Finally these are posted…we’ve been waiting to share this project with all of you and can now show you what the results are.  A few weeks ago we were able to take off a whole ENTIRE week to focus on our home project.   WOOHOO!  But this time we wanted to tackle the exterior for a change…which our neighbors are probably thanking us for doing so.  You can also check out our interior remodel progress by clicking….HERE. Needless to say the ‘before’ exterior status of our home was an eyesore!!!  The outline from the old shutters next to the windows, the faded paint touch-up and the bubble-like blistering from the cracks were long lived.  But they are NO MORE!!!  Muhahahahahaha.  And we couldn’t be happier with the ‘after’ results.  Basically we wanted to remove all the exterior light blue paint on the block through a process called ’sandblasting’. Don’t know what this is?  See SANDBLASTING 101 an informative piece by Bill Tonnesen & Baja Sandblasting (who we hired) that was posted on one of our favorite sites Modern Phoenix Neighborhood Network.

So restoring the look of the grey block was really really really important to us.  Not only would the look be FABULOUS but it would also be practically maintenance free (after we seal it).  No more peeling faded ugly paint!!!  Plus we are the ONLY ONE’S on our street and I believe whole neighborhood to not have the block painted.  Now we stand out more from the crowd of mid-1950’s homes.  Sweet.  To some of you the progress may look minimal in the photographs but it is substantial when viewing in person.

Our next step is to remove the lovely hummingbird door screens my mom installed when she owned the home for security and to replace the ‘original’ decayed wood door with a horizontal 5 lite solid core wood door we found @ Gerson’s salvage yard!  We’re going to sand it down, paint it a high gloss orange or lime green and order some modern sleek hardware!!!  We also need to replace all the fascia boards and re-putty the casement windows + paint until we are ready for brand new windows down the road.

Thanks for checking out our project and we hope to have many more updates throughout the year!  Eric is going to post renderings of the exterior so you all can get an idea of what we are envisioning…so look for it!

The entire house as a ‘before’ shot…


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  1. Randy Lookin' good!!! :)

  2. Brandon G. Looks awesome! Nice saguaros too!

  3. Alison King, Modern Phoenix Woo hoo! Looks so much better, guys! Love your carport area, it would make a killer patio. Your saguaros are from another planet, too. Well done!

  4. Josh Solar I think it looks GREAT! Man, I'd be worried about all the cacti (cactuses?) in the yard, though :)

  5. David C WOW...getting back to the basics really worked. Much better without the faux shutters and the paint.Can't wait to see what you will underplant in the saguaros.

  6. Nikki I think you are definitely right Casia! The house looks much better without the blue paint. What were the previous owners thinking?? That original au natural brick looks great!

  7. Julie Prichard WOW That is amazing! Who knew all that paint could be removed in the first place! Looks 1000 times better now!

  8. Amy Wow what a difference. It looks great! It makes me wonder what they were thinking when they painted it... whoever that was. Your yard cracks me up with the dirt and HUUUGE cacti. :) Is that normal for AZ? You'd probably have quite a water bill in order to maintain plush grass, huh?

  9. Casia Amy...yes there are a lot of Sahuaro's in our front yard! 10 to be exact...they have been there ever since my mom owned the house. Someone was obcessed with them obviously. And in Tucson not many people have 'real' grass...too expensive to water since not much rain.

  10. Millie Wow you guys! What a difference!!!

  11. David & Elfi Great job, folks! We'll be doing sandblasting at our new unit in Three Fountains and hope it comes out as well as yours has. Have you folks seen the-brick-house-.com? They're taking a completely non-descript 50's bungalow and slowly, inch-by-inch, dollar-by-dollar turning it into delightful modernist house, on an incredibly tight budget!

In April we had the AH-MAZING opportunity to collaborate with DWR (design within reach) in the 6th Annual Modern Phoenix Expo!!!   Thanks to Alison King, founder of MoPho, we were introduced to the witty Gabe from DWR. We paired an eclectic mix of mid-century modern furniture from their Scottsdale location along with our 21st century modern HIP photography. IT WAS PERFECT!!! Here are some details we grabbed of the killer booth living room space.  The idea behind the collaboration was to create a look that reflected a cozy living space along with some personal artwork.  As if it was an actual living room.  Cause you know purple nickel ain’t gonna do a boring ’stand behind your table and hand out brochures’ booth concept.  It was really different for the attendees because they could actually walk into our space, sit on the furniture and roam through the pages of our books.  Check em’ out…

Funny enough while we were editing through the images we found this shot where we randomly captured our recent client’s ‘David + Elfi‘ who booked us after seeing the space. WOOHOO!!!  And Gabe also happend to be in the shot.  He’s the one in the light blue button down shirt with a clip board!  Ha. Yeah we put him to work collecting info/volunteers to receive a complimentary MOD headshot by yours truly.  Actually we didn’t put Gabe to work…he totally offered which was way cool.  Thanks dude!  We’re gonna post the MOD headshots in a later post so stay tuned.

