Annika made a dress

I really like the style of dress with a high waist, a 60s style bodice and a poofy circle skirt. They go for $100 + on websites like Jones & Jones, but really they are so simple and easy to make yourself. All you need to do is find a cheap pattern from a charity store/op shop that you like the look of (any kind of basic dress is fine) and use this as the pattern for your bodice. As for the skirt, you can follow my circle skirt tutorial here (sans velvet), and then all you have to do is join the two together! And basically any combination of prints and colours will look nice as well, particularly if you work with a patterned/plain combination, I think. Or you could do the dress all the one colour. There's loads of possibilities! Wearing: Dress - DIY Bag - c/o Oasap Shoes - Yesstyle Tights - c/o Oasap Collar embellishment - DIY Cameo Brooch - Ebay Belt - Vintage Hat - Wholesale Hope you're all having a creative day, Annika xxx

DIY Scalloped Denim Shorts

What you need: some plain old denim shorts with a straight hem scissors cardboard a sewing machine a pen some pins What you do: 1. Cut out a scallop shape from some cardboard, like the one in the picture below. 2. Fold the edge on your shorts up approximately the height of your cardboard stencil, on the RIGHT side of the shorts.  3. Trace around the scallop shape, making scallops all the way around the cuff of your shorts. Pin the folded up bit to your shorts so it doesn't move when you start sewing. 4. Using a small straight stitch, sew around your drawn lines. Lift and readjust the foot as you go to make it easier! 5. Cut out your scallops, just outside the line you sewed. Now iron, flip the hem inside out, iron again, and you're done! xxx Annika

Pink Hair & Pony Print

I love love love printed animals on clothes!! So when I found this dress at a random pop-up "Everything for $10" shop in Sydney, I was insanely happy. It’s so damn cute. I also made a ribbon thingy to attach to the collar of the blouse I layered under the dress – I have no idea what these kind of bowties are called, but I like them. Do they have a name? Can anyone help me out? You can see better pictures of it below. I also bought this double moustache ring because it's unbelievably kitsch. And I'm just oh so hil-AR-ious, right? And my hair is pink. A bit too pink... You can't see it because I'm wearing a hat, but the top is very much fluorescent. That would be the fault of boyfriend who somehow managed to convince me that I need not dilute the hair dye with conditioner. And my fault because I listened to him full knowing that he has no experience with hair dye. But, it will fade! Wearing: Dress - No Brand from Chinatown Bag - c/o Oasap Blouse - Vintage Collar thingy - DIY Brooch - Ebay Ring - Ebay Belt - Vintage Socks - Vintage Hat - From Osaka Markets Shoes - Wholesaledress Hope you're all having a lovely day, xxx Annika

I love vintage, I am vintage (plus a sneaky DIY)

Basically I just wanted to show you this sweet embroidered vintage blouse that I got for $3 the other day. It was a size 16, so I fixed it a bit by bringing it in, and chopped off the long sleeves as well. I've never brought anything in so successfully before! Check it out! It doesn't even look too crappy, hooray! If you want to bring in a shirt that's just a little too large across the chest and along the shoulders like this, here's what you do: 1. Turn it inside out. Poke the sleeve inside the main body of the shirt. 2. Where the sleeve meets the main body of the shirt, you should noticed that there is a sewn seam all the way around. Sew around this again using a long, straight stitch, but where you want to sew is 1-2cm (0.5 - 1 inches) in from the seam. (Try 1cm first, try it on, and if its still too big then you can go further.) And look at my diagrams because I explained that terribly. Obviously, do this on both sleeves. 3. Still inside out, do a similar kind of thing on both sides down the body of the shirt. DONE. Too easy (hopefully!) xxx Annika

You remind me of the babe (what babe?)

Just what I wore to Uni the other day. Also, I did that to my hair. I need some new shoes. Would anyone like to send me a new pair of shoes? Particularly oxfords or black heels? I pretty much only own 3 pairs of shoes, and these ones here are getting pretty battered. Send me shoes and I'll wear them in every blog post ;) (out of necessity. As I said, I've got about 3 pairs so they'd be on high rotation). Haha anyway enough of this awkward begging for clothes thing, I promise not to do it again (maybe). How are you all doing? Did anything exciting or unusual happen to you this week? Let me know! OH! And of course, what I'm wearing: Shirt - Vintage (and fixed up) Skirt - I made it Socks - Vintage Shoes - Yesstyle Hat - Wholesale-dress Annika xxx

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