Venassa B Creations

What I've Been Working On: Handmade Cards

2012-06-04T03:00:00.000-03:00

I recently opened my Etsy Shop, and have since then been trying to work on at least a card or two a day to build up a little more inventory. These are just two of the cards I've been working on lately.

The first one is based on a birthday card I previously made and gave to a friend, as shown here, and the second are a simple set of mini thank you cards, made to order, that you can give out with your own Etsy orders, as gift tags, or just as a thank you to whoever deserves it.

Both sets of cards are made with cardstock and hand stamped by me.

[ Green cheetah print birthday card on Etsy ]

[ Thank You mini cards on Etsy ]

Visit VB Creations Etsy Shop for more information on these, and other handmade cards.

Linked Up Here:

Martha Stewart Score Board and Envelope Tool

2012-05-30T14:57:00.001-03:00

[ via: Michael's.com ]

When I got into card making, I had no idea about all the fancy tools and accessories that were available for me. Walking into Michael's those first few times was a huge eye-opener for me.

So far, the most amazing card making tool that I came across is probably a no-brainer to most. A score board. I was unable to find any others in town (curse of a small city!) but the Martha Stewart Scoring Board is perfect for what I was looking for.

I got mine for $29.99 (cdn) at Michael's, but it's also available on Amazon.com for $16.00 (usd).

*Note: Link above will always show current price

I haven't had time to play around with it too much yet but I am amazed at how easy it is now to make my own envelopes. That was the one thing I hated about card-making. Now, with my scoring board and envelope tool, I can have a perfect envelope made in less than 5 minutes. It took me a couple of tries to get used to it, but it's very easy to get the hang of.

Three tips for when you're first trying it out (things I wasn't careful with!):

Hold the paper nicely in place - if it moves at all your lines aren't straight.
Don't press too hard when you get to the end of the paper (or if you're using really thin paper) or it will rip a little
Use 'garbage' or scrap paper for your first couple of tries, just in case you do happen to make a mistake somewhere.

Overall, it's well worth the money I spent on it and I couldn't be more pleased with my purchase. I don't know why I even bothered with card making before this.

What is your favorite paper crafting tool?

(Note: This post is 100% my own opinions. I was in no way compensated for this post, nor was I asked to make the post)

Bubblewrapp'd: Handmade wooden blocks

2012-05-29T07:00:00.000-03:00

I stumbled upon this Etsy shop of cute wood blocks. They're so simple, yet adorable and I think they'd make a great gift to the right person.

The shop is called Bubblewrapp'd, and here are some of my favorite items:

What is your favorite item from this shop?

Coming soon at VB Creations

2012-05-23T15:51:00.000-03:00

I'm planning on having my official 're-opening' of VB Creations, both the blog and the Etsy shop, this coming week.

My Etsy shop will be featuring all never-before-seen greeting cards, handmade by me. Everything I've made up until now I feel fits more into the practice category, rather than sell-able inventory, so I'm working on a ton of new stuff. In the past day, I've been working on both feminine and masculine graduation cards and I can't wait to get them posted. (To see a few earlier samples of my cards, here are posts containing some of my handmade cards).

Coming up on the blog, I plan to talk about some of my favorite crafting products, some projects I've been working on since I stopped blogging, as well as talking about organizing your craft space, some Etsy tips, and more.

In the meantime, feel free to browse some of my earlier posted projects.

Handmade Projects

DIY Dry Erase Message Board

Decorative Name Letters (with Mod Podge)

Super Mario Decor

DIY (Paper) Super Mario Decor

DIY Bob-Omb Lamp

Handpainted Wooden Super Mario Stars

Recipes

Skor Bar Squares

Peanut Butter Cups

Twitter

Free Twitter Backgrounds

More Free Twitter Backgrounds

Handmade Cards

Birthday Card

Boy (Trains) Birthday Card

`You`re so Sweet`Thank You Cards

I can't wait to get back into business. For good this time.

I will return!

2012-05-03T15:55:00.003-03:00

I have not died, and I will be back. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

It's your typical story of 'I met a boy' and my blog went down the drain. Sort of.

