The Pineneedle Collective

Saturday 16 August 2014

Best Fr3ndz & X-Rays

Me and the gorgeous Katie had planned to spend all of Friday crafting together, when I remembered last minute that I had an appointment for an X-ray, smack-bang in the middle of the day. I was going to have to cancel our craft date - something we'd both been looking forward to all week - and spend the day being irradiated instead. Yay. But because Katie is amazing, she insisted on coming with me on the 2-hour long train trip to the radiologists, to sit with me in the boring waiting room and hold my hand. She even starved with me in solidarity (I had to fast before the X-ray). There is a reason best friends are called best friends - because they are the actual best.

Katie turned a potentially crappy day into a really lovely one, and we even did get to do a bit of crafting in the end - I'm helping Katie to make her very first dress (using my DIY dress pattern tutorial).

These pictures were taken a while ago now, but I think they're perfect for today's post!

Dress and jacket are thrifted | tights are from Japan | shoes are c/o Chicwish (ages old, no longer for sale) | Katie's dress is thrifted (a gift from me!)

Also, in honour of the amazing science and diagnostic tool that is x-rays, here is a wonderful series of gifs by Cameron Drake and Dr Noah Weiss that show the joints of the human body in motion:

The knee cap

Shoulder joint

Wrist and Hand

Human beings have a few different types of joints, including hinge joints (just like a hinge on a door, like in the knee), ball-and-socket (like in the shoulder, which allows wide rotation) and pivot joints (like the one at the top of your spine that allows you to rotate your head in a "no" motion). You don't really think about how they work until you start to have problems (or you are an anatomy student), but when you have a closer look, you can appreciate what an amazing machine the body is!

You can see a few more joints in motion on the IFLS website.

Sunday 10 August 2014

Oh Mickey You're So Fine + Dorky Video (Get Ready With Me)

Shirt, skirt and jacket are thrifted | socks are from Clear It | shoes c/o Choies (out of stock, ages old) | necklace c/o Ginger Pickle (Eclectic Eccentricity) | badge is a vintage gift from Katie

WHY AM I SO SURLY IN THESE PHOTOS? Clearly I have a lot of angst. However, I'm pretty happy with my mostly-thrifted outfit today, and the fact that I found both this Mickey Mouse shirt and varsity jacket on the same day - score!

I also decided to make this super dorky outfit/"get ready with me" video to accompany this post.

Wait. "What's a 'Get ready with me' video, Annika?" OH GOSH! Have you been living under a rock, or have you NOT spent all your time watching beauty bloggers on youtube?

Tsk tsk.

Never fear, I'm here to educate you. If you haven't seen this particular style of video on youtube before, here is a salient example.

Now watch my video.

Just your average day for an average gal with fashion superpowers ☼

I hope that you're all having a wonderful day!

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Nautical Astronauts & The Tree of 40 Fruit

Shirt, skirt and cardigan are thrifted | necklace c/o Ginger Pickle (Eclectic Eccentricity) | shoes are Naot | socks from Clear It | Lace shorts are years old (Wholesale)

I am back at university and have been having a few health issues - nothing too scary, hopefully - but that might mean that my blogging/video-making will become more sporadic over the next little while (I hope it won't, but just a warning!) Because uni has started again - and I've started being recognised by strangers from my blog/instagram/youtube - I've been aiming to look stylish & cute on campus - but I've also wanted to stay cozy because I haven't been feeling 100%. The perfect solution? Stealing my boyfriend's super comfy cardigan!

No matter how many clothes you have, I think that it's always more satisfying to wear someone else's! Does anyone else agree?

(By the way - I think the shirt that I'm wearing is a little kids shirt, hahaha. Oh well, it fits! And looks cute!)

Now this is just the coolest combination of art and science - the tree below produces 40 different varieties of peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries and almonds (which are NOT nuts - what?!)

Image source: Sam Van Aken

The tree didn't start out like this - each different species has been carefully grafted onto the branches of the tree as it has grown, over a process of 5 years. It looks like a normal tree for most of the year, but during spring it blooms into a variety of different colours, and then grows 40 types of fruit in the summer. It's a project of art professor Sam Van Aken, who has made 16 of these trees so far, and is also used to conserve rare varieties of fruit that would otherwise be lost! To make the trees, the technique of chip budding is used - the bud of the desired tree is inserted into the working tree, left to heal over the winter, and if all goes to plan it will grow like a normal branch on the working tree!

Saturday 2 August 2014

How To: Embroidery Words

If you've seen my instagram account over the past week, you will have noticed that I have been embroidering words onto EVERYTHING. It's such a lovely, relaxing pastime.

So of course, I want to share my new-found knowledge with the world! I made a short little video that shows you how to stitch words onto things! I just used a scrap piece of fabric in this tutorial to demonstrate, but you can stitch onto really anything you can imagine - t-shirts, jumpers, backpacks, collars - you name it. This embroidery stitch (called a "split stitch") isn't only used for words - it's very versatile, so you can use it to stitch any lines you want!
For example, here is a sciencey-design I'm working on (guanine) - hopefully to be brought to life on my lab coat!

Anyway, here is the video. Enjoy, and use #diyannika via instagram to share your photos with me if you try out any of my tutorials! I love seeing what you guys come up with!

I hope you're all having a great day,

Thursday 31 July 2014

STYLE BATTLE featuring Mighty Mannie

YOU GUYS.

I am so excited about these videos!! :'D

I have teamed up with the gorgeous youtuber MightyMannie for a style challenge - that very quickly turned into a battle because as we soon discovered, we're both really damn competitive!

(Unfortunately I also accidentally let slip about halfway through filming how many outfits I thought I had, so I think that made Mannie extra determined to beat me! Hehe)

But we both stretched our styling capabilities to the limit trying to beat each other, and this is the result. Enjoy!

MY VIDEO:

MANNIE'S VIDEO:

Please watch and let us know what you think! We both had so much fun doing this :) Mannie is absolutely lovely and I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to meet, chat with and work with this wonderful woman. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love the internet. Go and check out Mannie's channel and blog!

Have a great day!

Monday 28 July 2014

Melbourne ♥

If you follow me on instagram then you may have already seen some of my photos from my trip to Melbourne last week! The polar opposite of my home city of Sydney, I completely fell in love with Melbourne in my short 4 days of visiting. It's such a pretty, interesting city, so I just wanted to share some of my favourite photos and places!

As all my friends had abandoned me for the uni break, I went with my mum - who suggested that we rename the trip "the Instagram holiday" because we basically just ended up visiting places suggested by lovely people on Instagram (and were never disappointed, thank you SO much alexvandenbroek, fentonjulia, sallylandillustration, frombelle, thatgirlinthatdress, misspolkadot_, sparklemiss, maevekerrc, ellielilac) and by my wonderful friend Leila.

The first place that I need to talk about is De Jour Jeans (542 Sydney Rd, Brunswick). They sell custom-fitted jeans for $53, and have the cutest shop assistants of all time! Even though it might not look like much, Dejour Jeans is extremely popular, and if you go on a Saturday there's usually a queue out the door! We were smart and went early on a Monday morning (and it was still really busy).

But the best bit: you pick out a pair of jeans, and if they don't fit perfectly they tailor them for you for free!

Me wearing my new jeans!

Savers (330 Sydney Rd, Brunswick) - the largest op shop I've ever been in. I was a little bit overwhelmed. LOOK AT ALL OF THIS.

St Kilda/Brighton Beachhuts

I really felt like I was on a beach in England, especially because most of the time that we were there, the weather was quite gloomy!

Fitzroy/Collingwood

One of the best things about Fitzroy was the street art! This was all found along Johnston St:

But of course, the absolute best thing about this area was all the vintage and handmade shops. Sadly I couldn't get to them all in one day, but I tried my hardest!

Above, Sally's Retro (203 Smith St Fitzroy). Below, Vintage Garage (318 Smith St, Collingwood).

The two streets to go to for some heavenly window shopping (and sneaky changing room selfies in dresses you're never going to buy) are Smith St and Fitzroy St (Gertrude St was also suggested to me, but it's more cafes!)

Messina Icecream (237 Smith St, Fitzroy)

Okay, so although Messina is something you can find in Sydney, I just thought the wall here was really cool.

The Laneways & The CBD

Lady Petrova (237 Flinders Lane)

I nearly died of excitement when I stumbled across Lady Petrova's real-life store. It was like stepping into pastel heaven. I took a billion pictures, talked to the cute shop assistant (Me: "OMG! You guys are amazing and you sponsor my friend in America aoifnsodginodffggjk" shop lady: "Yeah, sure we do....." *crazy lady*) and I also tried on a very pretty dress. The first thing I did upon leaving was to message Kailey about 1,000 pictures of the place, as she is the one who introduced me to the brand!

Quick Brown Fox (262 Flinder's Lane)

I bought myself the cutest little apple earrings from this store. I wanted ALL the earrings, though.

Kinki Gerlinki

One of the coolest designers I have ever come across! Those tapestry shoes above have CLEAR platforms. There are a couple of stores scattered across Melbourne, and while it is pricey, I recommend you visit one just to look at all the pretty things.

Clementine's (7 Degraves St)

This store stocks the best handmade goodies, all made in Melbourne. The above brooch set is from a Melbourne designer named Bok Bok B'Gerk.

Retrostar Vintage (1/37 Swanston St)

The number of pretty dresses here nearly killed me - but somehow I was overcome by this incredible restraint, and I only bought 1 ring(???)

I am kind of regretting not getting the stripey red dress though, even if it was a little bit too big...

On our last night we went to Soda Rock Diner (257 Toorak Rd, South Yarra), an authentic reconstruction of a 1950s diner! The thickshakes and cheesy fries were phenomenal!

I hope you enjoyed my little travel post! If you live in Australia and have never been; or if you are thinking of visiting Australia - GO TO MELBOURNE. That's all I can say. I seriously loved it almost as much as I loved Japan (and do you guys remember how much I loved Japan??!)

All of the love,