Tokyo!! .....almost ;)

SO! I should hopefully be on a plane right now! This post is scheduled to go live while I'm 10km up in the air and heading for wintery Tokyo, and hopefully that's still the case and nothing has gone wrong with this scheduled post and/or the flight (the latter is probably the one I should be more concerned about). I'm probably not going to get around to blogging anything for a few days, so this post shows some of the best photos I took last time I was in Japan - that was more than a year ago in 2011 (and I am ashamed to admit I only just got around to going through the photos properly a couple of weeks ago, which is why you would have never seen them on the blog before)! Anyway, enjoy! One of the most amazing second-hand stores I've ever been in - yeah they had a whole section just for Vivienne Westwood stuff. GIANT MOTHERFLIPPIN' SPIDER CRABS Getting excited for some more weird shopping experiences... We stumbled across this last time while in Osaka... Ronald McDonald doing some community service..?? Posing for a lookbook photo in a Japanese vintage dress (see original post) More from me once I'm in Japan!  さよなら, (I've totally been practising my Hiragana and typed that myself, wooooo!)

Packing my bags..

Packing a variety of wigs and other pretty hair accessories... (floral headband is DIY) Finally, today I'm getting around to packing my bags. Gosh I hate packing - but I know I have no justification for whinging because I'm packing for a very good reason, so that's the very last complaining you'll hear from me. Planning my outfits... (minus the hundreds of layers of thermals I'll also be wearing beneath) Totally set for Valentines day in Japan AND my 2-year anniversary thanks to the extremely speedy delivery and arrival of these tights this morning c/o My Tights Versatile leather skater skirt and all the jewellery I'm taking with me (mainly provided to me by Merrin & Gussy and Oasap, and of course, my handmade sunflower clips) I'm really excited to wear that bat necklace with some black lipstick and creepy doll dress! Entirely necessary 5 lipsticks I'm bringing... red, black, pink, blue and lilac Some handmade presents for people I'm meeting up with in Japan! It is going to be Valentines day after all... My lifesaver for the long plane trip... my amazingly amazing Kindle loaded up with about 50 science fiction books, Carl Sagan essays and the Origin of Species which I will make myself read! Plus a couple of trashy novels, because, well, you know, it is a long flight... SO, this is goodbye from me for a few days! I'll speak to you all once I'm in... *deep breath*... TOKYO!

Smitten Little Kitten / Delicious Science

One quick last outfit post while I'm still at home! I'm taking both this amazing sweater and skirt with me to Japan, so you'll also see them in outfit posts there, but I was wearing this outfit the other day and couldn't resist snapping a few photos... wearing sweater - c/o Romwe skirt - c/o Sheinside socks - Cotton On shoes - c/o Topb2c I've been collecting these photos for ages and finally have a large enough collection to share: science food. There are some amazingly creative people out there and I'm happy they're sharing their love of anatomy, astronomy and animals through food! And Octopus cake. Yeah. (source) Anatomical Pancakes (source - and check it out because he's also made reptiles and dinosaurs) Space Cupcakes (source) Anatomical heart danish pastries (source) This is not as amazing as the ones above but it's still cute - and you can totally try it yourself ! ;) Oreos showing the phases of the moon (source) Who's hungry?

Alice in Wonderland / Creepy Chemistry

For some reason when I put on this black Abhair wig, I want to dress up like a character from childhood stories (see my Snow White post from a week ago here). Well, it's happened twice now anyway, haha. I owned this beautiful illustrated Alice in Wonderland book when I was little and read it so many times, and it lended itself nicely to this outfit post with my awesome new illustrated Alice in Wonderland tights! I made these lace cuffs for my Japan trip so I can instantly cute-ify any socks I buy while I'm over there. And I'm wearing these gorgeous lolita platforms from Topb2c again. I'm a bit obsessed. (Also sidenote: Topb2c is running a deal at the moment, to get 8% off use the code topb2c8 and to get 15% off - if you're one of the first 100 to use it - use topb2c15.) wearing dress - c/o Sheinside tights - Ebay shoes - c/o Topb2c socks - Vintage wig - c/o Abhair So Alice in Wonderland was full of some pretty trippy chemical reactions - pebbles turning into cakes, etc (see what I did there? I'm great at these segues into science... haha). Here's two amazingly weird chemical reactions, and a little explanation about what's going on behind them (thanks to Kailey for sending them to me!) Simply mix two small quantities of hydrogen peroxide (what you use to bleach your hair) and sodium iodide (this is a salt, you'll need to add water) and a little bit of soap. And then back right away. The sodium iodide speeds up the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. As hydrogen peroxide has the formula H2O2, when it decomposes it breaks down into water and oxygen. The crazy-looking reaction is caused by the oxygen blowing up the soap bubbles in the solution as it escapes. You can even DIY this chemical reaction using these instructions! This creepy reaction is done simply by setting alight some mercury (II) thiocyanate and watching it go. It's what's known as a decomposition reaction, but the whole reaction is a little lengthy to type out here, so if you want to know the specifics then have a look here. And I don't recommend doing this one yourself... it's particularly toxic at just about every stage of the process. This is proof that chemistry can be ridiculously cool (and creepy)! Do you know any crazy chemical reactions? Much love,

