‘The Bug’ has been busy at work redesigning its logo and creating a website for the store. well, its time for an early look at the main page. 

portraitbug website redesign

the design goal was to meld the clean and modern with a little funk and homemade. we are a kids store where parents want to hang out and make amazing art — for either themselves or their kids or with their kids. we are urban. a place where you can come for the latest ideas on how to transform your photos into something fabulous. we are cutting edge, but definitively DIY. we will take your picture or you can bring your own. we are cool, yet approachable.

we are also an online store. more to come on that. and you will have the ability to make portrait appointments online. you will be able to click on the calendar for a list of classes and events. we will have tons of gallery images of our portraits and layouts for inspiration. you will be able to see your portrait session photos online. the site will be flooded with information, video classes, tools, and ideas. 

in the next week the new site will launch and this blog will be updated too. we are working diligently on getting the store opened so stay tuned for even more information about that.

thanks so much to megan keogh at pixels & pulp for her amazing design. and thanks to our own design team member julie fei-fan balzer for her cityscape drawings and helpful input.

Hi there!

Well I finally got home about 3:45am. So needless to say I’m totally exhausted!

So today I’m just going to post some of the new Hambly Screen Prints products that we grabbed up at CHA. We will be carrying quite a few Hambly products but their new releases were so cool.

Also, please please please don’t think that Kim + I are ignoring the posted question about the store hours. We haven’t had our “daily call” yet today but it’s on the agenda and we hope to have them figured out asap!

Enjoy!

love love love these bikes…

(all photos courtesy Hambly Screen Prints Blog)

while Meredith is stuck in Chicago, I am in Tennessee working on our photography products. yep, we aren’t going to just give you fantastic artsy scrapbooking. we are going to give you images you want to display. those awesome black and white photos of the babies little parts. where you see all the wrinkles in the toes. or the nuzzle to mom. even those super saturated bright eyed images you just can’t get at home. 

at CHA I met Nisa Fiin of Shooting Portrait Stars whose work is just amazing. big props to her! if you are in her neck of the woods you should look her up. 

coming in the next week or so will be some sneak peeks of our photography style. we will shooting our marketing materials and hope to give you a glimpse on the blog first.

Hello.

Kim and I are both traveling right now, I’m stuck in Midway Airport waiting for the East Coast weather to break to get back home to Jersey + Kim is in beautiful Tennessee learning about the wonders of photography (I think, lol!) – but that’s no excuse for missing a day of product blogging!  

In the spirit of life’s journey today I’m going to show off some of the new products from Maya Road we’ll be carrying at PortraitBug.  Maya Road is probably my number 1 favorite staple company for chipboard books and embellishments but they are quickly becoming me favorite company for so much more!  Their new release had some great products that I just can’t wait to get my hands on…

beautiful fabric flowers…

chipboard coaster albums and shape sets…

*new* clear stamp sets (I love that these fit perfectly onto the keychain chipboard sets!!)…

and finally…

I think I forgot to get these but they are too cute to pass up!

sheer ribbons…

There are a million amazing products we ordered from Maya Road.  Be sure to check out the Maya Road Company Blog to see all the new releases, chances are if it was a new release we ordered it!  We also are getting most of their last release, the chipboard keychain sets, ribbons, stamps, rub-ons galore.  There are some really inspiring projects on the blog too but here are a few favorites that we saw…

Whew… that was a lot of graphics to post!  Nothing like a 4 hour delay to get one of our biggest manufacturers posted.  I hope everyone is having a great time seeing all the things we’ve ordered for our store opening, we are getting really excited about construction and the grand opening… September 1st will be here before we know it!

Hello Mr. Campy!

This new line from Cosmo Cricket will be coming in just in time to scrap those summer vacation camping adventures. Personally I love the style of this new line from Cosmo Cricket – rich woodgrains, retro graphics, and yummy treats make for some good scrapping!

Other things to look out for from Cosmo Cricket are…

Hmmmm… I see some fun project kits and class potential here, don’t you?

Yes & YES!

We will have regularly scheduled crops as well as a wide variety of classes for both adults and kids.  Some of our classes will be technique based, some project based, and we will also have longer series classes on different album topics, basic technique, etc.

PortraitBug will also have crop space and a fully stocked tool bar available for “Sit & Scrap” everyday during store hours.  More information on our “Sit & Scrap” Program and our opening calendar will be available on our website at the site launch.

