The Pineneedle Collective: Eclectic Eccentricity

Showing posts with label Eclectic Eccentricity. Show all posts

Monday, 27 July 2015

One Small Step For Woman, One Giant Leap For Womankind

Hey blog! So it's been a crazy couple of weeks - I suddenly and unexpectedly (for various reasons that I'm not going to get into) had to move house! So I said goodbye to my plan of spending all my Uni break filming videos and sewing .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·. and I also said goodbye to the lovely housemates I've spent the last couple of years living with. Me and Luciano are going out alone into the world - we are now living together all aloney, like proper adults! (Eek. I am so not ready to be an adult!!)

Then, as soon as the moving week was over, I got super sick with a cold. Boo hoo. I literally spent all of today in bed knitting a scarf and by tonight, I was super bored and sick of stinking and having gross, unwashed hair, so I decided to have a shower and dress up. I still didn't feel well enough to leave the house, so I justified my totally unproductive dressing-up by taking some photos for my poor neglected blog!

One particularly wonderful aspect about moving home: we managed to snag a 2-bedroom place, which means that I now have my very own studio/sewing room. Ahhhh! I had been very frustrated with the lack of space in my student sharehouse for quite a while - my "studio" consisted of a small thoroughfare room in the middle of the house that I also shared with my housemate, AND I lived directly underneath the flight path, which is not exactly helpful for filming videos. Like. I had to pause while filming every 2 minutes while planes rattled my roof. I'm not exaggerating. In addition to all this, I could only ever film when all 3 other housemates were out, and sew when they weren't sleeping. It wasn't the easiest environment for creating in.

But now I'm no longer living underneath the flight path (woo hoo!), and I have this entire room to myself, so I can just film and sew whenever I want! I've become so passionate about sewing and making videos lately, to the point where I'm feeling as though I could (possibly!) even make a career out of it, so having this space is just... indescribable. It's going to help so much. I'm so, so happy, and I can't wait to get to work in it.

I'm going to give you a real quick tour of my new craftroom/studio - but keep in mind that I'm still unpacking, and it's definitely not set up yet!

I have a whole (non-weird-green!) wall for filming against! And it's a white wall, which is perfect - I can even use it to take outfit photos against when I don't feel like venturing outside (like today!)

And my sewing desk/computer space - I finally have somewhere to organise and put all my fabrics! Hooray! (There's a whole other storage unit at the other side of the room just for fabrics and crafty bits and pieces, too).

I'm super excited about having so much space, as you can see above. I know it doesn't look particularly huge, but compared to the amount of space I had in my last place, it feels like a mansion.

When I'm all set up, I'll definitely be doing a little sewing room tour. It's going to look soooo cute - and organised! - when I am done decorating :)

Anyway, I should be back to a more regular video-making/blogging schedule soon, once I've settled in. Thanks for sticking around!

Outfit details

Top - Borrowed from Katie (originally thrifted)

Jacket - Thrifted

Necklace - Eclectic Eccentricity, c/o Ginger Pickle

Shorts - Thrifted

Tights - from a tight stall in Japan

Shoes - Asos

I hope that you're all having a lovely start to your weeks so far. Much love!

Friday, 29 August 2014

Eye Can See You

Today, I am just so grumpy. You know that mood where everything has been going a little bit wrong all day, and you've become so grumpy and irritated by it all to the extent where it actually becomes kind of... funny? And you start making jokes about it? (No? Is that just me?) Anyway, part of that mood features me being like "I'm so damn grumpy I'm going to wear black lipstick. Because it's dark like my MOOD" and, of course, deciding that I hate everything. Like smiling and the sun and tripods and self-timers and posing in photos. Hence the reason I am standing like this in front of this bin: "I'm going to stand here in front of a bin because I just don't caaaare."

Yeah I'm totally hardcore.

Anyway I then cheered up enough to get a couple of nice photos of my face and the stuff I'm wearing, which I actually really like.

Dress is second-hand from Katie (who i think got it from Dangerfield/Clear It) | necklace is c/o Eclectic Eccentricity | ring is c/o Ginger Pickle | tights and shoes are super old, so you can't buy them anymore | jacket is thrifted

POST-LUNCH UPDATE: Ok, I think I just had some serious hangry. Because I ate some food and instantly felt slightly less hate for all things. Just a little bit.

Expecting me to do some cute little science tidbit on what's going on in your brain when you're angry? Haha, NOPE. I'm way too grumpy for that right now. Go on, get out of here. (If you really want some science talk then check out all of the science posts I have already done).

Have a good day. Or not. ;)

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

Nautical Astronauts & The Tree of 40 Fruit

Shirt, skirt and cardigan are thrifted | necklace c/o Ginger Pickle (Eclectic Eccentricity) | shoes are Naot | socks from Clear It | Lace shorts are years old (Wholesale)

I am back at university and have been having a few health issues - nothing too scary, hopefully - but that might mean that my blogging/video-making will become more sporadic over the next little while (I hope it won't, but just a warning!) Because uni has started again - and I've started being recognised by strangers from my blog/instagram/youtube - I've been aiming to look stylish & cute on campus - but I've also wanted to stay cozy because I haven't been feeling 100%. The perfect solution? Stealing my boyfriend's super comfy cardigan!

