Breathing Underwater

wearing blouse c/o Oasap, collar clips from Ebay, skirt from a friend, shoes from Rubi Shoes, cardigan from Forever 21. Yay, new hair! What do you think of it? I was blown away that you can get such quality wigs for $10. $10!! This one is probably the best quality one I've gotten so far because it looks so real! I think I may be becoming wig-obsessed, as I now have 4 in my collection and I keep ordering new ones... (this one is from here if you wanted to know!) Also, my collar clips. Ahhh, Ebay. You are amazing. They're little hands, and they're just about the best thing ever. (image from shutterstock) I've also been obsessed with bright yellow patterns with cartoon-y leaves and flowers on them for a while now, so I was so happy to find this blouse on Oasap - it was exactly what I was looking for. Apart from the sleeves... (click through to the product listing to see the sleeves on this baby. They're pretty hilarious) but I will be cutting those off and then it will be perfect. p.s. Metric - Breathing Underwater p.p.s. Please ignore my knee. It looks a bit gross (I fell over the other day and banged it up), but I felt really weird considering photoshopping it out. Like I'm saying "hey I'm never clumsy at all and never fall over while just walking..." (no, I wasn't wearing platforms either, haha).

Back To Cool Campaign Remix #2

Hola everybody! So I was originally intending on making this three separate posts like my last Back to School Remix (see it here if you missed it!), but my boyfriend's sister has just gone into labour with her second baby girl, and I am going to be on call to look after the first little one (which I love doing anyway because she's probably the cutest little lady ever.) So I'm going to have to post all these in one go as I may not be around too much in blogland for the next few days.  For this second back to school style remix, I have remixed this super, super cute heart printed dress from the Chictopia Shop's sale (and the dress is still available here). Here's the details of each outfit! Remix 2.1: A simple satchel, a boater hat, lace socks and some oxfords. My go-to look whenever I'm dressing casually. For anyone who knows me, this is kind of my "default" look, haha. I usually just switch up the dress and bag but the rest stays the same. wearing dress - Awwdore c/o Chictopia Shop, bag - Vintage, shoes - Raben footwear, ring - gift from Awwdore Remix 2.2: I threw a cropped crochet sweater on over the dress and donned these incredible tights from oasap. For authenticity, I am carrying a folder - and that's my real school folder as well, full of all my chemistry work from this semester, woo! wearing dress - Awwdore c/o Chictopia shop, sweater - Forever 21, belt - vintage, tights - c/o Oasap, shoes - Label Shoes c/o Chictopia Shop Remix 2.3: When you have a dress with such a lightweight chiffon skirt, it's really easy to hide it up in some high-waisted shorts and turn it into a cute little romper outfit. This is what I did for my third remix. I also threw on those gorgeous gradient tights to match my pink hair, and added a bow to my plait for some over-the-top near-pukeworthy kitchyness.  wearing dress - Awwdore c/o Chictopia shop, shorts - Cotton On, tights - Choies c/o Chictopia shop, bag - c/o Oasap, bow - DIY Chictopia, you're basically the best ever for letting me work with you on your Back to Cool Campaign!! Thank you so much. Go and check out the sale, it's in its last few days! I hope you're all having a lovely day! I am so excited to see this new little baby girl!! Hopefully everything is going to go fine. I'm probably going to be a bit baby crazy over my next few posts, so please excuse me.

Trust me, I am a Scientist

Hello! Just dropping in real quickly today to tell you that I started a science blog. I've been playing with the idea for months and yesterday felt like the right time to start it (probably because I have 4 assignments due next week. Yeah that'd be the right time to start a whole new blog). Go and check it out if you're interested - I'm trying to put a wide variety of funny, interesting, beautiful or weird science stuff on it, like this microbiologist who creates artworks on agar plates using bacteria: this amazingly nerdy periodic table (get it??): and this photo, probably the best selfie ever taken: I named it "Trust me, I am a Scientist" because my friends and family, whenever asking me a question, or my stance on an issue, often like to start with "Annika, you're a scientist..." So that title seemed appropriate, even though I'm really not (yet) a scientist. Anyway, you can find "Trust me, I am a Scientist" here. I hope you like it :3

DIY Pastel Windowsill Bunting (using paint)

