the perfect diy gift for the holidays!

picture frame clock

Everywhere I look lately, I see glitter. Literally. Glitter on my floors. Glitter on my clothes, my rug, my hair, and even that stray flake on my face that never seems to go away. There are so many colors and decorative options out there that its nearly impossible not to find a reason to throw down some glue and shake on some glitter.

I’ve been loving the colors Martha Stewart has come out with this season. Especially the blues and orange/golds. But my favorite part has to be the ease with which I can add just the hint of “bling” with a simple dot of glue.

After a couple weeks of playing around here and there, I’ve learned that a white glue (I used Martha Stewart’s Glitter Glue) with a small, precise applicator tip worked the best. Although the glue comes out slowly, it is worth the control you have. You can dot an ‘i’ in a title or trace around an entire photo pretty easily. But I will admit, once you have to actually shake on the glitter, it does get pretty messy.

Here are some tips I came across on the internet, by watching Martha “herself” on her tv program and by chatting it up with some online buddies that love glittering as much as I do!

-Place your project on top of a large sheet of scrap paper or even a flexible placemat. When you are done glittering, you can either funnel the glitter back onto the bottle or throw it away with ease.

-It is not a good idea to glitter elements that are already attached to your layout. You can do it, but be warned. You will have glitter stuck to various elements, photos and it will shake out of the layers of your layout when you pick it up for years to come!

-Once you lay down your glue, sprinkle on your glitter, shake off the excess and then allow it to dry sufficiently (drying time will depend on how thick and how large an area you are working on) you’ll want to get rid of all those stray glitter flakes. There are a couple easy ways to do this:

Use a soft, dry paintbrush to brush off the excess into a garbage can, outside or you can even do it in a pizza box to contain the mess. (Thanks, Julie and Lisa!)

Use a can of compressed air (the ones used to clean out keyboards and such) and blast those stray particles away. You can use the thin tube attachment to really get in there and direct the air so that the glitter doesn’t go everywhere. (That tip is direct from Martha!)

Use an embossing buddy. The chalk-like substance in the pouch will makes it hard for the glitter to adhere to anything but the glue you have applied, so getting rid of those stray flakes is easier than ever! (Thanks Jennifer!)

For the project shown above, I shaped the glue into four fairly thick brackets and dumped on a bunch of glitter to get a frame effect around my photos. Once it was completely dry, I used a soft dry paintbrush and brushed the excess off over my garbage can. It was fun, easy and fairly neat. And I love the customizable effect I can get.

Have fun glittering!

Fall has arrived and while there aren’t really deep woods in the middle of New York City, you surely can check out a fawn or owl with the new Sassafrass Lass. Our shipment just arrived a couple weeks ago and we put it up for sale on the site.

In addition to the cutesy woodland themes and funky 60′s style take back, there are ridiculously awesome buttons:

And groovy papers that you can use as is or chop to pieces:

Leave us a review of the product. We are interested in knowing what you think.

While we wish the store was open for you to come meet us at the store, the PB girls are hitting the road to our local crops. We will be giving demos, selling some of our stuff, and making free deliveries of any product you buy online.

On Friday night, we will be at the Manhattan Scrapbooking Meetup hosted at Cheryl’s office on 23rd Street. The crop is currently full but we encourage you to attend a future crop or email about getting on the wait list. This week Julie is going to show off some of her skills she learned at Ranger U. If you are going to be there make sure to bring your distress inks, dabbers, and ranger supplies so she can show you how to rock them!

Meredith is going to demonstrate how to bind pretty much anything using the new pink version of the Bind-It-All. And Kristi is going to pull out the stencils (minus the spray paint).

Early Saturday we will be at ‘Crop for a Cause’.  Saint Teresa School in Staten Island is hostings its first annual scrapbooking fundraiser. PortraitBug is very excited to be a part of this event. Registration proceeds of this event will benefit the children at Saint Theresa School and a donation is being made to the Grace Foundation. PortraitBug will be donating free classes and product for the raffle. The event is from 8:30am-5pm. Email Christine at CBWilsea@yahoo.com or Jennifer at Momtoeb@aol.com for more information.

If you are already attending either event, you can make a purchase online and select ‘in-store pickup’ for free delivery of your order to the crop. Please just put a note in the comment which crop you are plan to attend. We will also be bringing a selection from the store for you to browse.

Hope to meet many of you this weekend!

i really enjoyed playing with these excellent stencils from stencil1 in brooklyn. anything that allows me to rock spray paint is always fun, but throw in killer designs and my heart is yours for always

i decided to put them to the test with traditional spray paint first (most likely not an acid free product and most definitely done in a well ventilated area), and loved the layering possibilities. i especially like the crispness of line achieved when using a fine mist. 

paint was also an obvious choice. brush it on for a smooth look, or use your fingers to dab it on for a little bit of textural flavor. make sure you don’t let the stencil swish around as you work, unless of course you prefer a more casual look. use a light hand, and it will stay in place as you work.

glimmer mist works exceptionally well here, and i love the way it has a bit of a blotchy effect.

another fun option is outlining. micron pens, slick writers, souffle pens, any writing utensil will do. after you’ve outlined your image, you can color it in to customize it…paint it…chalk it…you get the idea  

here are some of my experiments with the mini set no. 2.

i’m also itching to play with mini set no. 1,

fall leaves (perfect for this time of year!) and of course the mini holiday set will be making an appearance in my christmas correspondence!

Well… it has been two months without electricity. And today, my daughter Asher’s second birthday, she got the best present of all. There is an electrician working in the store. Yup, it looks like the landlord finally got his act together and thought it wise to put the electricity back on. If all goes well, we should have a circuit breaker back for our electrician to begin working early next week. That’s great news!

