Thrift Store Dress / DIY Science Experiments #2 (Extracting DNA at Home)

Do you all remember how I mentioned that there was a charity thrift shop just 50 metres down the road from my new house? Well, I finally caved and bought something. It's been one month since we moved and this is the first item of clothing I've bought in that whole time, so I think I'm doing pretty well. Even though it was quite ridiculously priced for a charity store ($10! Sydney op-shops, what are you doing??) I had to buy it because it's so dang cute. I can never walk past a good heart-print, after all, and the collar detail reminded me of Christine's Lady Ties, which I always love the look of. By the way, I just wanted to mention that reading all your comments the other morning on my last post made me so happy. Obsessively checking your emails every morning before you're even out of bed isn't always the best idea, but the other morning it put me in the best mood. Thank you to everyone who leaves me thoughtful comments - and thank you for reading, even if you don't! dress - Thrifted bag - Thrifted belt - Thrifted shoes - c/o Yes Walker socks - Cotton On hat - c/o Wholesale Yesterday in my lab session at university, we extracted our own DNA (for sequencing, to see how things like forensic analysis and paternity/maternity tests work). But while extracting DNA sounds super sciencey and complicated (and impressive - when I was telling my friends about how I was extracting and sequencing DNA this week their reaction was always to go "wow! Awesome!"), it is actually something that you can do yourself with a blender, salt, pineapple juice and alcohol. 1. Figure out what you want to use as a source of DNA. You can get your DNA from anything living - but you might want to use fruit,  vegetables or parts of a plant for this experiment, because you'll need to blend up the cells and so using animals would be just a little bit  unethical (okay, so I said above that I extracted my own DNA, and I did do this without chopping myself up, but this is a little bit harder - we took cheek swabs and then had to centrifuge everything for about a million hours, so if you don't have your own bench-top centrifuge, then use strawberries or something instead). 2. Blend it up so it becomes a paste (blend on high for 15 seconds). This breaks open (lyses) many of the cells. Also add a pinch of salt. 3. Add detergent. This will lyse the cells further and also break open the cell's nucleus, which is where the DNA lives. 4. This step is not necessary if you just want to extract and look at DNA, and not do any further measurements with it (like spectrophotometry). But if you have it available, add some pineapple juice to your mixture. Pineapple juice contains an enzyme called bromelain that eats proteins. You need to add this to remove proteins from your solution - because cells are also full of proteins, and when you break open your cell, a whole bunch of proteins will come flowing out. And if you remove the proteins, the stuff you extract will be more "pure" DNA. 5. Add vodka/rubbing alcohol/anything with a high ethanol content. Carefully add the alcohol to the top of your mix. DNA does not dissolve in alcohol, so if you add enough it will "precipitate" out of the solution. Stringy white shapes should appear in your solution. This is strands of DNA! (Yes, you can see it!) You can then put a straw or skewer into the solution, twirl it and pull it out. The DNA you have extracted will look a lot like mucous or snot ;) (Image source) And that's how you extract DNA at home! You don't even need any fancy lab equipment. Pretty easy, huh? Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Paisley'd Pinafore / Living in the Future

AX Paris sent me this amazing paisley-patterned pinny a little over a week ago, and since then I have been searching for the perfect blouse to pair it with. This morning, I discovered that I already owned that perfect blouse! This lace blouse is several years old now, and I am excited to have rediscovered it. I love finding old clothes at the back of my closet that I'd completely forgotten about - it's basically like buying new clothes, right? I'm also doing a Milanoo review in this blog post - that's where I got this suuuuper cute bear bag from! Milanoo first caught my eye with all their cheap lolita dresses, but then I read some bad reviews and wasn't so sure. So I asked Milanoo to send me something, so I could see for myself whether or not they were legitimate! Well, I have to say I'm really happy with my first experience with them (with their bags, at least. I can't say anything about their lolita dresses yet!) The bag is really well made, and basically the cutest thing that has ever existed. It's also the perfect size for a day-bag, and the straps can be made longer so you can wear it across your body like a satchel bag. Also, the shipping was surprisingly fast - it took 8 days to arrive in Australia, which for international shipping is super speedy. Although it is only a one-off buy, and I can't speak for everyone who has seemingly had a bad experience with them, I am really happy with the site. pinafore - c/o AX Paris blouse - Forever 21 tights - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Milanoo shoes - c/o Yes Walker You guys know how excited I am about 3D Printing (see me gushing about it here and here). And you may have also remembered me talking about the possibilities of printing out functioning organs sometime in the future. Well, the future is here! Princeton University scientists have 3D-printed an ear out of cells mixed with hydrogels (which is a basically just a polymer, either natural or synthetic), and added electronic bits to it including an antennae, so that when connected to someone's auditory nerve, it could potentially allow a deaf person to hear. This whole experiment was just a proof-of-concept that a 3D printer could handle biological material mixed with micro-electronics, but the potential applications of this are vast! The picture of the ear is a little inappropriate to put on a fashion blog, so I'll let you check it out here (it's not gruesome or anything, don't worry). Are you guys all having a good week? Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Pale Polka Dots & Pastels / How Are Seashells Made?

