Sweeter than Sugar

I have a confession to make. I have a condition which makes my hair grow at a ridiculous rate. I actually usually have to cut it every day to stop it getting out of control, or it's just floor length by the time I wake up the next morning. I just get up in the morning and trip over my own hair. It's a pretty serious health hazard. But I decided to let it grow out today. It also grows out pink underneath. Yup. So anyway, I'm joking. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this wig yet, I guess it's odd because I am not used to seeing myself with long hair (although gosh I wish I had it). I got a bit more used to it while editing and uploading these photos though, and, well, wearing it around the house all day and pretending it was my real hair, haha. I also got on the train wearing it the other day and embarrassed the heck out of my boyfriend, who told me I looked like a crazy person (thanks). I was amused though :)  wearing dress - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Mochi Beaucoup tights - c/o Oasap wig - Ebay necklace - c/o Oasap shoes - Raben Footwear Hope you're having a nice week, all! xx Annika

Three Quick Questions with Meg Carroll

I have been quite the fan of this lady's blog ever since I came across it - Meg is a 16-year-old Australian-based blogger who wears her hair in victory rolls near daily and has just started making her own clothes, including a gorgeous long pink circle skirt (see below). Need I say more? And while I'm very glad to have left my 16-year-old days behind, I kind of wish I could go back just so I could dress a little better - I wish I had been this trendy when I was 16!!! If you've read my other interviews of this nature, I give the blogger in question three random questions to answer. So here are the questions I gave Meg. Enjoy! Q: I love your hair! How long does it take you to do your hair and do you do it yourself? Who taught you? Do you wear it like that every day? Well, things like the victory rolls and faux bangs can take under three minutes, but this is only when I’m concentrating. If I’m not, I generally stuff up, get more frustrated and have to start over multiple times. But with plenty of bobby pins and hairspray and a steady hand, it all turns out quite well. As for learning about the different styles, it was sort of self-taught with the help of multiple Youtube tutorials. Initially when I started doing it, friends would ask if they could poke my rolls or my faux bangs just out of curiousity, so I did get a few weird reactions… I have been getting very lazy recently and have done my hair less and less, mainly due to the fine line regarding uniform policy at school. Most teachers just say “my aunty had hair like yours” or “you look so vintage, are you a fashion student?” but a few would be like “take out that flower or it’s discipline point!” So my flair for hair has been a bit repressed, but I think I shall be making a come-back. I just love the pin-up style so much and I’ve finally discovered something to do with my hair for I am ashamed to say that I cannot plait. That’s right, I cannot even plait my hair! Q. Where do you predominantly shop for clothes? I would love to say that I’m an avid op-shopper, but I must admit that apart from the occasional miracle, I am yet to acquire the real knack for it and yet to find a local op-shop with the promise of regular hidden treasures. So I source most of my clothes online. Above all, I am devoted to Etsy and always have a million things in my cart I know I most likely will not buy (being 16 doesn’t allow for much of a budget). I also love Ruche, ModCloth and ASOS for the modern side of my style. Nowadays, I look down at what I’m wearing and it’s generally 75% from online. When it comes to buying locally, I’m pretty limited in Geelong, so every now and again I take the train up to Melbourne and wander to places such as Brunswick St where there are vintage boutiques galore and a plethora of clothes calling my name. Q. If you had to dress in a totally different style from the way you dress now, what would that style be? I think I would love to dress like a hippy/bohemian with sun-streaked hair to my waist, long flowing skirts, crocheted tops, the occasional tie-dye, daisy chains, headbands and of course bare feet (this being possibly the polar opposite to my actual style). I just think it would be fun, especially if it involved dancing around to the nonsense of “I am the walrus.”  Go and check out Meg's blog and say hi if you get the chance - she's a super lovely and friendly little lady! Also, fellow Australian (and New Zealand) bloggers, go and enter this giveaway here if you haven't already. YOU HAVE THREE DAYS! GET ON IT! Make up for our lack of winning gold by winning a skirt... or... something. (Olympic-related-quip, oh yeah! Relevancy and such!) I hope you enjoyed this interview! xx Annika