• patterned paper: dream street
• title: cosmo cricket
• tiles: fragments
• pearls: kaiser craft
• other: masking tape, graph paper

• patterned paper: basic grey and dream street
• cardstock: bazzill basics
• alphabet: jenni bowlin studios
• glimmer mist: tattered angels
• pearls: kaiser craft
• other: typewriter

• patterned paper:dream street
• cardstock: bazzill basics
• alphabet: making memories and american crafts
• embossing die: cuttlebug
• quote bubbles:
• other: typewriter, staples

• patterned paper: basic grey
• chipboard: riff raff
• rhinestones: kaiser craft
• alphabet: american crafts
• die cuts: quickcuts studio
• ink: staz on

• fabric paper: sei
• quote bubbles: riff raff, american crafts, bam pop
• cardstock: bazzill basics
• rub ons: american crafts
• alphabet: making memories chipboard, american crafts
• acrylic stamps: bam pop

• patterned paper: making memories and october afternoon
• alphabet: american crafts
• chipboard: riff raff
• floss: dmc
• other: notebook paper, masking tape, typewriter

• cardstock: bazzill basics
• chipboard: riff raff
• alphabet: american crafts and making memories

• patterned paper: scenic route
• die cut frames: bam pop
• alphabet: making memories
• other: typewriter

• patterned paper: dream street, basic grey, making memories, cosmo cricket
• chipboard: riff raff
• alphabet: making memories

PortraitBug is now offering free pickup of your web orders if you are in NYC. It’s a quasi-store pickup, since most likely you will be picking up from my doorman around the corner from the store. Unfortunately this post does not mean our retail location is open, but we will arrange to get you your supplies when you order from our site. As many of you are well aware, we are currently unable to continue the construction process. Still no electricity from our landlord. The headaches continue….

We have had so many inquiries about our open date from people overseas visiting the city. And we all know how expensive it is to ship overseas so we wanted to make sure everyone local had a chance to carry their product home. In some cases we can also arrange for courier service which runs about $20 if you are staying midtown. If you are here on holiday and have tickets for the hop-on hop-off bus (which I highly recommend), the red double decker bus stop at 93rd and Broadway! 

In addition to in-store pickup, we will be happy to bring product your order to the next Meetup. Just put a note in the order checkout that you plan to attend this awesome crop! 

When you check out please select the ‘in-store pickup’ option instead of the flat rate shipping. We will email or call you to arrange your pickup. In most cases your order will be ready the next day.

when the new topic for blog entry of scrapping challenges was brought up, i laughed because frankly, my major challenge with scrapbooking lately is well… scrapbooking. too tired. too busy. too lazy. no mojo.

most scrappers i know have gone through a drought in scrapping. it just so happens that mine has lasted the last two plus months. literally, i’ve done one page.

so i have three suggestions for you during your scrapping drought. these ideas have helped me in the past. and hopefully, they’ll help you.

my first suggestion: don’t scrap. i know, didn’t we just talk about scrapping and getting back into it? right. but, the thing is, sometimes you just cannot scrap. so, don’t. instead, go through your stuff. i know that for myself, even when i’m not scrapping, i’m still buying and collecting supplies. and i know that sometimes the most inspiring thing for me to do is to go through those supplies. so do that. rearrange your supplies. purge some supplies. or make some page kits – put together some stuff old and new that you love and think would be fun together. this all usually makes me feel good and makes me more inspired to scrap. make sure you keep a pen and paper nearby in case you get inspired and want to sketch some ideas!

suggestion numero dos: scrap about how you cannot scrap. or why you cannot scrap. sometimes just letting go and doing gets the mojo going. here’s a page i did awhile ago when i just started working full time and was too tired to sit down and come up with ideas.

suggestion number three: scrapbook challenges. i, for some reason, work really well with challenges. if someone challenges me to do a page, i usually like how they turn out much better and can do them much quicker. i think it’s the guidelines that must help me. so my suggestion to you is to get together with some friends and challenge each other or if you’ve got no local friends that scrap, check out some of my favorite challenge blogs:

scrapjacked
the art is found
one little word
effer dares

hey pb readers!

friday night kristi + i decided to take advantage of the last minute friday night crop with the Manhattan Scrapbooking Meetup Group at Cheryl’s Office to play with the Revolution by QuicKutz. i have to tell you, this thing is pretty fun!

the Revolution is a simple die-cutting machine and comes with it’s own case, an embossing and die-cut mat, and a magnetic platform. it’s so easy to use, you just snap on your dies (we were using the studio 2×2 font dies), place your paper over them, top that with the embossing or die-cut mat + turn the crank!

see how much fun kristi is having??

(kc wasn’t entirely sure the cutting mat was supposed to get etched, but apparently this is the drill…can we get a self healing mat die??

i decided to try out the 12inch magnetic platform which allows you to use up to 10 of the 2×2 inch dies to create a phrase in one go! it was really easy and so quick.

this is such a quick and easy die-cutting machine and what’s great it that it works with all different dies. the product comes just as you see below and there are so many cool fonts and dies available. it works with 2×2, 4×4 and with the larger platform the new 4×8 alphabets from QuicKutz. if you are interested in purchasing the QuicKutz Revolution system we do have them available for purchase. please send us an email at info@portraitbug.com – we will also be offering a demo of this and some of our other toolbar featured products on our opening calendar which will be released in the next week!

oh yeah, did i mention that we will have the revolution, 4×12 platform, and the complete alpha library from QuicKutz available on our toolbar?? so you’ll be able to stop by during our sit + scrap time to try it out too!