Baby darling doll-face honey

Happy 2013 guys! I hope all your New Years celebrations were marvellous! This dress that Romwe sent me is pretty damn amazing. It's also quilted and really thick, and completely not appropriate for wearing in summer - hence I am going to be taking it with me on my trip to Japan (which is happening in just 25 days, oh my goooooosh!) I LOVE the creepy doll-face appliqué, so I attempted to look a little bit like a creepy doll myself. wearing dress - c/o Romwe socks - Vintage lace sock cuffs - The Little Pineneedle shoes - Label Shoes c/o Chictopia hat - c/o Wholesale Rita Levi-Montalcini was an amazing, fiery and bad-ass neuroscientist, who sadly passed away a couple of days ago, aged 103 years old. As a future neuroscientist/cell biologist,  wannabe science communicator and feminist, Rita is someone who seriously inspires me. I wanted to write a short post about her amazing life. Image source and article Italian-born, she pursued a career in science at university despite both her father and 1930s society being generally against women in higher education. Then, she had to go into hiding when Mussolini came into power, as she was Jewish and thrown out of her university. To continue studying science, she built a secret research laboratory. Despite this, in 1986 she won a Nobel Prize for discovering something called "nerve growth factor", which greatly advanced our understanding of how neurons (nerve cells) work. Being at this point 77 years of age, she never slowed down - she went on to found the European Brain Research Institute in Rome, and a foundation encouraging the education of young women in Africa. She gave lectures and spoke out about promoting equality for women in science. And she turned up to work every day super well-dressed, with perfectly manicured hands and coiffured hair, even after turning 100. Basically, I want to be Rita. The world will miss her. Read more about her here.

Giveaway from Rire Boutique! // CLOSED

I'm welcoming in the New Year with a chance for one of my blog readers to win a $40 gift card from the lovely Rire Boutique! Based in California, Rire Boutique houses a small collection of super cute dresses, cutesy tops, beautiful skirts and earthy jewellery. All you need to do to enter is "like" their facebook page and leave a comment on their wall with your favourite item from their store (also mention that I sent you!) To enter, you will need to use the Rafflecopter widget below. There are also heaps of optional entries to boost your chances of winning! a Rafflecopter giveaway The winner will be sent a $40 gift card to choose anything they like from the store! Please note that items will be sent from the US, so delivery times may vary. The competition is open worldwide until Friday the 11th of January - good luck!

New Years Outfit / Art & Science

This is my outfit for tonight! This dress, courtesy of Oh My Love, arrived just in time for New Years! It's absolutely perfect for the occasion with a tulle underskirt, and its short, strapless, fitted shape and puffy skirt. Plus it's sparkly! I'm not doing anything huge for this New Years eve, just hanging out with a group of my closet friends, which I'm really looking forward to. Here's a song to get you in the mood for New Years (it's a good 'un! Have a listen! Dance dance dance!) You can't see it from far away, but this is my make-up for tonight - subtle gold sparkles on my eyes and lips. Actually, you can't even really see it in this photo either (I'm kind of embarrassingly bad at make-up for a fashion blogger really, haha). wearing dress - c/o Oh My Love lace socks cuffs - The Little Pineneedle necklace - c/o Oasap shoes - Rubi Shoes So I LOVE it when science is combined with art. Random International have created a Rain Room installation, which allows participants to explore the room and their movements influence the fall of the rain - and at the same time, measures and researches the behaviours of its viewers. The Art and Science Journal best capture the aim of the artwork: "[Rain Room invites participants] to contemplate how technology alters our environment, ultimately questioning the role humans play in its alteration. It provides an instance where the forces beyond human control (i.e.: the weather) are manipulated by human activity." Please go if you live in the UK. It looks way too good. Click here for the gallery's website! Hope you all have an amazing 2013!

Farewell, 2012! Bring in the New Year!