Happy crafting!

Oh, Pinterest

2012-01-29T07:36:00.000-04:00

Story of my life.

Featuring some of my favorite projects

2012-01-26T13:31:00.001-04:00

Things have gotten a little busy in my life, so I haven't had as much time to post as I'd like.

But today I am guest posting over at Pocket Full of Pink, featuring some of my favorite projects that I've done.

So pop over there and say hi.

Ps. You can still link up your handmade projects on Monday's post :)

Lasagna Cupcakes

2012-01-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

I found a recipe that is just too perfect not to share. Something perfect if you love lasagna, love putting a fun twist on food, or something helpful if you have fussy eaters in your family.

I found the recipe originally on Pinterest, but here is the original source for lasagna cupcakes.

The secret ingredient? Wanton wrappers.

The best part is, you can slip in a few vegetables if that's what you like. If someone doesn't like a particular ingredient, you can leave it out of their cupcakes.

These were so good, I made them three times within two days, since I had all the ingredients ready in the fridge. I'd be eating more today if I hadn't run out of ground beef.

The recipe calls for 6, but I just used my judgement on the amount of ingredients and made three each time. Three of them had me perfectly full. These are a must try, and they can work for families or for a single person, like me.

Link Up Your Handmade Projects - Created by Me Monday

2012-01-23T08:32:00.000-04:00

Monday again. How the weeks fly by. Before I get you to link up your own recipes and handmade project, I want to share with you a yummy Valentine's Day recipe I stumbled upon.

Valentine's Day cookie sandwiches from The Gunny Sack. They're making my mouth water.

It's time for you to show off your handmade projects. Link up any crafts, recipes, or anything that you made yourself. Link up more than one, if you'd like.

Rules:
- Link up to the actual post, not just your general blog link, or I'll have to remove it.
- Be nice and visit at least one other blogger who linked up : )
- Post my button or link somewhere in the post

DIY Dry Erase Message Board

2012-01-17T08:39:00.004-04:00

This DIY message board is Pinterest inspired, but I'm going to show you how I made mine. (Original source: A Content Housewife)

First, gather all your materials.

Materials Used

- Picture frame from the dollar store

- Scrapbook paper

- Letter stamps and ink

- Rounded corner punch

- Ribbon

- Cardstock

- Glue tape

- Felt for the flowers

- Coffee (optional)

The first thing I did was stamp the letters, just so if I messed up the letters I wouldn't have to cut out a whole new piece and start over.

I cut the stamped cardstock into a rectangle then used my rounded corner punch on it, then did the same with a black piece of cardstock, just a little bit bigger.

I had some felt laying around from my DIY photobooth props, so I found a tutorial for felt flowers. The tutorial shows how to make other types of felt flowers too so check it out for different ideas. The ones I made were just roses. To make them you cut a circle, then cut the circle into a spiral shape. The tutorial has great photos to explain, but you just roll up the felt. I rolled it starting from the outer layer.

I tied a ribbon around the corner of the "I love you because..." cardstock, attached it to the scrapbook paper that I'd already sized to fit the frame. The final step was those roses, which I attached to the corner with my glue gun and voila! A cute DIY dry erase message board.

I made it with my newly-married best friend in mind and gave it to her as a Christmas present. It was fun to make, and she loved it. Success.

Link up your handmade projects on Mondays.

This post is linked up here:

Created by Me: Your Handmade Projects

2012-01-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

It's time for you to show off your handmade projects. Link up any crafts, recipes, or anything that you made yourself. Link up more than one, if you'd like.

Rules:
- Link up to the actual post, not just your general blog link, or I'll have to remove it.
- Be nice and visit at least one other blogger who linked up : )
- Post my button or link somewhere in the post

Etsy Features Custom Rubber Stamps

2012-01-06T09:13:00.000-04:00

From My Rubber Stamp. They sell personalized return address stamps, wedding stamps, 'handmade by' stamps. Just about any kind of personalized stamp you can dream of. I'm a little stamp-obsessed so I am in love with this shop. Here are some of my favorites...

