Flickr Favorites

1. , 2. Handprints, 3. #fifty two - the voice of an artist, 4. Photocopied (Day 53)

Yesterday I started reading the book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo written by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. My mum just finished it. The first thing that caught my attention is the fact that Stieg never wrote a book before but was a journalist. He left his trilogy at a publisher and soon after that died of a heart attack at the age of 50. He never has known that he became world's second best seller in 2008, that his books sold more then 27 million coppies in 40 countries. What I do like about this is that he will be remembered as a great writer, and that he left something beautiful to the world.

This mosaic is about leaving 'marks' before we die. Most people are not able to do so, and I don't dream about leaving something so that I will be remembered a 100 years after my death. I do think that art and literature are the best assets to leave before we say farewell to this world...

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. byMarianneS 2. ThongbaiTatong 3. fleurfatale 4. birribe

Some pretty finds, ready for spring, to start the new week in a beautiful way!
Have a great week everyone!
See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Our Creative Space...

On account of our Quit your day job interview on Etsy this week, we have received several comments and inquiries regarding our bead drawers, so we decided to share more in detail what and how they are.
This type of drawers is used mostly by architects and such to store drawings. They are called flat file cabinets and you should be able to find them at mayor office supply stores in your country. They are very expensive, so maybe you can find them second hand, but check that they have strong, good functioning ball-bearing rails. A single drawer of this size filled with glass or stone beads can easily weight 40-50 kgs, so simple rails won't do.

Also, be sure to open only one drawer at the time or the whole cabinet will topple forward. Yes, it happened to us, with a million beads on the ground as a result.

The last drawer is bigger to accomodate spools with wire and other larger stuff. The other drawers are only 3'' (7.5cm) high for optimal use of the space. These cabinets can be found in several sizes, but this is the best drawer hight.


The inserts are cheap plastic boxes, also available in several sizes.

An excellent alternative for the architect cabinets is this office cabinet, ALEX from Ikea. It looks small in comparision, but the drawers are A2 in size, so lots of stuff can be stored in them too. The drawer hight is the same, but they fit under tables and they are mobile! They are quite affordable too.

Here we have used those plastic partitioned boxes that you may allready have to store your beads. You can remove the lids for easy access and they allow for even more detailled sorting of your goodies.

Splurging in good storage saves a lot of time when creating and will make you extremely happy :)

Again, a big thank you to everybody who took the time to comment on the interview and send us sympathy and encouragement. You rock!!

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites

Some of you already figured out the surprise, but just wanted to share it here anyway. This week we are at the article Quit Your Day Job on Etsy, you can see the article here. The comments and reactions have been wonderful from the first day, so smiles and urchins for this week's Flickr Favorites :) Thank you so much all for your support!

1. Sea Urchin on a Stem, 2. Smiling like the SpaghettiSun, 3. asap07(&cbut - urchin), 4. Sea urchins

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. Ravenhill 2. atelierpompadour 3. PamelaAngus 4. PixelWildChild

It's Europe Week on Etsy! Everyone on the EuropeanStreetTeam is excited to see what will happen.
As we don't like to spoil surprises, I won't say untill it is actually running, but we are quiet excited too about something very nice which make us feel happy :) I'll blog about it tomorrow!
This week's moodboard is full of smiles and fluffy pinks.
Have a great week everyone!

See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Help Please :)

Our bagshop is in Etsy's voter!! Yaay, so happy, we would be even more happy if you could give us your vote :)

Our Creative Space...

First of all, happy St. Patrick's day to everyone who celebrates it!



We are working on a custom bridal bouquet. The color theme is pretty challenging; green and purple with a beach theme. The wedding is going to be on the beach so lots of shells and sea urchins are going to be involved.

We are also going to use these gorgeous vintage beaded flower stems to make it spicey. The sea urchins will be adorned with pearls. We will be making lots of fabric roses, it's the same color as the bridesmaid dress. Alot of work involved but can't wait to see the result and the wedding pictures!

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites- selfportrait

1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/amstersam/517386614/, 2. It's Later than you think...., 3. fun girl, 4. Untitled, 5. Travelling Through Time, 6. The end ?, 7. V equals d over t, 8. gather 'round kids, it's story time!, 9. Jars of Mercury Glass Beads

Mitsy challenged us this week to make a selfportrait mosaic. The first things that came to my mind are:

I love cars and driving them
I walk very fast, and am usually fast with most things
I can't believe how fast time goes by, I often still think I'm 20 (I'm 26)
I love dogs, we have 14 so that's no surprise and can't imagine a life without them
I cry very easily, if I'm not feeling well and someone close asks me how I'm doing I can burst into tears. I also cry extremly easy with movies (yes even the death of Dumbledore in Harry Potter made me cry)
I can be very patient, waiting daily in the postoffice is not a problem, working with tiny material either. But with other things I can get very impatient and angry very easily
I love beads and love working with them.

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. vadjutka 2. kohlcass 3. barbarix 4. ingermaaike

Just some pretty colors and finds, to start your week good!
Have a great week everyone!

See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Our Creative Space...

We are working on our challenge entry for this week's challenge of our street team, this week's theme is The Sense of Touch and Textures. And here is a sneek peak of that, as it is not finished yet. I carefully photographed a not messy looking part of the table, so don't be jealous, it really is NOT tidy around here :)
For our pins we use a big magnet, super easy as you just throw the pins in that direction and it finds it's place.



You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites

1. translating a shell, 2. honeycomb pillow, 3. honeycomb smocking for tutorial, 4. Smock it to me.

Mum can't quit smocking!! these past two weeks she has been hooked and as I help her a little I see honeycombs dancing in front of my eyes :) I found some lovely pictures while searching for smocked on Flickr, especially Tinctory has a beautiful photostream.

Our latest result is this sweet bag, for the romantic souls:

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. PixelWildChild 2. eleanors 3. fleurfatale 4. roroism

Happy Women's Day everyone! Not only to the women but also for the men, because what would they be without us? :)

See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Our Creative Space...

Mum found a very old pattern, an adorable bag with smocked details. 'Are you sure about this', I asked, of course highly offended she said that she had smocked long before I was born.

So the preparations began, and after stichting the fabric we pulled it together so that the folds would appear.

After that we had to pull it apart again to the size we wanted the piece to become.

The thread ends had to be wounded around needles so that the size wouldn't change.

Then came a tricky part: to make the folds all equally apart from each other. After trying that by hand I found a nice system. By using 10 knitting needles and pushing them though, I wonder how we came up with 10 of the same size of needles, but anyway it sure came out handy!

Finally the preparations were finished and mum could start to smock, she did a very good job, and made me proud :)

After the smocking we could finally make the bag!

After a bit twisting and talking though how to finish it, the result is, if I may say so, quiet amazing!


Listed the bag last night, it is here available.


You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites

1. My bubbly bag, 2. Untitled, 3. Losing My Fizz, 4. GreyJacket2-Wip
I fell in love with the bubble bracelet of Psarokokalo, and the atmosphere of the picture. So I searched for grey bubbles on Flickr to accompany that picture.
See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. trotalo 2. suziechaney 3. lapomme 4. Lamercerie

This week it is all about doggies. Our sweet little Mimi got very ill. Apperently she had a serious whomb infection and it had to be removed right away. Saturday morning she had the surgery and I'm very glad to say that she is much better already.

Thank you for all the healing vibes!

See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!