The husband-and-wife team behind Nikki’s Trinkets, a handcrafted souvenir studio in Grace Bay, are marking eight years of both their marriage and their business in 2026. Nicola ‘Nikki’ Forbes, the creative director, and her husband O’Brien Forbes, sales and marketing director, run the Ports of Call store, where visitors watch art being made, create their own souvenirs and experience Turks and Caicos culture.
Nikki handmakes every piece from sand, sea fans, shells, driftwood and even construction debris gathered on local beaches, while O’Brien produces merchandise using her designs. The couple, old schoolmates from Freeport, Bahamas, reconnected after moving to their parents’ homeland and launched the business from a stall at the Thursday night Fish Fry in the Bight, later buying artist Alex Skye’s Grace Bay studio three years ago. "Every piece of art is unique, just like us,” Nikki says.
They also host ‘paint and play’ sessions in schools and art-based team-building for companies, which O’Brien calls a stress-reliever. Designs drawn from across the Islands — sea fans from South Caicos, the pink hues of North and Middle Caicos, the earth tones of Salt Cay — tell each island’s story, and the pair see the TCI creative scene as "powerful and alive with so many up-and-comings”.