Vintage Dress Remix with Polly Bland!

Hello lovelies! Today I bring you a collaboration between myself and the incredible Polly Bland from The Littlest Polly! We're both going to be mixing up a vintage dress for you (and having a whole lot of fun with layering, collars and bright colours) with the aim of providing inspiration and such for your own wardrobes! It's been lovely meeting fellow blogger Polly, she is super friendly plus I love her vintage flair and how unique, fun and colourful her outfits are! She stated in her version of this collaborative post that this remix arose a result of her creeping on my style - little does she know that I'd been creeping on her blog for quite a while before she asked me to do this remix. So... I guess we're both creeps. Still, you can imagine how excited I was when she asked me to do this remix with her! Anyway, without furthur ado, I introduce to you the beautiful Polly and her gorgeous vintage dress remixed x4! (full-size these photos if you can, because they're really nice) I'm in love with how colourful this outfit is! Polly says of this outfit: "I paired it with my mom's vintage hunter green knee socks and chevron wedges and a red hat. A bow tie to top it off." "I paired the vintage dress with oxfords found at Goodwill, my Great Grandmother's fur collar with a vintage pin on it from my mother, and orange gloves from Dandelion Vintage." Just in case you missed that, that's her Great Grandmother's fur collar. Pretty sure that's the best thing ever. "I wanted a bolder pop of color for this look so I added vintage blue bow heels from Salvation Army and a electric blue blazer. Green vintage pearls from my mother and my Great Grandmother's white mesh metal purse from the 1950's/1960's." "I paired the vintage dress with taupe and white flats found at Salvation Army, a lace crop top from forever 21, a green thrifted belt, and an antique sleeping cap from 1905." From 1905, in case you missed that again! It's a real life antique! And it looks stunning. Now this one you've already seen before. This is the dress I shall be remixing. To mix it up a little, wear your dress as a blouse, under a high-waisted skirt or a pinafore. Or you can layer a cropped sweater over the top of your dress, and flip the collar out on top so the sweater looks like it has a collar, and your dress turns into your skirt! This is the very sneaky Stolen Collar trick. Layer your collared dress under a simpler dress and BAM you have a new dress and you can feel real proud of yourself! We hope you liked our remixes, and that you're feeling inspired to mix things up a little in your own wardrobes! Polly's remix sure has inspired me, in particular to start accessorising my own dresses with vintage gloves, pins and fur collars. And to start wearing things that are older than 100 years, because that is just too damn cool! Much love! Annika and Polly xxx

Cotton Candy & A Little DIY Inspiration Part #2

Another ridiculously good score from my favourite secret thrift store - this candy coloured stripy dress! Although it didn't come looking this good, which is where the "DIY inspiration" part of this post title now has relevance -  it was long and boxy and unflattering, so I shortened it, brought it in, and added the little bowtie collar using the fabric I snipped off from the bottom! Wearing: Dress - Vintage & DIY Belt - Vintage Bag - Vintage Shoes - Wholesale Socks - Tutuanna & DIY Cameo Brooch - Ebay Ring - From Japan Elk Necklace - stolen off boyfriend You should also totally vote for this look on chictopia, because I've entered it in a competition! Thank you lovelies! Are you all having a nice weekend? I sure have been, as I went to see my favouritest band in the world, Ball Park Music, last night! You must go and listen!!!! I challenge anyone to find a happier, more upbeat, sweeter band then them! And if you have the time, have a look at a collaborative/guest post I was part of today in this fantastic blog! Much love! Annika xxx

The winner is...

Congratulations to Katie Lee, the winner of my Mochi Beaucoup Giveaway competition! She will be finding these two gifts from Mochi Beaucoup in her letterbox real soon: Thank you so much Mochi Beaucoup for providing these sweet gifts for my blog readers! Seriously check them out if you've got a moment, because they sell the cutest bags and accessories! And just to tempt you further... you can get yourself 20% off your whole order just for reading my blog! Just enter the code AVPNMB20 at the checkout! (Click the link below!) Apologies for the lack of posts in the last week, University has been keeping me super busy! However, I will endeavour to post something nice by the end of the day. I hope you're all enjoying the start of your weekend! Annika xxx

Spot On!

I’m so great with the puns. What a hilarious title I chose for this outfit – Spot On – get it? Because my top has spots? HAHA. SO FUNNY. Alright, I'll just let you all recover from your uncontrollable laughter for a minute... anyhoo…   So this sweet clothing company from LA called Sugarlips Apparel were lovely enough to send me this amazing cut out back polka dot top, and I love it so! It goes amazingly with high-waisted skirts with a bit of “poof”, like the circle skirt I’m wearing in these photos. Because its so brightly coloured (& golly do I love bright things!), I toned it down a bit by pairing it with all black things, because I think I would have looked too insanely colourful otherwise. Wearing Top - c/o Sugarlips Apparel Bag - c/o Oasap Skirt - Wholesale-dress Hat - Wholesale-dress Necklace - Stolen from boyfriend Tights - Forever 21 Shoes - Rubi Shoes Did you forget to enter the Mochi Beacoup giveaway? Would you like to??? There's only 3 days left! So hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry!!!!!! And thank you all so much for your feedback on my handmade/handpainted dress! I have taken into account all your wonderful ideas and am in the process of updating the dress... but that is another post for another day! I love you guys!! xxx Annika

