Making cat charity cards with Visible Image

Hi everyone and welcome to my fortnightly blogged design team post for Visible Image. And happy birthday to my sweetest Billy cat who is 16 years young today. Everyone knows how much I love cats. Our sweet birthday boy is very much our 3rd "child". He is so loved by all our family. 

 I also support a local cat charity and recently raised over £143 at their summer bazaar where they sold my handmade cat cards. The most popular of my cat charity cards are those made using the amazing "Curious cat" stamp set with "Inspirational" words. I get a lot of messages and requests on social media asking how I make these cards and decided that by sharing one for my blogged design team makes it might help other people who are also tying to raise funds for cat charities. 

This is the "Curious cat" set I used

and I used a sentiment from the wonderful "So much stronger" sentiment set. (But of course Visible Image has several wonderful inspirational sentiment sets on their website). 

Below is the card I am sharing a tutorial for today.

and here is my step by step tutorial.

First stamp the sentiment(s) you wish to use onto a 5 1/4" by 5 1/4" piece of square smooth white card which can take water.  For this card I have stamped it at the bottom. I always use Nocturne Versafine clair and clear heat emboss for a crisp clear impression. The embossing will also resist any ink that you use over the top. 

 Stamp the cat face in the centre. A stamping platform makes this easy and also means you can repeat stamp several cards at once. This is great for batch card making.

Make masks of the eyes and nose by stamping onto thin card and cutting out. You can see the ones that I used have been used many times. 

Add a small piece of low tac tape under each mask and stick over the eyes and nose as shown below. 

Choose your inks. For this card I have chosen these distress ink sprays as they are quick and easy to make a background. Spray over the face and then remove the masks.

You can see how the eyes and nose have stayed white. 

I then use glitter pens to colour the eyes. You can use any colouring media and colours. Of course mine have to be amber eyes with a pink nose, just like my own sweet Billy cat. 

How handsome is this boy!

I then mat up with black card and adhere to a 300gsm quality 5 3/4" square white card blank. Here is my finished card again

with a close up

and 1 final shot.

I have made many versions of these cards and for a little more inspiration here are a few of them.

Visible Image have a very generous Angel policy so as long as the cards you make are individually hand made and stamped you can fund raise to your heart's content. 

I hope you found this helpful and that cats you support might benefit by your card making fundraising.

Billy says a very big thank you too, even through his dozing eyes.

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. 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 over 3 years ago. 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. So the August sign up will be in the group next week on 23rd July. 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 

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

Bye for now.

Jane x

Stencil magic for our July CVC challenge

 Hello everyone, it's time for my first blogged design team make for our July Country View crafts challenge hosted over on Facebook. You don't need a blog or an Instagram account, just head over to the group and join in with the fun! The link is here and if you are not already a member just request to join and we will warmly welcome you. It is also be a place you can be the first to hear about workshops, the latest releases etc etc. We have a happy membership of over 330 crafters and we are growing every day. You can enter the challenges up to 5 times as you like as long as you use products or brands which are stocked on the Country View Website.

 The prize this month is no less than 

ALL 12 new distress spritz sprays. WOW!  How amazing is that?

I try to link up the products I use in my posts but obviously stock on the CVC website sells out quickly . Some may be out of stock when you click on the links. If they are just fill in the email notification and you will be emailed when they are back in stock. This is the link to the website   Remember that postage is FREE on all UK orders over £20. 

For July the theme is "Stencil magic" so we would like to see you sharing a project using at least 1 stencil. 

The stencil I chose to use is the gorgeous Painted Grid stencil by Visible Image.

I used it with their Resilient bonsai stamp set

 and an extra sentiment from the Affirmations set. 

Here is the card I made

and this is how I made it.

 First I played with the stencil and my new distress spritz sprays making a couple of background both directly spraying through and also using the ink left on the stencil to monoprint with. I also used the spritz with my distress stain sprays.

I ended up with these 4 backgrounds 

and chose to use the one below. It's difficult to see the shine but the spiced marmalade spritz really sparkles. 

I then stamped the bonsai in the centre of the card using Versafine clair Nocturne and clear heat embossed. I stamped the sentiments above and below the tree. 

I repeat stamped the dish onto kraft card using acorn ink adding the circle pattern in the centre and cut it out. 

I used my distress pencils to add some colour to the branches and also stamped the Japanese text using scorched timber distress ink. 

I decoupaged the dish and then matted my card onto black card and then a white card base. 

Here is my finished card again 

with a close up

and 1 final shot. 

I really hope I have inspired you to get out your stencils and have a play.  Our challenges are open worldwide.

Remember you can find me most days over on Instagram here @jane.tyrrell where I share many, many more makes then I have the time to blog. 

I will be back to share my 2nd design team stencil make next Saturday 20th July.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Christmas in July with Visible Image

Now don't shoot the messenger as I know that a lot of my regular blog readers do not like the "C" word until 1st December but in the crafting world Christmas in July is very important to get the new Christmas releases out. Visible Image launched theirs on Friday on Hobbymaker TV and if you missed it do catch up with the shows. There are lots of mine and my UK teamies design team samples and Mark gave some fab demos. The new release is called "Sketched Christmas" and very different to  Mark's usual grungy, drippy designs. These are hand sketched by him and they are totally delightful.

Here they are, 6 new stamp sets available here on the website. 

The set I am using for my first blogged design team project is the beautiful

Sketched snowflakes

And this is the card I made

This is a very quick card to make and you can use any colourway. I chose to use blue using distress stain and mica sprays. These are always a good option for a quick frosty background. 

I used these colours;

It is very important to allow your background to dry before adding any embossing powder, I leave mine overnight at least. I stamped the sentiment in the bottom right quadrant of my background and white heat embossed it. 

I then stamped and white heat embossed the rest of my design. 

I added some touches of glitter pen

I also added a sequin in the centre of the larger snowflakes plus a few more dotted around for some extra detail and texture. As a finishing touch I matted it on to white glitter paper and then onto a deep blue card blank I made from an A4 sheet of card. 

So here is my finished card again.

With a close up.

and one final shot. 

Do check out this gorgeous new release. You can really quickly batch make with them too. I will be using these for all my Christmas cards this year. I will share some more of my design team samples over the coming month. Stay tuned! 

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. 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 over 3 years ago. 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. So the July sign up will be in the group on 23rd June. 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 

Bye for now,

Jane x