Keep those questions coming!

“So glad you enjoyed your CHA experience. I was wondering if you were going to have an on-line store? It seems you are all very Trendy with the latest and greatest and those are the products that me happy.”

Yes, we will have an online store in addition to our Manhattan Studio and Boutique!

We will have an ETA on our website launch as soon as possible and will release more information soon.  We will have all of the products we carry available on-line as well as project kits and designer kits available.

Thanks so much for the question Ady and for the compliment!  It’s our goal to keep our scrappers happy and we hope we can do so from day one.  If anyone has any questions please don’t be afraid to leave us a comment or drop us a quick email and we’ll do our best to get back to you asap!

Hi there PB Readers!

It was a crazy and amazing weekend for Kim and I at CHA Summer ’08 in the gorgeous city of Chicago. We hustled our tushes and made a million orders. There was so much that we loved (and a few things we didn’t) but overall we think the show was a major success for us. And we are exhausted!

It was impossible to sit for a few minutes to show everyone what we were loving… so the next few days I’ll be posting some of the lines we’ll be carrying when we open and some of our favorite inspiration from the show.

Today I want to show you a VERY special line. This hands down was one of my very favorite lines of the entire show of any manufacturers (and I’m not just sucking up…) and it happens to have been designed by our very own designer Alexis Hardy for Dream Street Papers!

Fabulous right? I really love this entire line and can’t wait to play with it. I love the color palette, how unique the animals are that she chose to use, and how detailed the graphics are. It’s such a unique take on a kids line! And as if the line itself wasn’t inspiring enough here is one of the beautiful projects Alexis created for her release…

All of her designs for this release were just amazing and we will have a few more up for you to peak at soon. Be sure to look for them all featured in-store at our grand opening. I can’t tell you how much time I’ll be spending just staring at the layouts she created with Menagerie, they are just so awesome.

Ok, enough gushing, lol. There is so much more to share… and we are getting more and more excited for our store to be completed! Over the next few days if you see anything that we missed from CHA and you just must must have leave us a comment and let us know!

You can call me Alexis, although most of the people who know me just call me crazy I’m a 31 year old mother of one darling daughter and one pampered pooch. My husband works as an attorney and does all the serious things in our lives that need taking care of. I’m more of the free spirit that would rather spend all day with my daughter, some good tunes, yummy snacks, and anything involving art or shopping (for the inspiration of course

I started scrapbooking after I got married seven years ago. I cut shapes out of my photos, used deco scissors and anything else that was crucial to scrapbooking back then. I was also teaching 3rd grade in Bayside, Queens so those scrapbooking skills really came in handy when creating those bulletin boards! Once my daughter was born, I became a stay at home mom and used scrapbooking as a way to unwind at the end of the day. It let me express myself in mediums other than strained carrots and formula stains

Over the years, I let my formal artistic training guide my layouts and my own style began to shine through. I love fun mixes of bold colors, clusters of small photos and embellishments, and hand cut elements to add that extra dimension. You won’t find me scrapping without my 3-d foam adhesive or my Cutterbee scissors. I’m usually a 12×12 scrapper but I love making minibooks as well. Digital scrapping is another obsession of mine. It allows me to scrap wherever and whenever with little to no clean up. Gotta love that

I have a real admiration for the art photography. My daughter is usually the subject of most of my shots since she’s the only one who will let me photograph her on a daily basis! I love scrapbooking a special photo that captures daughter’s personality. I’ve found that a well taken photo can transform your scrapbooking. Most of the time, I work with black and white photos simply because it allows me to use any colors I like. And trust me, I like color….a lot.

After finding my style, this crazy world of scrapbooking as taken me down many exciting roads. I’ve been published in magazines (both online and paper), books and catalogues. I’ve designed for some pretty awesome manufacturers. And I currently design my own pattern paper line through Dream Street Papers. But the most rewarding part of this hobby is the connections I’ve made with fellow artists and scrapbookers. And that is one of the reasons I am so happy to be a part of this truly inspiring team!

It is an honor to be a part of this amazing store and design team. Kim’s vision is both inspiring and exciting. NYC has been long overdue for a store as special as this one proves to be. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt quite as inspired as I feel when I’m around anything to do with Portrait Bug. I simply can not wait to meet the community and get started!

If this wasn’t a long enough post (I guess you can add long-winded to my list of attributes) and you’d like to learn more about me or see some of my work, check out my blog