Hand made painted dress

Okay, fellow bloggers and dear readers, I need your help. I made this navy peter-pan collar dress from this awesome vintage pattern I picked up while thrifting the other day (which only cost me 20c may I add!), and used $2 vintage fabric from the same store, and then hand painted it with little white birds. It turned out a little something like this: (The pattern I made it from, so 70s, oh yeah! I chopped the sleeves part out though.) SO that's all very well and good, but here's the problem I'm having, dear readers. It feels unfinished. And I can't figure out what to do with it so I feel like it's "finished". I would love your feedback on this - do you think it needs more birds on the front bodice? Do you think I should paint birds on the back bodice, or leave it as it is? What about a white trim around the peter pan collar? Or should I add pockets? Or buttons? What I'd also like to know is how you would style this dress! I really value your opinions and would love to know what you guys think! Super thanks! Love, Annika xxx

Polka Dots Plus Pastels

Let's play a game - spot the springtime trend!

Lace (x 3)

Bows (x 3)

Pastels

Patterned Blouse

Frilly Socks + Heels

Yeah. I went ahead and mashed every spring thing into an outfit. This is the result of
that!

 

(Funny thing is it's not even spring here, it's autumn.)

Wearing:

Blouse - Vintage

Belt - Vintage

Skirt c/o Oasap

Bag c/o Oasap

Bowtie - DIY

Headband - DIY

Shoes - Wholesale-dress

Socks - Vintage

Love you guys!

Annika xxx

See? I wasn't kidding. Birds on everything!

This is what my bedroom wall now looks like. Those bird stencils have been seriously handy. Anytime I'm like "Hmm... what can I do with my day.... study? HAHA ohhh ho ho, NO, I'm going to procrastinate and paint birds on everything instead!" At least this procrastination looks pretty. (I stole the inspiration for this design (okay, I basically stole the design) from this pretty lady's tattoo.) Also, I wanted to tell you all my exciting news! I've been asked to contribute not one, but two features to Alorika (formerly Atomica) magazine!!!!! I will be writing them a kind of how-to style guide with some photos of myself, AND a how-to on vintage shopping! I'm so excited about it! I've had to do lots of "research" for the vintage shopping guide (such a good excuse to go out thrifting). It's been awesome. It'll be out April 15, if you want to get yourself a copy! It's such a sweet magazine too, go and check it past issues here. So, so flipping excited. Hope you're all having the sweetest day, Annika xxx

Cutest little cowl I ever did see!

Maria from the North Way Studio, an awesome little Etsy store, sent me a gorgeous, super soft 100% merino wool cowl to try out and review. Now, a cowl is not an accessory that I usually would have chosen for myself, but I've found that it's expanded my wardrobe possibilities greatly! When Maria contacted me and asked if I'd like one, I fell in love with this particular lilac patterned one:  and although I don't usually wear scarves or cowls, I decided that  I would give it a go. And I'm so glad I did! For one, it's been incredible on my early morning commute to university - its such an easy thing to throw on to keep me warm (and to sneakily fall asleep into - it's a really early morning commute). Also, it looks awesome with my new lilac hair! I've had so many compliments on how well they go together! I'm so super happy with it. So, I have concluded that Etsy store owners are awesome. Maria is the nicest, friendliest girl (and a super talented knitter!), and the package was wrapped so nicely and came with the cutest card! I mean, how sweet is that? Well Maria, you've sparked what I'm sure is going to become a dangerous addiction to Etsy stores. After my super positive experience with the North Way Studio, I'm going to be going back to Etsy again and again and again! As soon as I received this in the mail the other night, I threw an outfit together around it and rushed outside to take some photos before the light completely disappeared: But, I wasn't able to get very good photos, so I went out again this morning and took some more photos for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! Wearing: Cowl - The North Way Studio Cropped Crochet Sweater - Forever 21 Bag - OASAP Lace Shirt - Forever 21 Jeans - Wholesale-dress Glasses - Ebay Shoes - Yesstyle Ring - Gift Check out The North Way Studio here! Much love! Annika

Lilac & Lace

Update on the hair front: I've gone lilac! Dear blue, you were nice, pretty cool, but now it's time for lilac to have a turn. I think I like it better than blue, but maybe that's just because it's brand new and exciting. (However, I diluted the hair dye too much, so it's actually grey on the ends, as you can see. As I write this, I've got my hair up in a shower cap with a slightly less diluted lilac, so hopefully it'll turn out a bit less.. grey.) Anyway, this is not very interesting! Here is something that's hopefully a little more interesting, an outfit post inspired by my love of pastel and lace: Wearing: Skirt - OASAP Tights - DIY Shirt - Vintage Shoes - Yesstyle Cameo Necklace - Ebay Hat - Wholesale-dress Belt - Vintage This skirt c/o Oasap is just the prettiest thing ever, it's lovely and soft, creamy and lacey, and the multiple layers of tulle are amazing. It's my perfect skirt. I'm making a dress today! It's almost done, I'm even hand painting it too! It looks awesome and I can't wait to show it to you all! Also don't forget - you can win yourself some super cute accessories in my giveaway! There's just over 2 weeks to enter yourself, so get on it! Hope you're all having a productive day as well, Love, Annika