Since I moved out of home I have not been able to buy myself any new clothes - otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford to eat - however this vintage dress is fairly new. I got it from my (now) local markets about a month ago, from a girl who was basically my exact age, body size and style and getting rid of all her old clothes. I could have easily made her a very rich lady that day, but I had enough self control to only buy one of her amazing dresses. I chose this one for the amazing collar detail, and the interesting separation of the top and bottom halves of the dress (the top bit is all lace underneath). I decided to make the collar detail even more interesting today by adding these supppper cute kitty collar clips sent to me by the incredible Ladybird Likes. Ladybird Likes makes the coolest brooches out of old sewing patterns and wooden cut-out animals... you definitely should go and check the shop out! dress - Thrifted clips - c/o Ladybird Likes tights - Ebay shoes - c/o Sammydress hat - c/o Wholesale When I visited the beach last week, I went on a little bit of a sea shell-collecting rampage. They were so pretty, I couldn't just leave them lying around on the beach! #hoarder4lyf After checking nothing was living inside them, I cleaned all the junk out of them and let them dry. I had planned to do something crafty with them, or something... (if you don't already have the mind of a hoarder, you wouldn't understand the strange urge that makes us collect everything which might be even slightly useful some far-off day in the future)... but then I accidentally left them sitting on this table and went home without them. Still, I realised that I didn't have a clue how sea shells are created. Are they created by living creatures? Are they made out of living tissue like cells, or are they more similar to rocks? How on earth do they form the shapes that they make? So I did a little bit of researching. Sea shells are made by sea creatures from the mollusca phylum, including snails, clams and oysters. The shells are not made of cells though - rather, they are made of calcium carbonate, which is excreted by the sea creature in a bottom-up fashion. The shell is actually what is called their "exo-skeleton", which basically means a skeleton which exists outside the body. The shells must be able to grow larger as the sea creature grows, so this bottom-up way of growing works well to accommodate that. The newest part of a sea snail's shell, for example, is the opening of the shell where the animal's head peeks out (the largest part of the shell). The Scientific American has written a really good answer to this question, which I reckon you should read if you are interested in shells (it's also got stuff about turtle shells, which are very different to sea shells). Hermit crabs, on the other hand, whom I also saw plenty of on the beach that day, don't make their own shells like these other sea creatures do - they borrow the shells that the molluscs make. That's like wearing another animal's skeleton. Crazy hermit crabs. When I'm older I'm totally going to be that nerd-parent who enthusiastically tries to teach their kids science things when they're on school holidays and just want to build sand castles. Ah well ;) I hope you're all super well! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Carousel / DIY Science Experiments

This gorgeous new dress lent itself perfectly to long, curly orange hair and a big floppy hat. Isn't the print on this dress lovely? I really, really want to wear it to some kind of amusement park, a fair or even to some market stalls. Visually, it would go so well with fairy floss and a big old-school rainbow lollipop. *Sigh* if only I knew people who  were crazy about doing a whole day's worth of themed photo-shoots, and really wanted to use me as a model. I had to take these photos on my own with a tripod, and it's okay because it's just in my backyard, but taking the whole set-up out to an amusement park on my own would be a little bit too daunting (and difficult)! dress - c/o Sheinside socks - c/o Sock Dreams shoes - c/o Chictopia Shop bag - Thrifted hat - somewhere in Osaka wig - c/o Choies I'm going to do a little series on DIY home science experiments! Here's the first: putting a corn starch solution on a speaker. This is how you make it, although I claim no responsibility for ruined speakers. I am so going to try this out soon. First, let this video inspire you: What's happening? Well, this corn-starch solution, called "oobleck", is what is known as a "shear-thickening" fluid. This means when you apply force or stress to the liquid, it becomes thicker, or more viscous. If you threw oobleck at a wall, rather than exploding in all directions like any normal fluid (like water) would, it will instead bounce right off the wall before settling on the ground and becoming a puddle of goop. You can see a cool video of people running over oobleck here. I'm not entirely sure what's happening in the above video, but I guess that the sound waves, which are causing vibrations, apply a small amount of stress to the liquid, causing it to become slightly more viscous as the vibrations move it around, which give the weird temporary moving "monster" structures you saw above. Or something else is going on, because oobleck is a fluid with some really weird properties (if you guys know how it works, let me know!) Also, apparently, lower frequencies work best, so use a song with a lot of bass or deep voices :) Good luck! Let me know if you try it out! p.s. I announced a 1 million pageviews giveaway earlier today, if you missed it! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

1 Million Pageviews Giveaway! / CLOSED

I reached an excitingly arbitrary number of pageviews on my blog a few weeks ago - 1 Million! That's 1,000,000 times that people have looked at my blog. Whoa. So I wanted to thank you all for visiting my blog with this little giveaway (and I may do another with something handmade by me :D). This giveaway is a collaboration with a long-time sponsor of mine, OASAP! The winner will get one of the items in the above picture of their choice (most are available in many different colours as well). Up for grabs is your choice of the following: Candy Skater Skirt | Denim Shorts | Mini Mesh Skirt | Triangle Print Shirt | Striped Letter Denim Cutoffs | Crochet Vest | Eagle T-Shirt | Cloud Sunglasses All you need to do for one entry is to register on OASAP, but there are several other ways of gaining extra entries as well! Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter. a Rafflecopter giveaway (Results of the Cichic giveaway will be announced shortly, by the way. Thanks for your patience!) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr