Happy New Year

In the New Year,

we wish you the best year you’ve ever had,

and that each New Year

will be better than the last.

May you realize your fondest dreams

and take time to recognize and enjoy

each and every blessing.

Happy New Year,

And many more!

Esther & Estella

Flickr Favorites

1. Untitled, 2. DSCN0769.JPG, 3. Vision J2, 4. skin

Yesterday evening it was raining and storming and suddenly the sky turned pink. It gave a very weird atmosphere as if we were in a pink mist. I guess it was a combination of the sky full of water and the sun setting, it took about 30 minutes before the sky turned normal again.
This was the pink and I tried to get the same atmosphere as much as possible...

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard- Relaxed

1. DutchCraftWork 2. ImmortalButterfly 3. krize 4. ArtMind

We had a lovely quiet weekend. In Turkey there is no Christmas so we don't really do anything during those days, but as Etsy was quiet too, we had a lovely calm weekend, with making some new bags, baking cookies and watching Lost, perfect!

How was your Christmas and weekend?

Flickr Favorites- Christmas

1. christmas bokeh tree, 2. "O christmas tree, O christmas tree..." (Day 320/365), 3. christmas tree, 4. lights from a christmas tree

I know, I know, you have been seeing Christmas inspired things all through the month... But Christmas is just 2 nights away so I couldn't think of any other theme. I did my best to make it a not so traditional collecti0n of Christmas trees.

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

And I'm using this opportunity to wish everyone, who celebrates Christmas, a very merry Christmas, in our way, the urchin way :)

Monday Moodboard

1. eleanors 2. Jealousydesign 3. woolicious 4. LoveandKnit

With all the snow stories I have been hearing the past week I got inspired to a snowy moodboard. In our little town, the most south east point of Turkey, it never snows and it is very very rare that the weather becomes under zero.

See more moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Secret Santa

The wonderful Mitsy matched more then 100 participants for this years Secret Santa at our street team. IraGrant was my secret santa and sent me a gorgeous black bag! For my mum she added a yummy battik. Thank you so much Ira and Mitsy!!

I was ViltalaKim's secret santa, if you wonder what I have sent, you can see that here.

Secret Squirrel

A while back I was visiting ArtMind's blog (as usual) and became green of envy as she won a wonderful package. She won it because the bloghost kept an eye on the commenters of her blog and the most frequent comment leavers won something, of course this all goes secretly (Secret Squirrel) untill the bloghost anounce the lovely surprise. So Mitsy (ArtMind) won that and thought it was a very fun idea and decided to do the same for her blog readers, and guess what? I won yaaaayy! This is the blogpost which made me first green of envy and then pink of happiness :)

She has spoiled me rotten! I looove my babushka's, they are practical and gorgeous!

She also added belgium chocolate, needless to say they were finished in the next 24 hours after arrival.

And my sales fairy was also in the box! She arrived in a wonderful box. The box is made by Mitsy and she has made a tutorial about it here on her blog.

She is now happily busy spreading sales dust everywhere around us :)

The actual reason it took me 2 weeks to blog about this package is that Mitsy also gave me a task, a kitchen task :) She sent me materials to make the famous Dutch cookies, Spekulaas. It has been ages when I last ate them, but it took me a while to get myself in the kitchen to actually make them.

Oh boy, were they delicious, yes they 'were' as they are already finished (in 3 days) luckely I can't bake them on daily base or I would blame Mitsy for making me fat ;)

Thank you, thank you so much, Mitsy!! I will cherish them for many years (not like the cookies and chocolate).

Flickr Favorites

1. Untitled, 2. Aren't I purty?, 3. Gloves, 4. Boys having fun!

This mosaic started with Psarokokalo's half finished dolls. Love how they are waiting for attention and love their colors. So in search for the same colors I found some other weird body parts.

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. BabongoHome 2. ArtMind 3. sabahnur 4. thespottedsparrow


As Christmas is approaching fast, I think everyone is in a Christmas mood now.
Only 10 days left, have you set up your tree?
See more Monday Moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Our Creative Space...

Mess, mess and more mess...

But all is well when it ends well, and this mess ended well, after quite some hours of re-organising...

Most fabrics are now ordered by color.

And some by kind as silk, linen, etc.

The boxes contain all kind of ribbon, trims and lace ordered by color, all in boxes to keep them clean and organised.