Thank you stamp

Address stamp

Baby shower-related stamps

What's your favorite?

Decorative Letters with Mod Podge and Scrapbook Paper

2012-01-03T09:21:00.003-04:00

Before I even decided on my daughter's name, I heard about Mod Podge. And as soon as I heard about Mod Podge, I knew I wanted to make decorative letters spelling out her name, no matter how long her named turned out to be. With the name 'Chloe', I got lucky. Five letters is pretty reasonable. At almost $5 a piece for the letters, the shorter the name the better. I got mine at Michael's, and used a 40% off coupon on them. On each one. Individually. Yes, I went to Michael's 5 days in a row to use a coupon each day. While 8 months pregnant.

Supplies:

- All the letters you want to decorate

- Mod Podge (I used regular matte, but there's some specifically for paper or glossy)

- Paints

- Scrapbook papers

- A lot of patience

The first step is planning. Plan what colors you want to go with, pick out your scrapbook papers and paints accordingly. Figure out which letter you want to be which color, then get to work. Planning was the hardest part for me. I picked out all my papers, got them all ready then changed my mind on about half of them.

Step two is tracing. Really, you can trace whenever you want, but at the beginning is easiest because then if you get pencil marks on your letter, you don't have to touch up your paint job.

Make sure you trace the same way you're going to glue - the front of the letter against the back of the paper. I originally traced the front of the letter against the front of the paper for this E and it didn't fit properly when I flipped it to glue it on. The top of the E is not identical to the bottom, I learned the hard way.

Step three is painting. Paint your letters with whatever colors you've chosen. It doesn't have to be perfect, since you're covering the front with scrapbook paper, but you'll want to do enough coats so you can't see the white anymore, and you'll want to make sure you at least make the sides look good, since that's the part that will be showing.

Step four is cutting out letters. This is the most tedious part of the project. I would cut them out as close to the traced line as possible, then hold them against the letter and trim as necessary. You don`t want the paper hanging off the edge. I cut out extra letters because I was going to do some letters half a solid paper and half a patterned paper.

Step five is Mod Podge. (This is where I got lazy and forgot to take photos - sue me, I was a couple of weeks away from having a baby) Using a paintbrush, spread a nice layer of Mod Podge onto the back of the paper, then put it onto your wooden letter. Rub it with your fingers to get out any bubbles and make sure it`s stuck good. Make sure you don`t get any Mod Podge on your hands and mess up the front of the letter by leaving a dirty, gluey smudge like I did. Make sure the Mod Podge is perfectly dry before doing step six.

Step six is Mod Podge again. Paint a layer of Mod Podge over the front (and sides) of your letter to seal it all. I say put it on the sides too because it makes it shiny and smooth like the front. Let it dry completely then use your judgement to decide if you want another layer or two of Mod Podge. I believe I used two layers.

Step seven is to show it off. Take pictures and show me what you did : ) Here is my final product. You might notice I used a few different papers than I originally cut out, making even more work for myself.

Link up your own handmade projects on Created by Me Mondays.

This post is linked up here:

Link Up Your Projects - Created by Me Monday

2012-01-02T19:30:00.000-04:00

As of Christmas day, I have three month old daughter. We've officially passed the newborn stage, and she finally sleeps great at night, takes the occasional long nap, and doesn't cry every waking hour of the day. I finally have a little bit of free time and I'm not exhausted all the time. With that said, I'm hoping to get back into regular blogging.

I came across a really cool project today that I wanted to share. It's ways to use or save a broken mirror. I never would've thought to do anything with a broken mirror except trash it, but I love these ideas.

Now it's time for you to show off your handmade projects. Link up any crafts, recipes, or anything really that you made yourself.

