New kitty mats! Both are designs I’ve wanted to create since the beginning but mostly because of the stencil I started out with they just weren’t practical. I have a little more time to work things out with new materials and I’m glad I could finally follow through with these two.

The Pride of Cats mat

I’m really excited about my new Pride of Cats mat! I’ve had this idea for nearly as long as Scratch Your Claws Here (2020) but the way I had to cut the stencil made one this complicated need some extra planning. Also, I use porch and floor enamel because it’s intended to be walked on and is totally weatherproof for a decade or more, but I couldn’t find all the colors I wanted for this in those enamels.

But this year I was determined to have this mat for Pride Month. I had found a stencil product that was easier to cut, especially in curves, and tested some durable outdoor enamel craft paints and it all came together—guess when? Last week! But it was worth the last-minute effort.

Working out the cutting took a little extra time, but the stenciling took a lot of extra time. I wasn’t happy with one coat of paint so used two, twice as much paint as I had estimated, and it still wasn’t bright enough and took longer to dry in between. I made another with the cats in a quick white primer as a background, then stenciled the colors on top, and it works much better and dries faster. Got to work out all these things with each product and honestly that’s part of the fun.

I used a charcoal gray mat because I wanted the colors to have more contrast with the background, and this mat is less expensive to purchase, and also thinner and lighter weight than Scratch Your Claws Here so it’s less expensive to ship. If and when I find the porch and floor enamel colors I’ll probably also make this design on the tan coir mat. But for now I’m thrilled to see this design.

The design is based on Mr. Sunshine in the sketch “Kitty in Pink” but used entirely as a silhouette the same as I’d used him for my Signs of the Cat and for the Sitting Pretty refrigerator magnet.

Where to find this doormat

Click here to purchase this mat on Portraits of Animals.

Be Quiet!! Kitty’s Sleeping! Mat

This was another idea I’ve had since practically the beginning, but the same issue with the stencil material slowed me down on this one. But cutting the text worked out well with the new stencil material and worked well when I stenciled—I was about 50% sure it wasn’t going to be legible but it totally is. I may make the text and the kitty a little bigger but others I asked about the sizes said they were fine. Let me know what you think.

This design is from an ink sketch of Jelly Bean sleeping on the bed, which I captured in part because it was his most familiar napping posture—he’s basically a black bean with ears, but I always knew which one he was because of the way he held his head. And when I designed Scratch Your Claws Here I also wanted to do a “quiet—kitty sleeping” theme and designed this one. Unlike Scratch Your Claws Here the image, or any other sleeping cat silhouette, really didn’t carry the idea without the text, so I waited until I could work it out. And I did—also last week.

This design is based on a sketch of Jelly Bean curled on the bed and thinking.

Where to find this doormat

You can find this mat on Portraits of Animals.

Scratch Your Claws Here, with text

And this was the way this mat was always supposed to look, though with Bella’s demonstration of scratching this design worked all along and it’s surprisingly still very popular.

Where to find this doormat

You can find this mat on Portraits of Animals.

More about the mats and some demonstrating cats

Life imitates art!

Received the mats today! They were cat tested as soon as I put it on the floor in front of me after unwrapping. My cat Frankie the Siamese first sniffed it and within half a minute he was scratching with his butt in the air just like Mimi and the picture on the mat! (Also rolling around too!). It sure is a “groovy” Scratcher! Oh and the mat is wonderful! You are so talented. Count Frankie and I two happy and satisfied customers!

When I decided to make a door mat to sell I just thought it would be a nice thing to have on hand. I had no idea it would be so popular—with cats as well as people! A customer (and foster cat benefactor) purchased three and emailed me with this comment as soon as she got them. I’m so happy she let me share it.

Another friend recently bought one specifically for her “porch cats”—our friend Peg Bowman who has rescued so many cats on her street, like F’Ave Tux, Nugget and more.

Here’s the new door mat I was telling you about that Bernadette E. Kazmarski made. Cute, yes?) Bernadette E. Kazmarski at the rate the porch cats are going after this one, I’ll be needing more LOL!

Just a couple of testimonials from happy people and apparently happy cats!

I had been calling them doormats. Below, this is the moment when Mariposa demonstrated that they might seem like doormats for humans but really they are scratching mats for cats by sliding one down to the floor and scratching on it while helpfully looking at me to see if I understood.

But my highly inquisitive and capable feline testing team also discovered their own uses for this human “doormat”—it’s also a cat mat! As you see demonstrated above, Mariposa has a good scratch and poses purrfectly for the camera. I had them on display during my open house, and Mariposa tested and found them good as well as the Brothers Three.

They sniffed them, and then tried a few things with them.

Then Jelly Bean lifted up his paws and followed his feline nature while Giuseppe carefully observed.

Giuseppe declared it “good.”

