Support the NYC theater by coming to our all day crop on Saturday April 18th. This crop is in support of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer’s wonderful company.

Now in its sixth season, The Milk Can Theatre Company’s focus is development. They develop new plays. They develop new ideas for classic texts. They develop emerging artists. The company produces work at all
levels – readings, workshops, and fully mounted productions, but always the focus remains on development.

The price to crop at PortraitBug on April 18th is a $20 donation. If you donate $50 or more to Milk Can you spot will be reserved in the crop room at an extra wide and large table. Yep, donate more share less space. In addition, your table will be filled with free goodies (food, felt flowers, journaling tickets, and more).

This time we are serving a light lunch and pizza for dinner. Children over 12 are welcome with the parent or caregiver.

Here is what your donation will do….

• Support an Artist
Did you know that most of the artists we work with – directors,
playwrights, actors, designers – have to work full-time jobs while
they rehearse and perform? Many actors, for instance, go to an office
job from 8am-5pm and then attend rehearsal from 6pm-11pm. Your
donation will help pay a modest stipend to our artists.

• Develop A Play
Be a gardener and help the seed of an idea bloom into an exciting
project. Often a new play, filled with new ideas, will require
additional equipment or staff such as a composer, video equipment,
puppets, etc. Your donation will enable us to continue to develop
projects which expand in exciting new directions.

• Be a Part of the Solution
In a time when theatre has become the step-child of movies,
television, and the internet, your donation will say that live theatre
still matters.

The crop room will be open from 10am until 1am. The toolbar is yours to use. You can stay for the day and night or drop in for a couple hours.

We are in love with the new Cosmo Cricket lines Girl Friday, Lil Man and Enchanted. Hambly transparencies, Pink Paislee Vintage Moon collection and Kodoma Japanese style acrylic stamps are all here! Come check them out! We have just added a ton of products to clearance to make room for all the new ones. Save 10-30% on sale items! Riff Raff will be here soon with lots of cool new designs!

10. Pop Art- Many of the papers coming out this season have simple geometric designs that are making us think of Lichtenstein and Miro. Minimalists will want to check out Basic Grey’s Porcelain line and Pink Paislee’s “Fascinating- Eye Popping”.

9. French Lace- Oo la la! Parisian prints and lacy doilies add an old world elegance to your layouts. GCD’s line Paris Nights is gorgeous and Papeterie’s Margaret stamp set has doilies, keys, clocks and other vintage images.

8. Morrocco- Rich jewel tones and Middle Eastern designs make for luxurious layouts. Basic Grey’s Marrakech line is perfect and you’ll want to use plenty of Martha Stewart glitter and Stickles.

7. Retro Kids- The Dick and Jane look is back, with many vintage designs geared towards kids. The new Sassafrass line of paper and Jenni Bowlin chipboard buttons feature retro designs that will have you reminiscing.

6. A Little Bit Country- Here at Portrait Bug we call this look “Sheboygan Chic.” Jenni Bowlin journaling cards and 7 Gypsies Vintage Ephemera feature everything from dairy cows to farmer’s almanacs that will add that down-home country goodness to any art project.

5. A Little Bit Rock and Roll- Bold colors, animal prints and funky musical motifs are perfect for scrapping about the rock star in your life. Rock out with hip Flair from American Crafts and Hambly’s 12″ Vinyl screen print.

4. Newsies- Let the Sunday morning newspaper be your inspiration. Check out the newsworthy 7 Gypsies Rub On “Etchings” and the Sassafrass crossword puzzle patterned papers.

3. Craft Paper-Pair this plain brown paper with bright colors and metallics and you get a fresh contrasting look. See Hambly’s craft paper and cardstock stickers.

2. Secret Garden- Spring is in the air and Prima’s line of flowers this season has everything from shabby chic cloth daisies and magnolias to lace zinnias to funky felt vines.

1. Scrapbooking for a cause- Yesterday Portrait Bug participated in the Grace 2009 Crop for Autism out in Staten Island. We are so glad we got to be a part of it and look forward to doing more benefits. Next up is a crop to raise funds for a non-profit theater on April 18th here in the store!

CHA Winter 2009 was great and we love our new stock. Here is a list of what has arrived and what we are still waiting for….

In-Stock

Sassafrass Lass – It just came in and is on the wall tonight!

Seven Gypsies – Purse Books, Vintage Tags, Ephemera, & more

JilliBean Soup – We love Kraft! And this line is all about kraft.

GCD – Oooohh, la, la. It’s all about the Paris line.

Creative Imaginations  – Creative Cafe buttons, tags, bags, and other essentials.

Jenni Bowlin – the baby kits are adorable and her usual amazing vintage-like items.

Maya Road – new chipboard. Need we say more about these staples.

Dream Street – the new rub-ons are beee-uu-ti-ful

Fancy Pants – some of our order arrived, mostly older stuff that is new to us, but not new to CHA 2009.

Ranger – distress stickles anyone? We are still waiting on some items.

Technique Tuesday – kits, stamps.

Little Yellow Bicycle – We decided to carry the C-Turn letters. They are really just office style alphas and therefore so USEFUL. And they come in silver and gold.

Still waiting….

Prima – where are you? I could use some rhinestones. They have promised to ship this week but there hasn’t been a UPS notification yet.

Cosmo Cricket – we loved it at the show but its hasn’t shown up yet.

My Minds Eye

Kodomo – Japanese Stamps

Hambly

Pink Paislee

Peebles

Ok, so I am sure there are lines I am forgetting that we either have in-stock or are on the wait list. It’s 12:20am and my brain is fried after a great bunch of photo appointments.

On a personal Kim note.. today my daughter finds out about pre-school and we just got first acceptance email. And it was our first choice! Tomorrow we should find out about the others in the mail, but really who cares, she got into the place right around the corner from the store. And they feed her hot meals. ** For those of you either outside of Manhattan or unaware of the ridiculous process of pre-school applications, you can come to the store and watch me do a ‘how did we get in despite the odds dance’. Imho, its really all luck, so any of you going through the same trauma, I wish you “tons of luck” tomorrow.

Now that everyone has been using the Silhouette in the store, we thought we would put them on sale. This is our first real sale item so we marked it way down. We have it listed on our website for $360 but if you buy it in the store it is now priced $169.00.

All of us in the store have come to love the Silhouette. We have been downloading free fonts and cutting alphas almost everyday. The software is easy to use and we will help you when you need it.

If you decide this machines isn’t for you, please feel welcome to use our in-store Silhouette. We will show you what you are missing.

Please note, we have several in stock and this price is good until the end of the month for in-store purchases only. And if you are planning on coming into the store don’t miss out on our free crop night – Friday March 20th when wonderful Nathalie Kalbach will be here from Germany. She is teaching a bunch of classes that weekend too.