No matter how many clothes you have, I think that it's always more satisfying to wear someone else's! Does anyone else agree?

(By the way - I think the shirt that I'm wearing is a little kids shirt, hahaha. Oh well, it fits! And looks cute!)

Now this is just the coolest combination of art and science - the tree below produces 40 different varieties of peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries and almonds (which are NOT nuts - what?!)

Image source: Sam Van Aken

The tree didn't start out like this - each different species has been carefully grafted onto the branches of the tree as it has grown, over a process of 5 years. It looks like a normal tree for most of the year, but during spring it blooms into a variety of different colours, and then grows 40 types of fruit in the summer. It's a project of art professor Sam Van Aken, who has made 16 of these trees so far, and is also used to conserve rare varieties of fruit that would otherwise be lost! To make the trees, the technique of chip budding is used - the bud of the desired tree is inserted into the working tree, left to heal over the winter, and if all goes to plan it will grow like a normal branch on the working tree!

Thursday, 10 July 2014

Mustard, Sunflowers & Women in Science

Because it's the middle of winter and my house doesn't have any heating (#studentlyfe) I have been wearing mostly warm colours like orange, red and yellow - as if I'm trying to trick my brain to make up for our lack of heating. I have also been ~constantly~ wearing this new Lime Crime velveteen lipstick (Wicked) because it's also a lovely, warm colour and it goes perfectly with my hair! Seriously, this lipstick is tha shiz - I put it on after breakfast, and it's still there when I'm getting ready for bed, without any reapplications! Now how's that for staying power?

And then there's these tights - they're my absolute favourite right now. Even when I'm just wearing a pair of plain black shorts and a sweater, they make that outfit interesting. I've been wearing this floral pair for the last week to check out how durable they are, because I have them for sale in my shop - and they're super good quality, I have not gotten a single ladder or tear, and I've even been taking them bike riding! So with that little plug, if you want to buy a pair I have about 8 pairs for sale in my shop!

"Our words can have a huge impact. Isn't it time we told her she's pretty brilliant too?"

This video from Verizon shows us how both society and parents unintentionally dissuade girls from going into science, and oh boy, it gets so many things right. And yeah, it's an ad for Verizon, but it's a really great one. First off, it's a video all about female empowerment that doesn't resort to how women look - such as those ads that emphasise "don't worry, you're beautiful whatever you look like", and in doing so perpetuate the idea that appearance is still the most important thing to strive for if you're a woman.

As slate observes, the ad makes parents and society into the problem, not the girls themselves. "So much of our efforts in trying to encourage girls end up treating them like they're the ones who are screwing up, either with too much "body talk" or being lame for playing with certain toys. This ad shifts the focus, arguing that girls are born fine and it's the rest of us who screw them up" says Slate's Amanda Marcotte.

The idea of young girls being "ladylike" - of not getting dirty, not playing with things found at the beach, staying safe, being quiet and letting the men handle potentially dangerous tools - is also telling those girls that they shouldn't have an interest in science and technology, because it's not a very "ladylike" profession to strive for.

Yes, you can tell a young woman that she's pretty, but that should never be her most important quality. Because "she's pretty brilliant, too".

Friday, 27 June 2014

A Picnic in my Backyard & Spellbound by Space

If you gave someone the task of creating "Annika's dream jewelry store", and this person knew me well, they would make it 1. Science-themed 2. Vintage-inspired 3. Handmade 4. Kitschy/novelty and 5. An alliterative brand name (pun optional, but highly recommended).

So when I visited Eclectic Eccentricity for the first time, I was fairly sure that I had made their store up in my head - because they are all of these things.

And then! - I found out that they wanted to work. with. me. And send me all the cute stuff. Eeeep! Yep, I thought, I have definitely dreamt this all up. So can you all please do me a favour - visit their website, and tell me if they really do exist? It still seems a little too good to be true!

The two space-themed necklaces that I'm wearing are pieces from Eclectic Eccentricity, though I actually got the astronaut necklace from Ginger Pickle a few months ago. I always wear the two necklaces together so I can pretend that the astronaut is Sandra Bullock, and the intense scenes from Gravity are playing out on my chest.
Yeah. I have way too much fun with my clothes.

Image credit - European Space Agency via NASA TV

So this seems appropriate considering my outfit - did you know that you can live-stream the Earth from space, from a camera mounted on the international space station (ISS)?
The ISS is a station (in space, as you may have guessed) where astronauts go to hang out, 410 kilometres above our heads, in orbit around the Earth. While there, the astronauts are usually involved in different biology, physics and chemistry experiments and observations.

Anyway, you can watch a live HD stream of the Earth below! If you just see a black screen, that means that it's currently night time for the ISS because the sun is on the other side of the Earth - but don't worry about waiting a whole 12 hours for it to get light again, because the ISS goes all the way around the earth in just 90 minutes!
So if the screen is blank, come back in about 45 minutes, and you'll see some amazing footage. I just watched the sun set behind the Earth and IT WAS AMAZING.

Hey, you're down there, somewhere. Wave for the camera!

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

This page shows exactly where the ISS is at any particular time of the day (so you can see if it's just about to pass over you!)