So what are your activities at rainy days?

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

p.s. Kootoyoo is having a little break for the holidays, so Our creative space will be back at January the 28th!

Flickr Favorites

1. Far above the clouds, 2. Cloud Power !, 3. storm, 4. Through the Clouds

I came across the airplane picture and wanted that to be the centre piece of this mosaic. All pictures are dramatic and cloudy, love them! Flickr is such a HUGE source of beautiful pictures, you could spent weeks exploring there :)

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. Barbarix 2. StemellinaSupplies 3. swiedebie 4. Lapomme

Some happy polka dots to cheer your busy monday morning up :)

See more Monday Moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

New Life

You might be wondering wht this is all about? We have two big pine trees in our garden and along with those we always have some pinecones in the garden. We let a few hanging around as the dogs love to chew on them, which is good for them. Besides they also love the pine pits which have a very hard shell, they crack them open and eat the pits!


But the thing we actually wanted to show you were the little trees that came out of two of the pits, and one wasn't completly out of the nutshell yet, which is not something you see often.

It reminds me off those old illustrations you see in old biology books, I have a weakness for old biology books and have several of them.

Our Creative Space...

This week's creative space is a custom order for a lovely Etsy friend Frances, a sea treasures garland... I couldn't resist to show some parts of the process as it was such a delicious mess :)
The clothes-pins (which come in handy very often), are to reasure that the shells dry correctly.


Sea urchins, driftwood, starfish, seaglass, shalls and metal finds were the materials we used for this creation.

The result is rather smashing if I may say so...

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites

1. "An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.", 2. Nose and Ears, 3. Stay away from me weirdo !!, 4. A Horse's Nose

This week my first intention was to make a mosaic with eyes of different kind of animals. But then I came across the wonderful picture with the bear and loved the nose subject even more.
The nose is usually the first thing animal stick out, a sign of curiosity...

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. SenayAkin 2. Sumikoshop 3. ThongbaiTatong 4. JKphotography

I guess the word Black Friday got stuck in my head these days :)

See more Monday Moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Our Creative Space...

Yes, another mess this week, it seems that we are very good at making a mess...
This week some supplies arrived which gives an additional mess.


Just to show you that we are also organized I wanted to show you our supply cabinets, drawers and drawers full of supplies, organized supplies.



All are organized and arranged in colors and materials, one cabinet is full of beads, gemstones, pearls and more, arranged by color.

The other one is full with metal finds, 2 drawers with gold plated finds, 2 with silver and silver plated finds, 1 drawer with vintage finds, 2 with brass and copper finds, yes we are not a complete mess :)

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!

Flickr Favorites

1. purple ruflled shrug (3)-crop, 2. L'arbre à Voeux, 3. Purple Chocolate Box, 4. Purple

This week I thought to just check my contacts on Flickr instead of exploring the huge Flickr area and typed Purple as search word. I'm glad I did, my contacts are pretty awesome as you can see :)

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

Monday Moodboard

1. Matilou 2. Birribe 3. Fleurfatale 4. HeartshapedCreations

Some winter hues today, altho it feels like spring here, the days are short and nights are cool, perfect!

See more Monday Moodboards at FleurFatale's blog!

Surprise Package

It is always fun to recieve packages, but when it is a surprise package the fun is even bigger.
Petronella aka Kraplap sent us a package with a delicious home grown courgette and an adorable vintage doll. Mum loved the doll, thank you!!


The courgette is no longer in such shape, but turned into a delicious soup, with little meatballs. Petronella's husband made a wonderful recipe which we partly followed and we improvised other parts.

Thank you again for the wonderful surprise!!

Our Creative Space...

It's funny how it goes, without noticing you are working on 10 different project at the same time. Nice thing about that is that when you get bored of one you can jump over to another project and of course the fact that they all finish around the same time, which gives a good feeling too.



At the moment it is a gothic necklace (left), a sea treasure necklace (bottle with little shells in it), a sea urchin brooch, our entry for this week's challenge of the EuropeanStreetTeam with the theme Mythology, a pendant which needs tender loving care and an antique Chainmaille bag that we have revamped and repaired and will be listed in the bag shop today. All these projects will probebly, hopefully finish today so tomorrow a new scene can be seen on the table...

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!