So we are here to tell you that you can have two reasons to purchase one of our handprinted cat mats. Or you can get two, one for the humans, and one for the cats!

And I can tell you one thing they do extremely well, as I’ve evidenced using the scraps I cut from larger mats by the litterboxes: they are effective litter mats. The cats love to scratch them after they leave the box like nothing else I’ve ever used. One drawback is that they aren’t easy to clean because the coir fibers need to dry for at least a day after they are rinsed. I actually find it worth it in order to keep all the stray litter in one place.

Developing the product

This design began as a marker sketch of Bella having a stretch in the kitchen, along with two other activities that easily lent themselves to a set of sketches, called “Fun Things Bella Does With Her Tail”. I always liked those silhouettes, and knew someday I’d “do something” with them. This is the first “something”, but it won’t be the last.

Many years ago, just after I moved into this house, a friend gave me a coir doormat with two black kitty silhouettes on it. I still have it at my front door, and it’s still in pretty good shape. It’s provided a lot of that inspiration to make my own doormats too.

Lately, I’ve been following all the crafty posts about stenciling doormats, mostly these “coir”, or coconut shell fiber, mats, as well as other types of synthetic carpet and felted types. For the most part the makers use acrylic craft paint and advise they are not weatherproof and may not wear for very long. What kind of a doormat is that? Certainly not a mat like the one I’ve enjoyed all these years. And if I’m going to make something, and someone else is going to spend money on it, it’s going to be durable and last longer than a few months.

I purchased a few 24″ x 16″ premade coir doormats at IKEA to play around with. They are a good size, got good reviews, and seemed pretty sturdy after I used one for a bit and let it be rained on and rolled and folded it.

But the paint was the real question—which of the many paints available was going to stand up to both weather and wear? Back in the 1980s I was a sign painter and used a product called 1-Shot lettering enamel, and some of the signs I painted then, like my house sign, are still in good shape now.

I purchased a new can of black, cut the stencil out of adhesive vinyl, and stenciled one up. The paint was very sticky for this application, and though that works well for lettering it picked up my stencil and I had to be very careful of losing the edges in tiny areas, especially if I had text, which I had originally planned, and I had to use more paint than I expected. The paint is expensive, a little too expensive to use for this in order for me to be able to resell them for a reasonable cost.

I put a little more thought into what was the next most weatherproof and durable paint and decided that would be porch and floor enamel, which is more fluid but easily applied, and very affordable for this project. Plus, it dries a lot faster, there are no toxic fumes, and cleans up with soap and water. That’s a win all around!

Designing the mat

 

Next was to work up one of the ideas I had, and I went with my favorite. You’ll see above that I had a line of text under the kitty, “SCRATCH YOUR CLAWS HERE!” Most of the doormats I see anywhere have text on them, and sometimes they’re all text. I’m all for designing something that people apparently want and I had several ideas like this one. But because of the sticky issue I described above with the paint, there was no way I could stencil the text. So I shared the mat without it just to get some feedback. And that’s what really surprised me—everyone I asked said they preferred it without the text! Well, that made my job that much easier. Nearly all my designs had text on them. I may still have one or two that have text, but I like just the kitty silhouettes I’ve worked up over the years. Let me know what you think in the comments below or send me an email, and as I work with these I’ll figure that out.

And without the text, I could print the kitty silhouette bigger. Once I was happy with the size of the silhouette, I cut the stencil out of lightweight plexiglass. I can use small clamps to hold it in place as I “pounce” the paint on the mat, and the edges of the design won’t pick up, plus, it will last for years while the vinyl stencil material was already growing tired of the coir.

Where to purchase the mats

Mats are $15.00 each in person, $25.00 with shipping. Because of the weight, 3.5 pounds each, I can’t offer any discounts for purchasing multiple mats. Click here to find them .

Maybe Mimi can have a new doormat to scratch on too!

 

It’s all done under the close and careful supervision of my studio cats!

Other items with the same art or design To find all items on this site with the same art or design, use the search box for the name of the artwork and you'll find all that's available.

Don’t miss any new items or opportunities!

“Follow” the Portraits of Animals blog with the link in the upper left. Sign up to receive posts in email, or in your favorite reader using the links in the right-hand column.

Sign up for e-newsletters

You can also sign up for my monthly e-newsletters to receive special discounts and find out where I’ll be with my artwork.

Click here for the Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter, for feline and animal-specific products and information.

Click here for the Art & Merchandise E-newsletter, for landscapes, nature, urban scenes and more.

For art, photos and writing as I develop it, visit my blogs.

See feline art and photos as they happen on The Creative Cat, along with feline news, health, welfare, rescue stories and more.

See daily photos as I post them on Today.

Read poetry, short stories, essays and more on Paths I Have Walked.

. . . . . . .

© 2016-2026 | www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.