Farewell, 2012! It's been a good one! The Pineneedle Collective has had a pretty amazing year. As I only started blogging properly last December (only one year ago), it's crazy to see how much this little space has grown in 2012, particularly as I also started commuting 4 hours a day to university at the same time! One of the highlights of blogging for me this year was that I was able to "meet" so many lovely people, either in the blogging community or those who are just readers. You've been nothing short of amazing. I'm constantly amazed by the thoughtful comments you leave, pictures you draw me and intelligent thoughts you leave in relation to my science posts! And even if you haven't left me any comments or sent me messages (goodness knows there's so many blogs that I silently creep on), it's awesome to know that there's so many of you reading and appreciating what I have to say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Here's some of my blog highlights from the past year! My DIY Valentines tights - with more than 50000 pageviews, this was a post which I had the most awesome feedback on, and have subsequently seen popping up all over the internet! It is amazing to know they've inspired so many people! Dying my hair pink, lilac and blue... and (accidentally) green... Learning how to make my own dresses and then subsequently making a whole heap from anything I could find, including pillowcases and tablecloths. Starting a love-affair with wigs in this post (may have also been a consequence of attempting to maintain my bright pink hair and subsequently destroying it...) Introducing my science alter-ego in this post and beginning to add a scientific fact to each  outfit post! This is the thing I'm most proud of in 2012, especially as it's helped me to discover other fashionable science bloggers and the fact that I have a whole bunch of intelligent blog readers! I'm inspired by the feedback I get on my science posts, especially the few messages I've received where someone's told me they want to do science because of my blog! I aspire to be a Brain Cox-esque science communicator one day, so it's been a very modest, but good start. This outfit (which I named Crouching Tiger, Hidden Lion) is my favourite of 2012. I'm  pretty proud of it. And just this month, opening my own store! This is an idea I'd been toying with for months and I finally did it! And I've even made some sales, so I've been pretty chuffed with that :) And that brings us to last night. I wanted to share with you all some shots I took last night with my boyfriend's little brother (hi Johnson!) who has just started getting interested in photography. I wanted to show him how to do "long exposure" shots and this is what we came up with! I felt like they were quite appropriate photos for bringing in the new years, and so this is how I'm ending the post. Happy New Years, everyone! I attempted to write "Pineneedle" in the one below, but failed pretty badly. It kind of looks like it says Pineneedle, right?  And because Johnson is also a 13 year old boy, I was obliged to do one that said "Batman". Hahaha. Hope you all have a wonderful New Years and that 2013 is full of learning, love, laughter and good things. I'm very excited (and nervous!) for 2013. Did I mention that I'm going to Japan in 27 days?? And then moving out of home?! I will have one last post tomorrow showing off a New Year's countdown outfit!

Mermaid Bay

wearing dress - c/o Faith & Lola swimmers - Asos I promised you guys I'd get some beach shots while I was on holidays. Shooting at "golden hour" on a beach with a flowy, over-the-top dress (and credit for the photographs goes to my boyfriend Luci) is something I have wanted to do for so long now. It's probably cliché but it's also really pretty, so who cares? These beaches are amazing, and basically deserted, meaning we often have them all to ourselves. I am so lucky to be able to visit these beaches for a holiday, and when the sun sets, and the stars come out (spectacularly - due to there being very little light pollution) it feels pretty magical. Hope you're all having a beautiful day,

Praise the Sunshine

wearing clips - Little Pineneedle blouse - Vintage sweater - c/o Sheinside shorts - Asos shoes - Asos hat - c/o Oasap I've got some brand new things in my shop, including these heart shaped collar clips! I also wanted to ask you guys - which colour heart clips would you guys most like to be made? The red ones are up in my store already, but maybe you guys want to see some other colours? In fact there's a poll in the sidebar which you can use to vote :) I'd really appreciate it! I really like these red heart ones - you all know I'm obsessed with anything heart-printed or heart-shaped - so consequently I've been pairing them with every single outfit lately. And I have to admit that this outfit probably went a little over the top with heart print items - my clips, my shorts AND my sweater. Ah well. One can never wear too many hearts. Astronomers recently took this picture (the one of the left) of the surface of Titan and have deduced that it is very likely a river. Titan is one of Saturn's moons and likely the most habitable body in our solar system after Earth, and the only other world we know of with stable liquid on its surface. The scientists don't think the river is water however, more likely liquid ethane or methane. Still, it's pretty exciting to imagine an alien world with a running river and possibly even oceans. The image on the right is an artistic representation by Ron Miller of this river. Even though it's not a real photograph, I love these kinds of images almost more than the real thing - and they're so valuable to scientists in helping capture people's imaginations and create interest in the work that the scientists are doing. Plus imagine how cool it would be to look up at the sky and see Saturn just hanging there. I hope you're all having a wonderful day!