Skor Bar Squares {Recipe}

2011-12-18T20:14:00.005-04:00

Skor Bar Squares

Ingredients:

1 pkg of Skor Chipits

1 can of Sweetened condensed milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla

1/4 cup Butter

1 box of Ritz crackers (crushed)

2 cups of Icing sugar

1/2 package of cream cheese

- Mix about 2/3 of the Skor Chipits with crackers and milk

- Bake for 25 minutes at 325 and let cool completely

- Mix everything else (except leftover Chipits) together then spread over the cooled crust

- Sprinkle remaining Skor Chipits on top

- Cut into squares

Linked up here:

Peanut Butter Cups {Recipe}

2011-12-17T18:46:00.003-04:00

So begins my Days of Christmas baking. I'm sharing a bunch of our regular Christmas baking recipes. It's one of our biggest traditions, to bake more sweets than any one family can possibly eat, yet it all gets eaten. There's cookies, squares, balls. There's chocolate, butter, sugar. It's just a big mess of cavity-inducing greatness.

First up, the chocolaty goodness that is peanut butter cups. It's very simple, and they're so yummy.

Peanut Butter Cups

Ingredients:

3 cups of chocolate wafers

1 cup of peanut butter

Melt chocolate and peanut butter together in a double boiler or in the microwave until smooth.

Pour or spoon into cups.

Linked up at:

Free Twitter Backgrounds

2011-12-11T12:13:00.000-04:00

I have a couple more Twitter background freebies today. Just click on the patterned pictures, save it to your computer and upload it to your twitter account.

Please just let me know if you're using one : )

See more free Twitter backgrounds.

Free Twitter backgrounds

2011-12-04T18:26:00.001-04:00

I have a couple of freebies today. I'm new at making these, so just these two took forever. Click on the pattern and save to your computer then simply upload to your twitter account.

Check back - there will be more coming soon :)

Things You've Created for Christmas

2011-11-28T00:30:00.008-04:00

I won't lie - I'm kind of addicted to Pinterest. I don't spend near as much time on it as I used to, but I still love to browse every now and then. My favorite thing to use it for is recipes, but lately I've been searching for Christmas ideas, decor ideas, card ideas - you name it.

My time is so limited lately, with moving to a new apartment and having a two-month old daughter, but I'm still dreaming of all the Christmas projects I'd like to pull off before the season is over, besides making my own Christmas cards to mail out, of course.

I've also been toying with the idea of making a paper fireplace to hang out stockings on at the new apartment, just like I made the Super Mario decor for my daughter's room. Keeping with that theme, I've also been thinking of making huge paper ornaments and hanging those on the wall as well. With paper, scissors, glue and sticky tack for hanging, anything can be possible.

I've gotten a little off my original topic, but here are some Christmas projects I'd love to tackle if I find the time.

This DIY baby's first Christmas ornament is adorable. They used embossing ink and glitter to pull it off. It's so unique, and it would be fun to look back on it and see how big the child's hand has grown the next year. I'm thinking of maybe even making one every year for the first 5 years or so, depending on the size of the ball. [ View on Pinterest ]

This Christmas countdown made on a metal tray is so simple, yet adorable. Because I'm lazy and would have no way to get all the numbers and letters without wasting days and days, I'd probably find some stickers that look similar and just Mod Podge those right in, but that's just me. [ View on Pinterest ]

Gorgeous Popsicle stick snowflakes. Popsicle sticks are so cheap to buy, then all you need is glue, ribbon and paint. The website gives very easy to follow step-by-step instructions (with photos!) on how to make each snowflake.

I'll leave it at three projects for now, since I know even that would be amazing for me to actually get done.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you have any Christmas projects you've already completed, please share. Feel free to share any Christmas-related items including DIY projects, photos of your Christmas decor at home, favorite Christmas recipes, etc. The linky will close on Saturday night.

Rubber business stamp

2011-11-17T20:26:00.000-04:00

I'm sure you've heard of Vistaprint. I'm always seeing ads for their free business cards. Their business cards are great. I've got two different sets from them. One set I even got free shipping on. It really is a great deal.

But lately I've come across and even better deal from them. I think it was limited time, but free or not I love it. It was for a free rubber stamp like so:

I decided to get one for my crafting blog, since I make a lot of handmade cards and wanted them to link back to me somehow without having a big tacky stamp on the back. Vistaprint did not disappoint. This is my stamp:

This is the size of my stamp compared to the size of a penny. It's super tiny, but still legible. Just what I wanted.

