Miss Moussetache aka Mimimou

At exactly 02.47 PM on 3rd October 2007 in Central Park, New York, I discovered poodles scare me. At that moment in time a perfectly trimmed, white poodle was walking majestically towards me and I swear the pavement cracked underneath his paws: he was so big, he was able to look me in the eye. I used to beg my parents to get me a poodle when I was a little girl, but from that day on, my conception of a 'poodle' had changed. All information in our mind is stored in little boxes, which we then label with a name and fill with a memory, a rough concept and an emotion. My poodle box said 'cuddly; small and fluffy; happiness' but when I saw the poodle mentioned previously, my mind and my senses conflicted with what I thought a poodle to be and I was forced to renew my information box. I changed that into 'scary; BIG and fluffy; fear'. Then I realized there was another box which information was very similar to the giant poodle's, its label read 'monster'. ...

It was rush hour at the Amsterdam railway station and I was on my way to Brussels. The train was running late and as a consequence everybody was walking up and down the platform impatiently, moving in coordinated blocks. That's how I saw her: at one point the mass left a huge gap right where she was standing. At first she seemed motionless like a statue: an elderly lady, somewhere in her eighties, with wavy hair, a soft suede coat, a mohair turtleneck sweater, wonderfully cut pants and lovely flats. All of which was in the purest shade of white. She looked as if she had stepped right out of a Vogue winter fairytale. But the lady was conscious of everybody staring at her: young girls with their mocking smiles, young boys rolling their eyes in disbelief. The white lady's hands clutched more and more to the bag she had pushed in front of her like a shield. I thought she looked amazing. I went up to her and said 'Madame, you look beautiful'. A lovely smile broke her face in...

I was born on an island shaped like a three-legged monster and rugged like an old fisherman's forehead. The sea has always been renowned for its abundance in marine life, especially sword fish and tuna. But the land was poor of animals, except from the usual fauna you can see anywhere: mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows, lizards and many insects. When I hit the magical age of eight, a zoo opened its gates on our island. I loved animals and could spend hours reading my Animal Kingdom encyclopedia, so my parents took me there on a lovely Sunday morning. We were the first people entering. Trembling with excitement I walked around its cages. Unfortunately the zoo hadn't managed the funding to get enough animals to fill them so most of the structures were empty. Outside the cages mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows and lizards seemed to prosper, just like on the rest of the island. The largest cage of all was situated next to the play area (one slider and two see-saws). At first glance...

When we are little, grown-ups are always telling us off when we extend our drawing surface to anything that isn't paper: walls, human legs and let's not forget the living room's antique table. So we learn how to not use walls, human legs and antique tables as drawing paper. By the time we have restricted ourselves to a paper sheet, grown-ups our telling us off for coloring outside the 'lines'. Only a face should be pink and not its surrounding sky, dress, house, etc... So we learn how to stick our colored crayon in between the pre-drawn lines. But then WE become a grown-up too. And sometimes we go back to our instinct of coloring outside lines and using the world as a drawing sheet. When that happens... the world becomes a wonderful storyteller who we never want to stop telling its stories. Have you ever heard about knitgraffiti ? Small, usually rectangular, pieces from leftover yarns are knitted together and sawn around trees , abandoned gas stations , light poles ...

How are you feeling today? I woke up insanely happy and after my first coffee the melancholy swept me off my feet. Undoubtedly some other mood will knock me down soon. You know what I hate most about mood swings? I have to walk to my iPod and change the tracks every time. I simply can't listen to happy music when I am feeling sad. Probably you feel the same about this. But our sighs and moans have been heard... and inspired someone to create Stereomood , an extremely accurate playlist based on your moods. It's perfect and works amazingly well. My next wish? A genius playlist which automatically tags the moods on my iPod too... PS Talking about mood swings, did you ever hear about emotionally-activated lip gloss ? Yes, it does exist, it's called Mood Swing (really?) and it's an easy way to show the world whether you are feeling sassy, sexy or deliriously happy. Gosh, didn't we all need that? And if the gloss doesn't work - there is always the mood swing pin ...

Each of us can do something the usual way or his own way. Arent't we different beings after all? Maybe we all have one name for the thing we do best, which could be kissing, fixing cars, drawing just as well as dancing, taking pictures or animating. But it's up to ourselves to look at what we do from a different angle and do it from that same different angle. Just like...

Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes. It's an ancient craft which probably originated in Belgium, just around the corner from Holland. The materials used for lace-making are usually just as fragile as its patterns: linen, silk, gold. Think of lace and you immediately think of underwear, napkins, curtains and religious ceremonies such as in weddings, christenings and funerals. What would happen if you could combine its feminine, domestic element with something masculine and industrial? Just look at Cal Lane 's work and you will see how this marriage would look. This gifted artist uses her torch to cut baroque, lace-like patterns into ordinary things such as shovels, old oil drums, wheelbarrows, car doors, and other pieces of scrap metal.

As a child, I loved drawing little worlds inhabited by critters. It usually started with one creature living in a house made out of leaves and broken glass but this soon developed into a whole world on its own, with cableways between flowers for transporting honey and squirrels wearing glasses against the flying wood chips of a woodpecker. If my world didn't fit on the page anymore, I simply glued a new one on top and began building another layer on it, like in a pop-up book. Somehow that memory hit me while watching the amazing “I Own You”, a clip for Wax Tailor featuring Charlie Winston. French studio SoLab seems to have created a little world out of paper and glue just as I did. Uhm, oh, well, they might have done a better work than I have ever... but still! Wax Tailor feat. Charlie Winston " I Own You" from SoLab on Vimeo .

A zillion things happened today in the world. Out of this zillion, there were a few I happened to stumble upon: {1} A striking image about prejudice, by French studio La Souris sur le Gateau (Didier Rossigneux and Knapik Bridenne). It screams at you without words. {2} A fox got into the Helsinki zoo and killed 16 flamingos. Would this have been a news item if the flamingos had been roaming in the wild? I am still unsure about zoo's. Are they the good guy or the bad guy? {3} This love filled latte made by my boyfriend in one my greatgrandmother's tea cups. With home roasted beans ! {4} The Porteur , A mostly handmade gentleman's bike, designed by Nicolas Yvars. The blue-gray color scheme, the leather details, the vintage liquor flask under the saddle... Nicolas found many components thanks to the help he got from the French bike community . I love craftmanship, people who want to deliver perfection by putting their soul in it, AND everyone who encourages that. {5} Apparentl...