About Yaya's Creative Studio

Built by a maker, for makers.

Yaya's Creative Studio is a Paris-based craft supply brand specialising in 2.6mm mini fuse beads — with needle felting coming next. We exist to make the process of buying materials as thoughtful and precise as the craft itself — so you spend less time sourcing and more time creating.

Our story

Yaya's Creative Studio was founded by Yaya, an IT consultant who discovered fuse beads and needle felting as a way to disconnect from screens and reconnect with something made by hand. Both crafts share the same appeal — turning a simple image into something you made entirely by hand, bead by bead or fibre by fibre.

What started as a personal hobby quickly revealed a persistent problem: finding the right materials in Europe was harder than it should be. Out-of-stock colours, slow international shipping, inconsistent bead quality, and the frustration of buying far too much — or not quite enough — were familiar obstacles. Rather than accept them, we decided to solve them. Yaya's Creative Studio was built to be the supply source we always wished existed.

Fuse bead creation by Yaya's Creative Studio

Every project, one bead at a time.

We built this studio around one core belief: you should only ever buy what your project actually needs. That belief shapes everything — from how our tools work to how our products are priced and stocked.

The problems we set out to fix:

  • Colour sets that include shades you'll never use
  • No way to calculate exactly how many beads a pattern requires
  • Colour codes on patterns that don't match the beads you can buy
  • Long shipping times from suppliers outside Europe
  • Quality that varies batch to batch, making colour matching unreliable

How we source and what we sell

Quality

Direct from the Artkal factory

Our 2.6mm mini fuse beads are sourced directly from the Artkal factory — the same facility that produces Artkal's own range. Consistent colour, consistent size, and a stable colour system you can rely on across projects.

Flexibility

Buy by the bead or by the pack

We sell individual colours in exact quantities and refill packs of 1,000, 2,000, or 5,000 beads. Whether you need 40 beads or 5,000, we have the right format at the right price.

Shipping

Stocked and shipped from France

All orders ship from Paris. No customs delays, no long waits from overseas suppliers — your materials arrive quickly so your project doesn't have to wait.

Coming soon

Needle felting — our next chapter

We're not stopping at fuse beads. Needle felting is our next craft category — and we're building it the same way: an image-to-pattern converter that detects outlines and matches the closest available wool colours, generating both a pattern and an exact shopping list. We'll source short-staple wool directly from China — the ideal fibre for flat, detailed needle felt work. Same philosophy, new craft.

Needle felting — coming soon to Yaya's Creative Studio

Why we use the MARD colour system

You may have noticed that our colour codes don't match the ones on Artkal's own packaging. That's a deliberate choice — and an important one.

MARD is one of the most influential fuse bead brands in China, and their 221-colour coding system has become the de facto standard across the global crafting community. The vast majority of free patterns shared on social media, Pinterest, and bead communities use MARD colour codes.

Artkal recognised this. They opened a dedicated production line to manufacture beads mapped to the MARD colour system — which is exactly what we source. The result: our beads work seamlessly with the patterns you already have.

More colours

221 colours in the MARD system — a wider range than most alternatives, enabling more complex and detailed work.

More free patterns

The majority of freely available patterns online use MARD codes. No conversion needed — just use the pattern as-is.

The community standard

MARD's colour system is deeply established in the crafting community. Choosing it means your beads stay compatible with whatever you find, now and in the future.

Our promise

We are a small studio with a clear purpose: to make precision crafting — fuse beads today, needle felting next — more accessible, more precise, and more enjoyable for crafters across Europe. Every product we stock, every tool we build, and every pattern we publish is chosen with that in mind.

  • We only stock materials we have personally tested and trust
  • We use the MARD colour system so your patterns always work with our beads
  • We build free tools so you can plan your project before you spend anything
  • We price fairly — individual beads for small projects, bulk packs for serious crafters
  • We ship from France so European crafters get their orders fast