A Break from Pastels

wearing dress - Wholesale blouse - Vintage ribbon - DIY tights - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Wholesale hat - c/o Wholesale shoes - Rubi Shoes This is the most lolita-ish outfit I have put together in a long time. It was a little bit accidental but I didn't mind how it turned out at all. Definitely a break from my usual pastel palette though. I have been restyling a whole lot of old (and collarless) dresses lately by throwing on a vintage blouse underneath, and adding collar accessories like this ribbon. You should try it out if you're getting sick of your wardrobe - it's a really awesome way to change the look of a dress! Also, enter my competition if you haven't seen it already - one day left! xxx Annika

Dead Weather & A Giveaway ;) (CLOSED)

wearing skirt - c/o Sugarlips blouse - Vintage tights - Romwe bag - Vintage shoes - Rubi Shoes ring - Vintage hat - c/o Wholesale Just a quick outfit post from me today. This skirt from Sugarlips apparel is so pretty, and I just love it's cascading shape and colour-blocked pattern, but I've been having such a hard time trying to figure out a blouse to pair it with! Sometimes stand-out statement pieces can be so difficult to find the perfect pair for. I've been wearing it with a plain t-shirt but that just seemed too odd to put on this blog (as I don't think I've EVER worn any kind of plain shirt without some kind of embellishment on this blog ever, and I'm sure as heck not starting now). So here's my kind-of giveaway (I've been full of kind-ofs this week, like my kind-of-DIY from Monday. I blame it on the strange ambivalent weather that we've been having - sunny? stormy? summer? winter? it can't make up its mind) - SO anyone who can find the best blouse/shirt/top to go with this skirt (from anywhere on the internet, pricey or cheap, just as long as it's inspiring!) wins a small ad space for 2 months (that's worth $10). You have 3 days to enter! xxx Annika

A (kind of) DIY - make some pretty short/jean pockets

(shorts c/o Oasap) I was inspired to make these shorts after I saw a similar thing from this etsy store owned by Meanz from Koi Story (although the cat themed ones she makes are most definitely better - and she sells them if you're interested ;) ). what you do 1. Make a stencil (I just used baking paper) by tracing around your pocket. Leave half an inch around all the edges. 2. Cut out your fabric using this stencil. Fold the edges in half an inch or so and sew them down onto the fabric... 3. Making sure you make it the same size of the pockets that already exist on the shorts. 4. Sew this onto your shorts (hand sew or sewing machine both work fine!), and make sure you're only sewing onto the back of the shorts, not all the way through! When you get the the top of the pocket, hand sew this on so that you still have a functional pocket :) There you have it! A super easy way to update a pair of shorts. xxx Annika

Little Ghost, Little Ghost

wearing dress - Forever 21 blouse - Vintage tights - c/o Oasap necklace - c/o Oasap ribbon - DIY bag - c/o Mochi Beaucoup hat - c/o Wholesale shoes - Dr Martens Aw man. You guys are real lucky today that the internet doesn't have smell-o-vision. Life tip: don't wear a wig to a party. Someone managed to pour cask wine all over it. Now it doesn't smell too nice. I really wanted to wear it for this outfit though, so I put it on anyway. Now I've pretty much ruined the outfit for anyone reading this with that disgusting story... Sorry about that haha. So, uh, can someone tell me how to wash synthetic wigs??? Shampooing it seems wrong, and I don't want to wreck the curls... xxx Annika

Sneaky Collars & New Hair

Look what I did to my hair! It's so normal! Dark brown. Dark, normal looking brown. What the what. I am glad I didn't go to the hairdresser for this, even after they were all "It'll go green if you try and dye it brown over your pink!" HA! No it won't. It'll just go a nice dark brown. I am already worried that it's too boring, however I am soon to be the owner of three coloured wigs so that should hopefully satiate my need for crazy hair for at least a little while. So this outfit features a very sneaky collar trick. I got this blouse and this dress and put them together with a little bow clip that I made and I think they go together really nicely. What do you think? wearing blouse - Paper Scissors dress - c/o Glamorous UK cardigan - Vintage ring - Vintage bow - DIY tights - Romwe shoes - Vintage bag - Vintage I hope you're all very well today! xxx Annika

Cupcakes and Cream

wearing blouse - Vintage tie - c/o Flapper Girl shorts - c/o Oasap bag - c/o Wholesale tights - Vintage hat - c/o Wholesale shoes - Raben Footwear It was such lovely weather today that I went for a super long walk all the way to the next town, in this outfit (sans wig). An old lady (probably about 70 or so) dressed in a beanie and a raincoat (it was hot and there weren't any clouds in the sky, but hey) stopped me on my walk and said "I just needed to tell you, you look really chic. Your whole ensemble is really chic." and then walked off. Which was just super cute and nice. I love it when random people who would wouldn't think would have any interest in fashion go out of there way to tell you that you look nice, it never fails to make my day. So I decided that I am going to go out of my way to compliment random people on their outfits in the future (and hopefully won't seem like a massive creeper whilst doing so). Okay, so now I have to do 314018752 assignments for uni. If I'm not around here much in the next week, that's where I'm at. Hope you're all having a nice Wednesday :) xxx Annika

Dress design competition - please vote for me!

Hello all! I decided to try out designing some dresses to enter them in a dress designing competition held by Ra Ra Superstar. The winner will have their dress made and sold in stores! Which would be so, so, so super dooper exciting. If one of my designs won, you could even buy the dress and then say "hey! I know the girl who designed this dress, how cool am I?" Awesome, right? (Although I'm sure this won't happen because a lot of the other drawings are much better than mine, but hey, I may as well try.) Please vote for me (find the links below the photos)! The design that gets the most "Likes" on facebook will win! Here's the three designs I entered (and please excuse my terrible illustrations): Vote for it here! Vote for it here! Vote for it here! If enough people vote my dresses as their favourite, then one of these dresses will exist in real life. Please go and vote for me (and don't vote for anyone else ;) ), because it would be so incredible to win. I'm sure I'll be spamming you all about this until the competition closes. I love you guys ;) xxx Annika

Picture Perfect Print

wearing dress - c/o Romwe collar - c/o Romwe sweater clips - DIY hat - c/o Wholesale socks - Tutuanna shoes - Vintage I don't know why it's taken me so long to acquire an item of clothing with a printed photograph on it. If you follow my Make Believe Wardrobe, you will know that I've been pretty obsessed with printed clothes for quite some time. This dress is no exception - I am so obsessed. As well as this one, Romwe has a whole bunch of body-con dresses with photographic prints and artworks that I'm pretty sure will be in my wardrobe soon - particularly these two amazing things: (dresses here and here) It is actually my dream to be rich and own a factory that can print out photos onto fabric and clothes, and own a fashion label/design clothes... ahh... one day... xxx Annika

Mod Dolly in a Sailor Dress

This dress kindly sent to me by Mod Dolly is beyond adorable. Not only is it the perfect red, it features little bows all over and has the best sailor-esque collar (and you all know how much of a sucker I am for an adorable collar). It’s the perfect picnic dress - especially if your picnic was held right beside some sailing docks. wearing dress - c/o Moddolly sweater clips - DIY hat - c/o Wholesale bag - vintage socks - Tutuanna I should also explain why I've been a while without posting (I don't know why I feel guilty for not blogging sooner, but, I do. Which is probably ridiculous, but I feel like I need to justify my lack of posts this week haha). Anyway, I just bought myself a Kindle and it's FREAKING AMAZING. I had read about one book all year, and in the week since I've had the kindle I've read six. Six books. In one week. So that's where I've been, being a nerdy nerd and reading a whole bunch of amazing science fiction books. If anyone is interested, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is just about the best book ever. And this is totally boring because you're all here for fashion and sewing, not literature or books, but it just needed to be said. I freaking love my kindle. Much love, everyone! xxx Annika

How now, brown cow?

wearing blouse - Vintage tie - c/o Flapper Girl skirt - Wholesale tights - Vintage shoes - Vintage hat - c/o Wholesale belt - Vintage bag - Vintage Hey guys! Just another outfit post. I went with 50 shades of brown plus my wig for today's outfit, and matched it with this super adorable Lady Tie from Flapper Girl. Now I'm off to have a delicious fried breakfast. xx Annika

Lilac, Red and a Lady Tie

Haha... so I had a little teeny bit of a hair mishap, just after getting this wig, actually. I have maybe possibly accidentally dyed my hair fluorescent pink (I ignored my own advice to DILUTE DILUTE DILUTE your hair dye always, which was really silly!) Neon pink isn't so bad, but I also did a really dodgy bleach job, and didn't get the roots white enough. So it's kind of weird-ombre-fluorescent pink. And it does not look good. So you'll all have to get used to me wearing this wig for a little bit, while I sort my hair out! Anyway, can I please talk about how much I love etsy stores for a moment? (Particularly this etsy store but we'll get to that.) Whenever I get something from an etsy store, I am made to feel like the most special lady in the world, because a ridiculous amount of care and time goes into making the whole thing, packaging included, entirely adorable and I usually get a little thank you card as well! The etsy store that I'm talking about today is Flapper Girl, who sent me two super cute Lady Ties. I am a little bit obsessed. They are such an amazing accessory, they instantly make any outfit more interesting and they work on anything that is collared! wearing tie - c/o Flapper Girl blouse - Vintage shorts - Cotton On tights - c/o Oasap shoes - Rubi Shoes hat - c/o Wholesale wig - Ebay You all ready for the weekend? ;) xxx Annika

Just a quick shout-out: new blog header!

So, if you're here, you'll notice I have a new blog header! I was sent this today out of the blue: (http://teardropsarefalling.blogspot.com.au/) I love it so much. Getting fan-art is something I never anticipated when I started this blog a year ago, and it's so exciting/flattering!! I just want to let everyone know where they can find the amazing illustrator, her name is Rachel and she is from Venezuela! You can find her blog here. Go and say hi, she has a really lovely blog! xx Annika