If you're looking for something similar, give Vistaprint a chance. Right now the stamps are only $11.99 cdn. While you're at it, get some business cards.

Excuse the horrible quality photos - I conveniently lost the battery charger for my SLR camera and my cheap digital camera doesn't always do what I'd like it to.

* I wasn't compensated for this at all - this is just my honest opinion.

50 cards on maternity leave

2011-11-10T09:45:00.006-04:00

I have a goal to make 50 cards while in maternity leave (September 2011 until September 2012). This is part one, and this is part two of my maternity leave goals.

Here are the 50 cards, posted as I make them.

1. Halloween card
2. Sarah's bday card
3. Super Simple Christmas card

Very Cheap (DIY) Super Mario Nursery Decor

2011-11-08T00:05:00.006-04:00

When I found out I was pregnant I knew we could never afford to go crazy with her nursery decor. I would've loved to spend tons of money and have a beautiful, elegant nursery but instead I went cheap. I bought most of her furniture second-hand, and I created almost all of her decor by hand.

We went with a Super Mario/Princess Peach theme for her room, and thought about spending the money on wall decals and what not, but in the end I made it all myself - and I made it out of cardstock and bristol board. Yes, I made all her decor out of paper. Seems crazy, but it turned out better than I expected.

Here it is:

Everything is tacked onto the walls with sticky tack, and everything is all still firmly in place except for these hills. They were too heavy and need more holding them at the top. I never did get around to putting them back up though.

A bigger view of the room, plus the cloud, which never got its own photo. I guess I forgot.

Hand painted wooden Super Mario stars. (See tutorial here)

Bob-Omb lamp (See tutorial here)

Can you guess which part of the nursery took the most time and effort to make?

More photos of the baby nursery posted here.

Linked up here:

Super Simple Christmas Card

2011-11-06T10:50:00.003-04:00

My first handmade Christmas card. Super simple, but it's all I had time for. My little miss woke up while I was making it but was nice enough to sit in her chair happily while I quickly glued together. It's made out of cardstock and a page from my Recollections Christmas paper pack, blank on the inside. Simple, simple but I like it.

When do you start working on filling out your Christmas cards? Do you plan ahead or throw them in the mail last minute?

Linked up at:

Handmade Birthday Card

2011-10-30T07:41:00.006-03:00

Materials used:
- Cardstock
- Black ribbon
- Rubber stamps
- Edge punch
- Rounded corners punch

Handmade birthday card for a friend's upcoming birthday. My favorite creation so far. Edge punches are my new favorite crafting tool.

Linked up at the following places:

Handmade Halloween Card

2011-10-17T22:33:00.007-03:00

Linked up at:

Venassa B Creations

What I've Been Working On: Handmade Cards

Martha Stewart Score Board and Envelope Tool

Bubblewrapp'd: Handmade wooden blocks

Gifts for father's day

Wedding gifts

Gifts for new babies

Coming soon at VB Creations

Handmade Projects

Super Mario Decor

Recipes

Twitter

Handmade Cards

I will return!

Oh, Pinterest

Featuring some of my favorite projects

Lasagna Cupcakes

Link Up Your Handmade Projects - Created by Me Monday

DIY Dry Erase Message Board

Materials Used

Created by Me: Your Handmade Projects

Etsy Features Custom Rubber Stamps

Decorative Letters with Mod Podge and Scrapbook Paper

Supplies:

Link Up Your Projects - Created by Me Monday

Skor Bar Squares {Recipe}

Skor Bar Squares

Peanut Butter Cups {Recipe}

Peanut Butter Cups

Free Twitter Backgrounds

Free Twitter backgrounds

Things You've Created for Christmas

Rubber business stamp

50 cards on maternity leave

Very Cheap (DIY) Super Mario Nursery Decor

Super Simple Christmas Card

Handmade Birthday Card

Handmade Halloween Card