Lady In Blue

wearing dress - c/o Glamorous UK belt - Vintage bag - c/o Wholesale tights - c/o Oasap shoes - Rubi Shoes hat - c/o Wholesale necklace - Wholesale This dress from Glamorous is so seriously awesome. The arrival of this dress in the mail conveniently coincided with me realising that I had accidentally dyed my hair blue from the night before, so I spent the entire day swooshing around, going around university all pastel blue and feeling like a mermaid. I had big plans for a ballet-themed shoot with this dress (I did very competitive-level ballet for 10 years and feel like this would be a good time for it to come in handy, if nothing else), but the weather wasn't particularly great, my remote-timer was broken and it's too hard convincing someone to take photos for me (any other bloggers out there who have to bribe their friends/boyfriends/parents into taking just a couple of outfit photos for them? Remote timers are now my best friend.) Hopefully I'll get to do that someday, though. This dress just looks incredible in motion and I want to try and show that off somehow! Thanks for your lovely comments on this post a couple of days ago. It was nice to hear that I come across as a super-confident person because I'm actually pretty darn shy. But I was even happier to get comments saying that my (pretty lame, haha) little story had convinced people to be a bit bolder in their style and clothing choices, ignoring what other people would think about it! It's little things like that that make me really happy to have a blog and to be inspiring, in some way, to some people out there. You're all awesome and I love you :) I hope you're all marvellous! xxx Annika