I came up with this quick painting project the other day when I was meant to be studying (that's always the way with my DIYs. If I wasn't procrastinating on more important things, there's no way I'd have all these creative inspirations). Rather than hanging up bunting underneath my windowsill, I decided to paint it on instead. Unfortunately the lighting in my bedroom is awful, so this was the best photo I could get of it. I was also thinking of adding stripes/spots to some of the bunting in contrasting colours, but now I'm not sure if I just like it how it is. What do you guys think? I also took some photos of the steps involved, so you can try it out if you want!  1. Cut out a triangle from cardboard. This is going to be your stencil. 2. Place the top left edge of your triangle right under the bottom corner of your window sill. Trace with lead pencil. 2. Trace triangles all along underneath your window sill until you reach the other end. Join all the triangles up like in the picture above (sorry it's really hard to see the pencil lines in this photo)  3. On a palette (ie... a bit of cardboard or equivalent), place a teeny amount of a few different colours. I used yellow, blue, red (to make pink), green and red + blue (to make purple). Then add a much larger quantity of white paint to the colour. This is how you will make your pretty pastel colours! Of course, if you already have pastel paint then feel free to use that.  4. Mix the colour with the white... and you now have a few pretty pastel colours. 5. Paint your colours into the triangles you drew up! You will need quite a thin brush for the corners of the triangles. After waiting for it to dry (for at least a few hours), rub out the pencil lines with an eraser. And you are done!

Back to Cool Campaign Remix #1 (part 3)

(See part 1 here and 2 here.) Remix 1.3: I miss my pink bob :( I restyled my wig (ie, shoved it all up in my boater hat) to turn it into a wavy pink bob and had a wave of longing for my old hair. Maybe I'll just bleach it again... even though it's kind of falling out from overdying.. A cropped jumper and thick white tights turns this part 3 remix into a wintery outfit. wearing dress - The White Pepper c/o Chictopia Shop, shoes - Label Shoes c/o Chictopia Shop, belt - Vintage, necklace - Wholesale, sweater - random markets, tights - c/o Oasap I hope you guys enjoyed these three remix posts! Thanks heaps to Chictopia Shop for providing the dress, shoes and pink gradient tights. Make sure to go and check out their Back to Cool sale! Here is the the Back to School Remix #1 in review: I love remixes! They're actually really useful because they force me to try and wear a couple of items in a bunch of different ways, so I can wear them more than once yet still feel like I'm wearing a fresh outfit. This is especially useful when you live in a place with extremely sporadic weather, like I do. I'll be doing another series of remix posts with Chictopia again in just a couple of days, so keep an eye out for them!

Back to Cool Campaign Remix #1 (part 2)

See part 1 here. Remix 1.2: A tie-up shirt turns this summery dress into an autumn ensemble. And how freaking cool are these shoes? I am in love with them. Even though I'm not so great at balancing in them. I maaay have fallen over the other day while I was just standing there. Which is probably the most embarassing way to fall over in shoes. Not doing anything tricky, not dancing, just... standing. Oh dear.       wearing dress - The White Pepper c/o Chictopia Shop, shoes - Label Shoes c/o Chictopia shop, shirt - c/o Oasap Keep an eye out for part 3!

Back to Cool Campaign Remix #1 (part 1)

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was collaborating with Chictopia for their "Back to Cool" Campaign and shop sale. Anyway, I managed to get for myself a couple of the items from the Chictopia sale! And I put together three "back to school" outfits for you guys using some of those items. This is the first part of the first remix, and the next two parts will be posted real soon over the next few days. When I was at school, I wore a disgusting yellow and maroon uniform every. day. Because of my brother's high school graduation, all my favourite online stores having Back to School Sales, and generally feeling really old, I've been really nostalgic in the last few weeks for a high school experience that I never had, with school proms and hallways with lockers and, basically, the worlds of Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You all rolled into one. I have to remind myself I did not actually go to high school in an American teenage movie and high school was never that fun for me. If I had been able to wear whatever I wanted though, gosh it would have been cool to be able to wear these outfits. Remix 1.1: I mixed this fruit-print dress with a pastel pink satchel bag and the prettiest pink dip-dye tights. The tights are still on sale, and there are a couple left if you want to get yourself a pair! wearing dress - The White Pepper c/o Chictopia Shop, tights - Choies c/o Chictopia Shop, bag - c/o Wholesale, shoes - Vintage Check back soon for the next two remix outfits!

DIY Suspender Skirt

I made a pretty suspender skirt the other day, and I want to share with you how I did it. All you need to do is follow my "how to make a circle skirt" tutorial (here), but STOP before adding the waistband. Instead of adding a waistband like in that tutorial, we are going to do this: - Make the inner circle much larger than your waist - so add a couple of inches to the diameter. Make sure you can easily get it on over your thighs (this was a bit of a problem with the last tutorial). - Then, do this to the inner circle: It's kind of a pain to do because it's a circle, but it can be done. So persevere! Here's some neat instructions for creating a waistband tube thingy and inserting elastic. - Then we need to add suspenders. This just involves cutting out two long strips like this (make sure they will go from your waist up to your shoulders and down again, then add a little bit more): folding in half lengthways, and sewing all the way down the edge of both folded strips like this: then turning these strips/tubes inside out (here's a link to a really good tutorial on that part) and sewing them onto your skirt waistband, wherever you want the straps to sit! wearing: skirt - DIY, t-shirt - forever 21, shoes and bag - vintage Hope you're all having a super nice day! Please ask in the comments below if you've got any questions, and I'll try and get back to you ASAP!