Pineneedle & Thread Mini Magazine

Guys! Yesterday I woke up with SO much stuff to do, organising everything for my trip to Japan, finalising accommodation, packing my suitcase, etc... so I spent the entire day making a magazine instead. Don't ever say I'm not good at procrastinating - I'm really, really actually very good at it. Anyway, this is what happened. I lay all the blame on Glossi for telling me that this thing existed. If you can't view the embedded magazine below, then click here to have a little look. I hope you guys like it - it's got a bit of science, a bit of online shopping and photos of three very lovely ladies whose style I adore. Please let me know what you think! p.s. click here if you're having troubles viewing the embedded version. I also made it available as a printable pdf that you can download here (and print out as a booklet format).

Little Red / A Little More Fake Science

Today's post had two purposes other than just being your run-of-the-mill outfit post. One was to test out my teeny little netbook's capacity for photoshop - this is the baby computer I'm going to be taking overseas with me to Japan, and I wanted to make sure I'd be able to blog once I'm over there! And it was successful! (although it did take me about a bajillion years longer to edit these photos). The other purpose of this post was to test out my gorgeous new cape coat from Oasap! I'm also planning on taking this overseas with me, so that I don't freeze my butt off. I tested it out today because it's wet and very cold here (I told you Australian weather is completely mental). I think it will do the job nicely (although it's impossible to wear a backpack while wearing this coat unless I put the backpack under the coat and become a hunchback - which is slightly annoying. I guess you can look forward to a whole lot of hunchback shots of me from Japan, because this is the only coat I have!). wearing cape coat - c/o Oasap skirt - Wholesale tights - Wholesale shoes - Rubi shoes Seeing as I got such good feedback on my "false science facts" post the other day, I'm going to do a similar post! Side note: don't feel bad if you thought some of these were real - I'm not intending to make anyone feel stupid! (And I've believed all of these at some point as well.) The point I want to make is that humans are easily fooled - and using science and our critical thinking facilities we can sort the right from the wrong :) Here's some more false science facts that you might have heard of before (thanks again, Snopes)! - Gum is indigestible, so if you swallow it then it'll stay in your stomach for 7 years - FALSE Chewing gum is largely indigestible, but you shouldn't freak out too much if you swallow it - it'll just pass through your digestive tract at the same rate as any other food, but remain largely intact on the way ;) (yeah, gross). - Blondes will be extinct within 200 years - FALSE This pops up in the news from time to time on slow news days (and you can replace blondes with redheads as well), and it's not just a recent myth - this has been circulating since the mid 1800s. It's basically a misunderstanding of genetics, recessive genes and statistics that leads to this myth popping up again and again. Put basically - this becomes plausible only if no one in the world wanted to have babies with natural blondes, ever again, including blonde people themselves. - Rubber tyres protect you in a car during a lightning strike - FALSE I freaked out when I read this one, thinking "I'm not safe in a car in a storm??" But cars are actually quite safe in a lightning storm - turns out it's not the tyres that make you safe. People think rubber tyres are what's protecting you because they don't conduct electricity, but in fact it is the highly-conductive outer metal shell of the car. If lightning hits the car, the metal shell picks up the lightning's discharge and deposits it straight into the ground, bypassing the car's inhabitants. Phew! - Getting a hair cut stimulates new growth - FALSE Doing anything to the hair that's already on your head (the cells are all dead) has no effect on the living section of the hair beneath the skin. A good hair cut might make your hair feel healthier and thicker, but fresh hair is going to keep growing at the exact same rate it was growing at regardless if you've got long and scraggly hair, or nice and newly cut hair. It's just an illusion that makes it seem like your hair isn't growing as fast if it hasn't recently been cut, because the hairs become thinner at the ends (and can also break off if you dye it too much like I did, heheh). Hope you're all wonderful :) p.s. Image of woman blowing a gum bubble above is by Joseph Sterling (Age of Adolescence)