, aka Helen and Mark.

2 of the most hard working people, kindest people you could meet. 

And a last one with me, a very happy, proud part of their awesome team 😁

Thanks for stopping by and for all your very kind comments you take the time to leave me. I will try to get my photos uploaded from my flying experience on Saturday very soon...it was awesome.

Today though I am back in London celebrating the last day of Maternity leave for my darling daughter over lunch. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x