Handmade Necklace Giveaway from FrEEna // CLOSED

I'm so very excited to bring you a giveaway from one of the stores featured in the "Ethical Fashion Directory" last month - Freena! Made in California by Cristina, these handmade bows are crafted into gorgeous necklaces in a variety of patterns. They'd instantly make any outfit just a little bit sweeter - I can imagine wearing one paired with a smock-style dress, white tights and a boater hat! There will be two winners! Each winner will receive a Bow Tie Necklace in a colour of their choice. Enter using the rafflecopter widget below, and when leaving a comment, remember to include your email address so I have a way of contacting you. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway p.s. I have another giveaway running! Go and enter if you haven't already. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Apple Orchards & The Largest Living Thing

Dress - Bonne Chance (similar) | shoes - Asos | bag - Thrifted | brooch - gift from my friend Katie I'm obsessed with the dresses from Bonne Chance collections. I've started checking the site every few days, which basically is just a really bad idea because it's made me buy all of these dresses from them. Well, I've only bought 3 (so far) but ohhhh boy, I want them all. If someone could design a store just for me then this would be it. Cute/kitsch prints, vintage fits, flared skirts and pretty collars are a feature of all of their dresses. This particular one that I'm wearing was called the "Apple Orchard" dress, so I thought that this brooch of a cute little apple-picker in red gumboots went perfectly with it!  Now a note about these shoes. I was dumb and ordered something off Asos *sigh* because my last pair of black flats were worn out, and I couldn't find anything else that was just simple, cute and comfy and didn't have a heel. And they were on sale. Well, guess what happened - they broke basically as soon as I wore them. They zip up at the back (so that you don't have to undo and redo all those buckles each time you wear them), and on the left shoe the zip keeps coming apart. It happens about 5 minutes into wearing them, and although it can be fixed... it breaks again and again, making them very frustrating to wear. I'm trying to think of a way to fix them - maybe I'll just have to sew the zip up to keep it closed! But it just goes to show that these things aren't made to last. Even though I'm not a superstitious person in the slightest, I'm putting this all down to karma. I strayed from my decision to make more ethical shopping choices, and I was taught a lesson. Fair point, universe, fair point. Have you ever thought that the largest living thing on Earth was the Blue Whale? This video might just make you change your mind, as well as changing your ideas about what a "living thing" actually means. Video is by Henry from Minute Earth (who I met in August, woo!) I hope you've all had a great day so far! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

DIY Dress - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Dress - DIY | glasses - Clear It | shoes - Asos. Who else had this book as a child? From a fabric store in Marrickville, this Hungry Caterpillar fabric was only $2 per metre, so I bought myself 5 whole metres! As I've only used about 2 metres making this dress, I'm planning on making a hungry caterpillar skirt and pinafore as well. Yay! Remember this page from the book? Yummm.  (Image source) This is the first properly fitted dress I've made - I followed similar steps to my DIY dress tutorial, but made it fit properly to my waist using a waistband, made the zipper go down through the skirt (which also makes it much easier to put on), and I didn't use a pattern for the top part, either. When I'm done with uni for the semester, I'll make some brand-new instructions! UPDATE: If you're looking for how to make this exact dress, then go here to my youtube tutorial! I hope that you all had a great weekend, Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

The Hamburglar (DIY Skirt)

Photos by Joshua Spolc  Shirt - DIY | skirt - DIY | socks - thrifted | shoes - Chicory (Japan)   After taking these photos, one of my housemates made the observation that I looked like The Hamburglar with my hamburger necklace and stripey shirt (and cheesy orange socks?), and I was inclined to agree. The outfit was something I put on in a rush after making this skirt; the skirt being the whole point of this post! I think that this skirt needs to be paired with a tight black shirt rather than this one (or if anyone wants to suggest a type of shirt they think should be paired with it, please, fire away!) Anyway, I did just want to show off the skirt because it worked out so well. I have just bought a bunch of fabric from my favourite fabric place, Marrickville road (any aspiring Sydney sewers need to go there!), and I've been filling this Pinterest board with clothing-making inspiration, so I'm excited to start sewing again after these successes! Ah, the joys of procrastination... I'm only sewing so much lately because I have about 1 billion assignment deadlines looming. But they can wait. I want to make some pretty clothes. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

Mickey Mouse Club & Virtual Clothes

Badge - thrifted | dress - c/o Chicwish | shirt - c/o OASAP | shoes - Asos. A large, obnoxious and entirely irrelevant badge is sometimes what is needed to put the finishing touches on an otherwise casual, 90s-inspired outfit. Mickey Mouse is looking pretty badass next to that graffitied wall... I want to jump right into some science today. Aside from 3D Printing, one technology that I am pretty excited about is augmented reality. Making computers "see" has been an insanely difficult task for computer scientists, nearly as difficult as making computers talk. The human visual system is incredibly complex - think about it, how does your brain recognize all those jumbles of lines, colours and shades as distinct objects, also taking into account your movement around those objects and the object's movement around you? You do it without even having to think about it, but as much as 30% of the brain is devoted to vision processing. Image source and article. But recently, computers have been learning to see a lot better. A group of scientists at the CSIRO have been working on technology that can accurately work out "landmarks" on people's faces in three-dimensions from a 2D video. This means a computer can recognise that a particular bunch of lines means lips, and that lips are separate from eyes, for example, from multiple angles. An application of this is placing virtual makeup, hats or glasses on people's faces. Has anyone tried on virtual glasses? Heaps of sunglasses stores use virtual try-on rooms for glasses now, though the only time that I've tried it out the glasses went all glitchy and buzzed somewhat frighteningly around my head. A very disappointing introduction to augmented reality. But now the technology is improving, these researchers envision that soon we will have virtual changing rooms (there have already been pretty decent attempts), where with a webcam or phone, you can try on clothing from online retailers in your own house to make sure they fit. Which is pretty damn cool. (Also, you can already do things like put virtual furniture into your house, which you can see demonstrated by an incredibly odd IKEA family.) Can't wait to do my first virtual reality outfit post... ;) Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr