Restyler (giant old dress --> cute vintage number)

I had the best luck at the vintage stores I went to yesterday. Not only did I get this awesome dress (which I had to resize, but still) and orange sweater, I also scored a pair of dark blue Dr Martins, in super good condition. And then I got my university results back and found out that I got two High Distinctions in the subjects I really wanted to do well in, which means I can do the advanced neuroscience courses I wanted to do next year! (I'm actually on the way to becoming a real scientist!) I then spent the rest of the night sewing, attempting to alter this dress into something wearable, and succeeded!  It was a very good day :) I also have to let you all know what happened the entire time I was altering this dress. Bomfunk MC's Freestyler started playing over and over in my head, except instead of the main word being "Freestyler", it got replaced with "Restyler". I'm not sure why. Possibly because I'm mad. I embedded the song here for anyone who wants to know what my mad brain subjected me to all night. Luckily I happen to have a massive soft-spot of nostalgia for this song so it really wasn't all bad. I even got into it and started singing along as I was sewing, being a total bad ass mutha-f**ker restyler (from the 90s). Anyway, here's a before and after shot of my dress! My process of alteration was: making the bodice smaller, shortening the sleeves, removing the shoulder pads, shortening the skirt then bringing in the bodice again with some darts. If anyone who alters vintage dresses has any tips for resizing, I'd love to hear them - I'm really just making it up as I go along and I'm sure there's better techniques I could use! Still, I'm pretty happy with how my dress turned out. There's no way you could leave a dress with these buttons and collar alone in a thrift store.  No way. wearing dress - Vintage (restyled) bag - Ebay shoes - Vintage socks - Cotton On clips - The Little Pineneedle sock cuffs - I made them hat - c/o Wholesale p.s. No science fact for today - I haven't stopped, don't worry! I just didn't want this to turn into a monster blog post.

Little Jellybean plus a Scientific Christmas Gift Guide

I bought some super pink lipstick the other day and I'm loving it! I'm feeling pretty lucky that I now have a whole THREE lipsticks to choose from, oh my! (Although I wouldn't mind a bright blue and maybe a dark violet and a lovely lilac..) I also love my new jelly shoes but wearing them the last few days has made it clear (I unintentionally wrote that pun then went back and noticed I'd done it, oh dear) that I'm going to have to start a super cute sock collection because now you can see my entire foot! These lilac socks are pretty cute, but I need more patterned ones I think! Anyone know some really cool sock stores? I'm on the lookout for ice-cream patterned socks in particular... wearing blouse (actually a dress) - Vintage Skirt - Vintage bag - c/o Mochi Beaucoup shoes - Jellybeans lace sock cuffs - I made them socks - Cotton On I've been seeing the coolest, nerdiest science-themed christmas presents all over the internet in the last few days, so I thought I'd make you guys a little Science-themed Christmas Gift Guide. I love art/science mash ups. Microbiology pendant necklace from ctrl alt deviant Test tube flower vases from Urban outfitters these personalised Chemistry prints (I want to point out they've written the chemical symbols wrong - always big letter then little letter! - but it's cool anyway) The nerdiest ever vintage-print chemistry pendants (featuring an orbital and chemistry apparatus) from Left Brain Right Brain Glow-in-the-dark(!!) Marie Curie portrait ring from The Science Boutique Galaxy in a pendant from The Pendant Garden And if you're feeling super ambitious, there's always this DIY project: Test tube chandelier by Pani Jurek By the way, thank you so much to everyone who's entered my two giveaways in the last few days! (Find them here and here). I've tried to make them a little more interesting than your average giveaway by asking you guys to be creative. I've really been enjoying your entries :) Hope you're all super dooper well!

Oh my glob - Adventure Time DIYs (and a giveaway) // CLOSED

Adventure time canvases now residing above my bed Do you guys think my obsession for adventure time gone too far? Finn & Jake sweater clips hand-painted shorts Not a DIY but here because I'm obsessed with it - a picture that Bruno Harryson sent to me and is actually my FAVOURITE THING EVER No, I wouldn't say I'm obsessed... When I start writing fan fiction, then you guys can get worried. Do you all like my DIY Adventure Time collection? I think Finn & Jake would be pretty proud. Which, you know, of course they couldn't be because of course I know they're not real (...) And because I think you guys are totally math: *Win* one of TWO PAIRS of Finn & Jake sweater clips handmade by me (Open internationally until Dec. 24!) - it's a Rafflecopter giveaway so if you can't see it then give it a second to load. a Rafflecopter giveaway ( I can't not read that in John DiMaggio's voice.)

90s Kitten

Meow! I've been listening to the Beastie Boys and the Pixies all day, as well as having a binge of looking up videos of cute animals on youtube and this is what subsequently happened to my outfit. Hey, I take inspiration from all around me. wearing dress -Vintage socks - Shop with Romi headband - c/o Shop with Romi bag - c/o Oasap shirt - c/o Oasap shoes - Label shoes c/o Chictopia clips - DIY A fellow science-loving reader sent me this graphic the other day, and I couldn't resist posting it. The image on the left is of neurons in a mouse's brain and the image on the right is a simulated image of the universe. And they look pretty darn similar. source: from here via Visual Complexity Of course, there is some cherry-picking going on here - you could probably find many similar looking images and this is a nice example of how the human-brain seeks out patterns in random images and sees them as significant, but before I suck all the romance out of this image with my skepticism (or is it too late?), I thought that this image is nonetheless beautiful just for the fact that something on the scale of a few micrometres wide can take on the same form as something on the scale of billions of lightyears, and that you will never be able to truly perceive and wrap your minds around either size. p.s. Go and say hi to my December sponsor Jessica from Jessica Who if you get the chance! If you're interested in being my XL featured sponsor in January, please click here!

DIY Inspiration - a pinafore from a long skirt

I made this pretty green velvet pinafore this morning from a long vintage skirt. The skirt was actually pretty lovely long - but I was never going to wear it in its ankle-length state. So I decided to turn it into a pinafore. It already had a waistband, so it was just a matter of chopping it short and using the bottom part to make straps! I think I might still make some pockets to go on it (like this) - I'll post another photo if I do! Unfortunately... I only took one photo of the skirt while it was long and didn't realise how grumpy I look in it until now. Oops. So... I guess you'll have to put up with my grumpy face. It kind of works in favour of the the before/after scenario, anyway. This is how I sliced the skirt up to make it into a pinafore, in case you were wondering :) wearing sunflower clips - the Little Pineneedle blouse - Vintage bag - Vintage shoes - Jellybeans socks - Wholesale

$100 giftcard giveaway from US Trendy! // CLOSED

Hello and happy December, beautiful blog readers! Today on my blog US Trendy is giving away a $100 giftcard for their site. As Christmas is coming up, this would be a pretty awesome Christmas present for yourself, or for someone you know. A little bit about US Trendy first. US Trendy is an Indie Fashion Marketplace, featuring 14000 designers from over 100 countries around the world. They stock bang-on-trend but unique, indie pieces and designs, so you can be sure if you're shopping here that you're not just going to just look like everyone else. Some awesome brands that they stock you might know (and possibly my favourites too, haha): AX Paris, Miss Patina, Chicwish, Kiki's Boutique, Kindred Sole & Messes of Dresses. There are 4 steps you need to take in order to enter, and you won't be able to win unless you complete all 4 steps. You will need a Pinterest account to enter! 1. Follow US Trendy on Pinterest (pinterest.com/ustrendy/) 2. Go to ustrendy.com and find your favourite items 3. Create a Pinterest board called "My US Trendy Wishlist" and add your favourite US trendy items here! Tag each one #ustrendypineneedle so that I can track your entries. Check out my board here to see how it works! 4. Lastly, post a link to your board, plus some way for me to contact you, on the comments below this post. I'll be judging the boards on the basis of their creativity and choosing a winner, so take your time :) * for example, a good idea might be to put together one totally awesome outfit on the board ;) * Competition is open internationally and ends on the 15th of December, so you have just over 2 weeks to enter. Also it'd be nice if you were following my blog in some way - be it GFC, Bloglovin', facebook, twitter etc - any of them are fine ;) Good luck!

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

This is possibly the third post on my blog that I've named after a Queen song. Haha.. However I'm going to go right out there and unashamedly state that I love Queen. I have so many good memories from every party ever in my teenager years dissolving into long Queen medleys (particularly Bohemian Rhapsody), that hearing a song by them never fails to bring a smile to my face. Plus, Bicycle Race is awesome. Anyone else secretly love Queen (or at least have a soft spot)? wearing skirt - c/o Oasap top - c/o Oasap ring - c/o Oasap socks - Tutuanna sunflower clips - the Little Pineneedle shoes - Label Shoes c/o Chictopia Speaking of bikes, and seguing into some science, did you know that while physicists can build a telescope to see what elements made up the early universe and accelerate particles to the speed of light in gigantic underground tunnels, they don't really know how bicycles work?? It was thought to be for many years either the gyroscopic effect, or the caster effect, but it's been shown through building bicycles that either don't have or counteract these forces that bikes still work without these forces. A bike will keep moving without its rider as long as its accelerated constantly, but as for why... scientists still don't have the answer. I think it's pretty amazing that science has been able to tell us so much and contribute such a great amount to our lives (I mean, computers?! Internet? Medicine? Our much increased life spans? The human genome project? The LHC?!!) but we don't know how bicycles work! Got to love that. Anyway, I should also mention that I have a bunny rabbit ring. And it's awesome. Hope you're all having a beautiful week! It's summer tomorrow, eek! (Sorry, Northern Hemisphere :( )

Sunflowers

Here's an outfit I made to go with my new DIY'd collar clips! I matched the sunflower clips with this floral vintage skirt from Japan - one of my favourite items in my wardrobe in fact, although I never remember to wear it! wearing blouse - Vintage sunflower clips - the Little Pineneedle skirt - Vintage bag - Vintage socks - Cotton On Body shoes - Vintage Sunflowers are often used as an image to depict the sun... so today I'm going to talk about many suns (whew, that was a stretch, bear with me). I discovered a beautiful, incredible astronomy based site today - it's called 100,000 stars and it's a new google chrome plugin. note: I think you need Google chrome for it to work. Starting with our sun as the centre of the visualisation, it allows you to zoom right out and view our whole galaxy from every angle, as well as giving the names and positions of stars that we can observe on the galactic plane. Click through to the site and watch the "take a tour" video... it's so beautifully made and will definitely have the effect of making any of your problems seem... well... insignificant. Mind blowing, I think is the correct term to use here. Hope you're all having an amazing day,