How to dye your hair pastel pink - Adventures in Bleaching and Hairdye #2

Although in the last couple of weeks I've gone lilac (and now blue again), I've been dying/maintaining a pastel pink colour in my hair for about 3 months. This post is a kind of sister post to this one I did a while back about dying your hair pastel blue. It seems to have helped a lot of people, so I want to do the same kind of thing but this time with pink! DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER While I am not a hairdresser, and have never bleached anyone's hair but my own, I am well experienced in home hair dying and bleaching (I'm pretty sure I haven't seen my natural hair colour since I was 12 years old) and have had black, brown, pink, purple, red, very bright red, blue, green, bright blonde, orange hair. I never go to the hairdresser. That said, don't use this DIY as absolute gospel, and if you think if I've got things wrong or it sounds silly, you can ignore it or go to your hairdresser for advice instead. However, by all means use this as a guide to help or inspire you if you're trying to achieve pastel (particularly pink) hair. Okay, disclaimer over! I have to say, pastel pink hair is a lot of fun. You will definitely be noticed with a head full of pretty pink locks, and it's so much fun to brush, curl, straighten and style especially when you pretend it's cotton candy! Pink hair is awesome because you can wear all black for an interesting-yet-sophisticated look, look ridiculously sweet by pairing it with more pastel pink, or you can go all out and wear a bunch of different colours, because it basically goes with everything. How to dye your hair pastel pink Step 1: The bleaching. This is the step that probably claims the most victims. While bleaching, you need to be patient, and expect it to take upwards of a month to get your hair light enough to become pastel if you're starting off with darker hair. You also need to be very careful to not burn all your hair off. If you are scared of this happening, then go to your hairdresser. However, if you're stupid like me and still want to do it all yourself, then read on! My hair started off a dark brown (hair dyed), but naturally my hair is quite dark anyway. For this first step, I used a bleaching kit, Schwarzkopf Nordic Blonde "Ultimate Lightener L1++". This is some pretty serious bleach, designed to lift your hair colour from 6 - 8 shades. It also has a blonde toner in it, so your hair doesn't go as yellow as you would otherwise if you were just using developer and powder bleach. I highly recommend it, it did a fantastic job for the first bleach! Before bleaching, make sure you DON'T shampoo your hair for at least a day, and let it get nice and greasy, or your scalp is going to HURT a LOT. The chemicals in your greasy hair will protect the skin on your scalp :) Start bleaching on the ends of your hair, working your way up. DO NOT apply any to the roots until the last 10 - 15 minutes of the bleaching process (I did this, and look how blonde the roots still went!) The bleach will work on your roots really quickly because of the heat raditating from your scalp at this level. The bleach should not be on your hair for any longer than 45 minutes. Really. Your hair will melt off. Now, don't expect your hair to suddenly be ready to dye after the first bleach. If you have started off with very light hair, then you're probably alright to dye it now. However, this is the process my hair went through: You should NOT consider trying to dye your hair pink until your hair is at least as light as my hair in bleach no. 3 there. If you still have dark yellow bits, even if its just on the ends, your hair will not look good if you try to dye it. Between each bleach Do not bleach hair twice within a time frame of about 2 weeks (unless you want to ruin your hair). Between each bleach, you will need to do a lot of deep-conditioning treatments, which can be done by covering dry hair with conditioner, whacking it up in a shower cap, leaving it for a few hours then rinsing it out. Do this a few times between each bleach. If you bleach it in excess of five times and it's still not getting to the level of blonde that is needed, then here might unfortunately be a good place to give up :( you can, however, try to get rid of the yellow bits using a Silver toner (I used Schwarzkopf's LIVE Colour Silver Toner) and then see how it looks. If you can't get it light/yellow-less enough, then you can always go a darker colour, like a pretty midnight blue! Step 2: Dying your hair pink Okay! So your hair is now finally light enough to go pastel. If it's still a little bit yellow-toned, that's okay for pink. It would only not be okay if you were trying to go blue or lilac.  So which dye should you use? Don't buy an already-pastel  hair dye. These wash out far too quickly. Instead, buy a really vibrant colour and then dilute it with conditioner. This way, the colour will last a lot longer. For my hair, Directions Carnation Pink has been really good. I use a diluted Carnation Pink. This consists of a mix of 1 part Carnation Pink to every 6 parts conditioner. To dye, I wet my hair, towel dry it (so it is still damp), and spread the mixture through my hair, starting at the roots. I then throw my hair up into a shower cap, and leave it for about 6 hours (the dye doesn't hurt your hair, so you can leave it in as long as you want). Then rinse it out thoroughly (I've been told that if you do this part with cold water it'll last longer, but I refuse to suffer that much for my hair so doing it with warm water is okay too). Hooray! You should have pretty pastel hair! If it's a bit too bright at first for your liking, don't worry - it should fade to a nice pastel colour with a couple of shampoos. If it's too pastel for your liking, then you'll just have to dye it again - just use a little bit less conditioner this time. Step 3: Maintaining the pink You will have to dye your hair once every 3-4 weeks. If you don't want to do this, then don't go pastel pink. Tips which can help (which I totally ignore out of laziness/wanting to stay warm, but you should follow) are to wash your hair with cold water only, and also to put a tiny amount of your hair colour into your conditioner bottle. Also, it will obviously help if you don't shampoo your hair every time you have a shower - I have pretty naturally greasy hair so I use shampoo once every second day, and on the days I don't shampoo I use dry shampoo (you can probably just find this at your grocery store or chemist), which I spray on just before styling my hair - that stuff is magical. You will also have to re-bleach your roots often (I do this once every 2 months but I have very slow-growing hair, and am not that bothered by my roots showing, either). Once your hair is very light, you don't need to leave the bleach on for long. I usually put it straight onto my dark roots (not on the ends, which are already super light), put it in a hair cap, and leave for about 20 minutes before washing it out. I use powder bleach mixed with 30 vol developer for re-bleaching my roots. But times and the strength will vary depending on if you have dark or light roots (you may need a stronger developer if you have dark roots, and weaker if you have relatively lighter roots). I hope this helps somebody out there. If you have any questions, please comment below! Also, if you'd rather go a pastel blue, read this post here. xxx Annika Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr