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If you didn’t notice by now the last image are our brand spankin’ new biz cards that we had designed by a good friend of ours Leticia. She helped our vision come to life and you have to see them in person to experience the texture, size and embossing. WE LOVE THEM!!!

We’ll also be posting our 2 sample book designs in a slideshow…coming soon!

Below is our ‘take away’ we created for the MoPho attendees. Specs: 6×9 on glossy finish

purple nickel studio . extra extra


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  1. anda You two are so awesome. Love the set-up, the design, the biz cards. So perfect.

  2. Millie You guys that space is killer!!! Such an amazing set up and idea. Your brand just SCREAMS! Its awesome!!

  3. leticia awesomeness! everything looked fabulous, how fun. and gracias for the shout out :)

  4. Kyle Weber This looks awesome!! Great displays!

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of photographing the Gonzalez crew for their family portraits. This is their 3rd session with Purple Nickel Studio!!! AWESOME! We photographed Rhonda + Jerry’s engagment session in 08′, then their wedding in 09′ and now their family in 10′. We LOVE our job!!! But these guys always make it easy for us and it totally shows in their session. When our clients give us creative freedom it’s endless on what we’ll come up with. And we have to say this is one of our favorite family sessions this year so far…
Check em’ out they’re too COOL!!!

Thanks Gonzalez family…we always have a blast hanging out with you guys and are soooo lucky to have you as friends!

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Give it a sec to load…


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  1. brenda eek! so fun! love them!

  2. Roxy OMG!!! I LOVE the last 2 pics!!! Amazing!!!

  3. Amy love these. love the bike shots, the candid shots, the shots by the glass. nice work. oh, and I love the hoot owl eyes on the boy. too cute.

  4. Debbie you guys ALWAYS come up with the most creative things to set the bar even higher!!! keep up the inspiring work and silly faces!

  5. jean love all the pics!! you guys did a great job!!

  6. Rhonda i have so many favorites! casia and eric are superstars!

  7. GMD Off the grid is always one of my favourite blogs to visit. Your clients seem to bring a great attitude to their shoots - any tips on helping to bring that out in people? Thanks.

This is the look ya get after a blazin HOT photoshoot!

It was nearly 95 degrees that day!

But just wait until you see the session…it was soooo worth it!

purple nickel studio . extra extra


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  1. Heidi Fazio hee hee!! you are too cute! love the pink necklace!

  2. josh solar LOVE it! And we miss you both.

  3. Millie awww you are so cute!

  4. Fonzarelli YES!!! MEGACRAZYHOTFACE in play!!!

  5. Roxy Hahaha...too funny!!!

  6. Amy thanks for laugh. :)

8 girls + 8 guys = SWEET SIXTEEN!!!

You’ve gotta click HERE to check out the previous sneak peek blog post and story…you know you wanna!

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Just for laughs…

purple nickel studio . flipsidepurple nickel studio . flipsideWe photographed the above series of images separately (cropped ‘in camera’) and then pieced together in post production. We never meant to compose the images this way at the time but after some experimentation we knew we just had to show em’ this way.  Hope it made you giggle!


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  1. brenda love these! those first two i just really like. i like the way the buildings seems so monumental, sometimes it seems so hard to get buildings in photos well. oh and i love the light! and the girls' dresses!

  2. Timothy Pham what an awesome session. the feet shots at the end had me falling out my chair. too funny and so creative!

  3. Michelle Rasmussen "Sweet!" ;) (Uhh, your blog is telling me that my comment is a bit too short...can you tell it to mind it's manners please?) :P

  4. BongerNut Getting the spacing correct is amazing in itself. Awesome!

  5. Roxy Hahaha...you are so funny Casia!!! Great job!!!

  6. Amy I have been DYYYYYYYYING to see these!! Fantastic job. I love the new legs shots. So funny! I can't believe how you got them to line up!

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