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,

DIY Sweater/Collar Clips Tutorial

I've never been so excited about a project than today's one! Want to learn how to make your very own customised collar/sweater clips? This is how you do it. WHAT YOU NEED There's quite a lot of materials you will need for this DIY, including: note: moulds must be silicone to go in the oven. You can even use silicone ice-cube trays if you want! I got my moulds here. But search for "silicone mould" on ebay or somewhere similar if you're not from Australia! Maybe you could use these? (Mine is kids modelling clay designed for ages "4 and up", haha. But it works!) WHAT YOU DO Step 1: Preheat your oven to approx. 150°C (300°C). Step 2: Tear off a small amount of clay. Roll it into a little ball, and press it gently into the mould. Press it gently down and smooth out the edges. Then use a knife (I used a butter knife, haha) to scrape away the excess. Step 3: Place it face-down on a baking tray, and pop it in the oven for about 15 minutes. (The larger your mould, the longer time it will need in the oven) Step 4: Making sure it's dry enough, carefully lift the mould (if it's dry the mould should lift easily). If it's still a bit wet (ie has dark patches), then leave it in the oven for a bit longer, but you can take the mould out now if you want. Step 5: Paint! Use acrylic paints. Heavy-bodied paints are better as they come out thicker and more vibrant. Step 6: Once the pain is dry, use a paintbrush to apply a layer of Mod Podge. While it's drying, move on to the next step. Step 7: Separate a small section of chain with your pliers. Attach these to your clips, one on each end (make sure your clips have little holes in them to attach chain to!) Step 8: Use strong glue (mine is woodworking glue, but craft glue probably works fine as well) to attach the flat side of your clips to the back of each flower. Let it dry overnight, and you can wear your clips in the morning! These blue flower clips are still drying as I type this up. But here are some I made earlier... and they can be worn on your sweater or your collar! And you can buy any kind of moulds to use for your clips, or you can mould the clay by hand! Here's some examples of other shapes I made while I was making these clips... Hope you enjoyed this DIY, and if you happen to make your own collar clips, send me a photo - I'd love to see what you come up with! And if you have any tips or tricks (I just started making these, so I'm possibly doing something wrong somewhere), let me know about them!