My favourite dress

I would like to share with you today my most favourite dress in the world. It is handmade and hand-painted, circa 1950. This is the dress that caused me to first fully appreciate vintage clothing, so it's a pretty special one just for that reason. I got it when I was 16, from a local market which happens once every month. I'd decided that day to wear bright red lipstick for the first time ever, as well as a polka-dot headband, and I was feeling mighty self-conscious for making a (what was then for me) massive fashion statement (that sounds totally ridiculous now but I was bullied, pretty severely, into dressing "normally" all throughout high school). So when I saw this dress on a mannequin in a pretty little second-hand store, although I immediately fell in love with it, I thought "that'd never suit me. I would look ridiculous in that". However, egged-on by my mum and the store-owner, I went to the toilets to try the dress on. I really liked how it fit - in fact I'd never had a dress so flattering - but thought that I would just look ridiculous wearing it, not to mention how much it would make me stand out. Nonetheless, I thought I'd better at least show my mum (who was obliged to stay with the store-owner until I came back to make sure I didn't just take off with the dress). As I was making my way back to the stall, the store-owner caught sight of me, clad in bright yellow, and wolf-whistled and yelled out, drawing the attention of everyone at the markets. For a super self-conscious sixteen-year-old, this was a pretty big thing. Everyone was looking at me but I was, somehow, grinning broadly and (self-consciously) strutting my way back to the stall. I bought the dress (well actually... I think my mum paid for it, haha) without hesitation. From that day, I started to care less about what people thought I should or shouldn't be wearing. And that's the story of this dress! Although in its 60 years of existence it's probably had a lot more interesting stories about it than that one. But it's the garment that got me into wearing vintage clothes so it's pretty special to me! wearing all vintage, shoes from wholesale and hat c/o wholesale I hope you're all having a beautiful week. xxx Annika

Red, Orange, Polka Dots

wearing dress - "Baking Soda" (from Japan) collar tips - Paddy's Markets bag - Vintage belt - Vintage tights - Wholesale shoes - ASOS OH. EM. GEE. I am not wearing my boater hat. This is rare. Whenever I am taking photos I end up going "eeehhh this would look better with a boater hat" basically 99% of the time, but I stopped myself for reaching for my hat today! What do you think of my naked head ;)? Haha. This dress is close to my favourite dress ever. I got it in Japan and wore it out to a music performance that night, so whenever I wear it I am flooded with memories of Tokyo. Ahh, I want to go back to Japan so badly. Can you all please make my blog super famous so I can go back over there on a... fashion... trip or something? Pleeeease? Just tell all your friends and your friends friends about me, maybe make some posters with my face on it and put them up around your town. Or you could even hire an aeroplane to write my blog URL in the sky. Just some ideas, guys. Then I can be famous, and go back to Japan. Pretty please with sugar on top? Thanks :) Hope you're all having a marvelous Sunday! And enjoying watching the olympics too, possibly. I was of the "I'm so not going to watch the olympics it's sooo boring and a waste of money bleh bleh" crowd, but this morning I basically bit off all my nails watching the women's weightlifting finals and burst into tears when the Japanese contestant got a silver medal (because her dad was her coach and previous bronze metal winner and she made him so proud haha). Sooo yeah. I've changed my mind. The olympics is kind of the best ever. (Mum, I know you're reading this. So shuush, okay.) xxx Annika

Like Trying to get Honey from a Stone

wearing dress - c/o Oasap bag - Vintage cardigan - No Brand belt - c/o Mochi Beaucoup socks - Vintage shoes - Vintage hat - c/o Wholesale I flipping love this new dress. I think after pastels, shades of light brown and beige are my favourite colours to wear. And this dress has polka dots. And a damn cute collar. Ahh... love... p.s. The fantastic song which is the title of this look can be found here. xxx Annika

