Daytona Beach

Riley writing his name in the sand.
The Capwell family.
Me, Riley and Brody's feet in the sand...
Brody, Kenna, Riley and Krysten eating ice cream after dinner one night. Kayla was pushing Charlotte around in the stoller...
Brody was freezing after eating his ice cream.
The view of the four pools and the beach from our balcony.
Our condo... we were in the building on the right.
Brody and Krysten at Nokomis Beach playground.
Charlottte on the swings at the beach.
My cousin Kim (and her hubby) drove to Florida with their three kids to spend some time with our family. They relaxed at our house and took the kids to the beach (even though we had on sweatshirts), explored Myakka State Park... After a couple of days here is Sarasota, we loaded up the kids and drove over to Daytona Beach and boy did we have fun! We each had a two bedroom condo that overlooked Daytona Beach. The kids had a blast swimming in the kiddy pool, sliding down the water slides, relaxing in tubes on the lazy river and just playing together all week long. We took a nice walk down the beach, let the kids write their names in the sand... and they even were brave enough to get their feet wet. Kim and I had the chance to sit down each night and watch a movie together which was so nice... (The Proposal with Sandra Bullock is absolutely hysterical!)
All in all, the week was great. I really had a chance to relax, the kids had a blast...it was a great way to start off our spring break.
xoxo
nikki

Pottery Barn Bingo Board

A couple of months ago my mom and I were scrolling through the Pottery Barn magazine being inspired on what we wanted to create for our homes...and we ran across this awesome Bingo board. Since we already made the Pottery Barn Typeset board as a 40x40" piece of wall art we decided to go a little smaller for this one. Mom had a really cool board out in her garage that was 13" wide and around 6 feet long... so we decided on making our boards 13x13".
Steps to make your own.

• cut board to desired size (ours was 13x13)
  
• paint your inside square white
  
• paint a border your desired color (Mom made her's red, but mine I wanted a shabby teal color since I was hanging it in my studio which has red walls). Our border dimensions are: 2" across the top, 1/2" on the sides and bottom.
• Stencil the word "BINGO" acoss the top in white (I typed the letters in a photoshop document, sized them to approx 1 1/2", printed them on heavy cardstock and then cut them out to use as a stencil.)
• draw the four vertical and four horizontal lines using a straight edge and a sharpie marker
• for the numbers you have two options... you can either print them all out in the desired size then hand cut them out ... OR you can find a font you like and print them all out on the cricut (I hand cut all my numbers... and realizing how long it took and knowing we had 3 more boards to make we got out the cricut and used the schoolbook font and printed the numbers out in a 1 1/2" size)
• i created the center circle that says "free space" and then cut it out
• antique (using a rag, odorless paint thinner and brown and/or black oil paint in a tube) and/or distress board (with sanding block) as desired
  
• adhere all numbers and free space circle using quick drying Tacky glue.
• nail a picture hanger on back of board and hang on wall

dream.design.create.bingo!
xoxo
nikki
ps if you have any other questions, just e-mail me and I will be glad to guide you in the right direction...or I can even send you the jpg file of the free space for you to use.

ez piez

(the one above and the one below are two of my favs from the shoot!)





After taking Audrey's cake pictures (see last post) , one of her partners, Glynis needed her website done and in turn needed photographs of her food as well. Glynis is from South Africa, she wants to bring a common food they eat there and popularize it here. If you were like me when I heard the name ez piez, I thought ohhh apple, blueberry or cherry??? Well, to my surprise fruit is not an ingredient in these piez...on the contrary they are hand held savory pastries filled with meat and veggies. The idea is simular to what we know as a "hot pocket". I have to say though that Glynis' are far from the "hot pocket" you buy in the frozen food section of the grocery store. Her's are filled with meat or chicken and fresh veggies...they are delicious. (Sean at all three I brought home from the shoot with me). You can stop by her storefront in Gulf Gate and pick some up for dinner on your way home from work for you or the whole family. I will post more info later on exact location and phone number etc...
xoxo
nikki

Audrey's Jamaican Rum Cake

My friend Sherry asked me to take some pictures for a web site she is designing. The website is for a local Sarasota woman who is starting her own business. She is making and selling Jamaican Rum Cake. She is going to be doing the bulk of her business online...but she will have a storefront in GulfGate she will be sharing with 2 other women (a caterer and another women). If you are interested in ordering one her number is (941) 928-3309. Each cake is filled with various fruit and then soaked in rum...yummy!!!
xoxo
nikki

the "how to" on making our typewriter key wall art...

a close up shot of the chiseled groovemom, using a paintbrush to really get in the grooves with the antiquing effect
antiquing the squares with the rag and paint
lori, dragging the chisel to create the grooves
our finished product


I have been receiving requests from women who googled "typewriter key wall art" (and from there they found my blog) and they have wanted to know how I made my Pottery Barn replica.
Well, here is how we did it step by step...

• found the typewriter font FREE here http://www.typadelic.com/typekeys.html, downloaded it and then created a document in photoshop, typed the letters/numbers in and blew them up to the size we wanted (if you dont have photoshop and are planning on making your board 25x25", e-mail me and I will send you the jpg files). We printed them out on cream cardstock and then cut all the circles out.
  
• cut a piece of plywood board 25x25" square
• marked a grid 5 lines evenly spaced horiz and 5 lines vertical. Then we used a metal straight edge ruler and dragged the corner of a chisel down the lines to create the grooves
• take a rag, wet a corner with odorless mineral spirits, dab where its wet onto the top of a tube of dark brown oil paint and use that to antique each square...making sure it really gets in the groove to make them stand out. (Hint: if you make it too dark, just wet a clean corner of your rag with the mineral spirits and wipe off till you get the desired effect.
• adhere your letters and numbers in the center of each square using either spray adhesive or a quick dry tacky glue. Brayer over them to make sure they are stuck down good.
  
• hammer tiny black nails (we found a box of 100 at Lowe's for about 3 or 4 bucks) into the four corners of your squares
• cut frame to size and nail together
• hang and enjoy!!

Hope this little tutorial helps. E-mail me @ nikkiclearypta(at)comcast.net if you have any other questions.

**edited to add jpegs**

xoxo
nikki

K2 March LO Challenge

...all right K2 krafters out there...my monthly challenge is to use the colors orange, blue and then add something (everything) digital on your layout/card/mini album! No, you do not have to have a 12x12 printer to do this. You can go online and find some adorable elements for FREE (do a google search of "free digital scrapbooking products" and you will be amazed) and print them out on your regular printer at home and then incorporate them into a LO. I have been taking an online class about improving my digital scrapbooking skills using my Wacom tablet, so my LO happens to be all digital... but you can do whatever inspires YOU! Cant wait to see what you all come up with.
xoxo
nikki