DIY Knicker Shorts

I thought I'd only have one DIY to show you this week, but I actually have two! Last night I discovered this amazing blog (link now dead) and on it, a tutorial of how to make shorts. wearing blouse - c/o OASAP blouse #2 - Paper Scissors shorts - DIY bag - c/o Wholesale bag #2 - DIY tights - Wholesale hat - c/o Wholesale shoes - Rubi Shoes I don't want to take the credit for the shorts tutorial so please visit Maycie After Five (link is now dead, use this instead) as her explanation of making shorts is really, really clear and easy to follow. But here is just a little summary of what I did: 1. Get a pair of shorts that fit you really well. 2. Fold them in half and trace around them onto pattern paper (I am cheap and used baking paper, haha). 3. Add about 1cm all around the pattern, then cut it out. 4. Trace the pattern onto your fabric, with the straight edge on the fold. Do this twice. Cut out both. 5. Place pieces front-sides together. Sew all the way up the curved end. 6. Fold up bottom edge on both pieces and hem using an edge stitch. 7. Sew the crotch together by sewing where the dotted line is in the picture. 8. Make your waistband by folding the waist down (just a bit longer than your elastic is wide). Sew all around, leaving a 2cm gap where you will be putting your elastic in. 9. Wrap the elastic around your waist, and take off about 5cm. Attach a safety pin to the end of your elastic. Pull it through the waistband, sew the ends of the elastic together, then sew up the hole. EDIT: When making the pattern, make the waist a little larger than it is on your shorts that you are tracing (so that you can actually get them on). The elastic will stop them from being too big. Also learning how to do darts can help give the shorts a better shape... and avoid bunching! I added darts in these DIY shorts here and they fit a lot better. Sorry I don't have any DIY for that yet, try and find something on google if you're curious! So that's what  I did for my first pair of shorts, which were not knicker shorts (and have now become pyjama pants). For the second pair (the pair I am wearing in the photos) I altered the DIY slightly. You have to be careful here because knicker shorts should not be underwear. I even have a scale. (photos via asos) I don't think mine have crossed that line though, and are still shorts. All I did differently to make the shorts into knicker shorts was to alter the pattern so that it had a shorter leg and a higher waist (see below). This is such a quick and easy DIY, I think I'm going to make about a bazillion more pairs! I need to get myself some shiny, stretchy fabric... xxx Annika

DIY Satchel Bag #2 - Using one belt

I've been having a lot of fun making satchel bags after I figured out how to make them back in this post. This one was slightly different, so if you want full instructions go here, but here's the little summary of this DIY. 1. Get your fabric. Mine was a weird old heavy canvas jacket. 2. Make two identical rectangles. 3. Make two side-strips and one bottom-strip. 4. Join them all up into a pouch. 5. Make a front-flap (using different fabric for the front of the flap) and attach it to the back of the bag. 6. Place your belt on your bag and sew it securely onto the front flap. 7. I then used a pocket from the coat and put it on the front of my bag so it had an extra embellishment. 8. I added a strap which was just an old fabric belt. But you could make a strap by cutting a strip of fabric, folding over and sewing the raw edges together, flipping it inside out and then sewing it onto the sides of the bag. Good luck to anyone who gives making a satchel bag a go, and please email me a photo if you do! xx Annika

Bright Pastels

wearing blouse - Paper Scissors sweater clips - DIY bag - c/o Wholesale hat - c/o Wholesale jeans - Unknown (a store in Sydney...) socks - Vintage shoes - Dr Martens I'm an assortment of pastel colours. And wearing pants. What now - pants? So today I made a second satchel bag, ya'll see it in my next post ;) (or if you follow my instagram (@littlepineneedle) then you would have seen a sneak peek of it already). Thanks heaps for your encouraging comments on my other DIY satchel bag! One more week to go until I'm back at uni so I'm sewing like a mad woman trying to cram in all the things I wanted to get done. I also attempted to make swimmers from a t-shirt last night.. haha and that was pretty much a failure. If I never show all these failed attempts at projects with you guys though, you'll all keep thinking I'm a sewing whiz who can do no wrong, so I won't show you that ;) xxx Annika