The Pineneedle Collective

Friday, 20 June 2014

Indoor Picnics

Cape, skirt, basket and belt are thrifted | shoes are Naot | blouse is from Forever 21 (several years old)

I am back from my self-imposed exam exile! With my last exam this afternoon, my responsibilities have suddenly melted away and now I am basically free for an entire month to blog, sew and make videos. I have been scheming on so many different DIYs for the last four months and now that I'm finally free, I'm both buzzing with energy to get started and entirely overwhelmed at the same time; scrolling through this pinterest board, I've been having so many ideas come flooding in at once that it's become rather like a traffic jam. I think I'll take a couple of days to breathe, have a break and then begin on some serious crafting!

My picnic basket is busted ;__;

This red cape remains one of my favourite thrifting finds to date (although this recent find is a serious contender). And how good is this stripey pastel pink skirt - I thrifted this on the same day! Somehow, going op-shopping became the thing I did every time I needed a study break. Which... was a lot. Which also means that my wardrobe is basically bursting at the seams right now >.>

I'll keep this post short and sweet, but I'll be around here a lot more in the next couple of weeks ;) I've got some really exciting things planned, and a LOT of new thrifted clothes to blog about (if you can call thrifted clothes "new"), so stick around!

I hope that you're all having a beautiful day,

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Mrs Strong: A Mr Men DIY

Last Friday I woke up determined to make something of these Mr Men bedsheets that I found at the op shop 3 or 4 months ago. I sent Katie a quick message asking if she wanted to join me in a crafting-session so we could make ourselves matching outfits for the Finders Keepers Craft Markets later that night. She responded with an enthusiastic yes, but unfortunately she started feeling really anxious and had to cancel. I felt terrible having my main girl feel so bad, and wanted to do anything that I could to help, so I spent the whole day binge-listening to podcasts and working on some skirts for us both. After making two matching circle skirts, I thought I would cut around one of the Mr Men characters and turn it into a pinafore-style dress - after transforming "Mr" Strong into "Mrs Strong" of course (that's what I think of your sexist gender-binaries, Roger Hargreaves! Did you know that the "Mr Men" and "Little Misses" live in "Misterland"? *grumpy face*). I also put some stuffing inside the pinafore-bit to help it keep its shape, and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

So I turned up later that afternoon at Katie's apartment with a surprise gift, and told her that anytime she is feeling bad she should put on the pinafore and remember how amazing and strong she is ('coz she is)! We then proceeded to have the best time at the Finders Keepers markets, meeting hundreds of wonderfully crafty people, being complimented on our style by literally everyone we talked to, feeling massively good about ourselves and (half-jokingly) scheming on a plan to drop out of uni and open our own craft business.

Pop along to Katie's blog to see more photos and close-ups of her Mrs Strong pinafore. Also, if you've ever suffered from anxiety or are close to someone who does, Katie's latest blog post will probably really resonate with you. Give it a read :)

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

Sunday, 8 June 2014

Velvet Daisies / Mammal Eggs

Dress, belt and cardigan are thrifted | tights from Japan | shoes are Naot

Some of my latest thrifting successes - this daisy-print shirt dress and velvet cardigan (which is actually Alice in the Eve, a trendy and expensive Australian brand), that altogether cost me $4. If I were not to wear shoes, the entire outfit would be under $10 - unfortunately, these Naot shoes push that total outfit cost up a whole order of magnitude!

Your cute science news for the day - this is what a mammal looks like hatching from an egg.

I hope that you're all having a great week! I'm a busy studying bee with my final exams in less than two weeks, so if you don't hear from me for a while, that's what I'm doing! (And if you've got instagram, you can follow me here).

Thursday, 5 June 2014

Floppy Thrift Shop Dresses / Bad Cholesterol?

Dress is thrifted | cardigan and basket are thrifted | necklace c/o Eccentric Electricity | shoes are Naot | tights are OKOK

This week Craft n' Crumble Tuesday also became Craft, Crumble and CAMERA Tuesday (eh, eh?) with me and the wonderful Katie deciding to put on our very best floppy thrift shop dresses to take these rather silly photos. And no, we weren't going on a picnic or anything - this picnic basket is apparently just Katie's new handbag now. I like it.

So guess who got full marks on their biochemistry blog-post assignment! ;___;

I also got the loveliest feedback, not only from my professor but from all of you guys as well, so thank you! It was so good reading all of the insightful comments that you left, and feeling all warm and fuzzy about the fact that I have such intelligent people coming to read what I write here. I might stop now before I get too sappy, but I love you guys!

I definitely want to do more biochemistry and genetics posts, because it really seemed like you guys were interested in that, plus it's my passion! So I'll bring you some interesting tidbits from the stuff I've been studying (it'll help me study, as well. Win win)!

The chemical structure of cholesterol, for all you chemistry nerds out there.

Today I'm going to give you the rundown on cholesterol. It's actually pretty fascinating.

For all the bad press that cholesterol gets, it's actually an extremely important molecule to have in your body. Remember how we talked about cells? Well the thing that keeps all the water, DNA, proteins and other useful stuff inside each cell is something called a membrane. These membranes are partly made up of fats. Cholesterol slots into the membranes, gives them strength and also makes them flexible and impermeable so you can import things in and out of the cell. It's also used in making hormones.

And it's so important that your body actually makes its own cholesterol.

So then, you might ask, what's with all the bad rap that cholesterol gets? Well, every cell in your body is able to "take in" cholesterol. Unfortunately, you have one type of cell in your body called a macrophage (a type of white blood cell) which is totally cholesterol-happy.

Macrophages just can't get enough of that sweet sweet cholesterol, and will gobble it up whenever they see the chance. Unfortunately, when the cholesterol levels in your blood are way too high, the macrophages ingest WAY too much cholesterol, become all foamy, die, and make plaques which stick onto your blood vessels. Too much of this, and undesireable things like strokes and heart attacks ensue - and that's why too much cholesterol is a bad, bad thing.

What I imagine macrophages look like when they come across cholesterol.

So to stop your macrophages from overdosing on delicious cholesterol, you obviously need to limit the amount of cholesterol you are eating. Cholesterol-rich foods include meat and dairy, so going easy on these can help. Remember that your body also makes its own cholesterol - if you don't eat any, your body will compensate and just make more.

So what you really want to do is to eat things which compete with cholesterol absorption from the gut. Many plants are rich in cholesterol-inhibitors called phytosterols and eating lots of these can reduce the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream.

There is also a link - which is still not very well understood - between polyunsaturated fats (think vegatable oils and fish) lowering the amounts of blood cholesterol, and producing more of these special proteins called HDLs which "mop up" excess cholesterol from your blood before those darn macrophages get to it.

I hope you guys learnt something new, and I also hope that you're having a great day!

Saturday, 31 May 2014

Kawaii as F**k / Universal Expansion

If you follow me or Katie on instagram, you might have seen that we went shrinky-dink mad on our last Tuesday craft session (which we have decided to name "Craft and Crumble" because we had apple crumble one week while doing crafts and realised the fantastic alliteration opportunities this held for us - we also realised that the name gave us an excuse to eat apple crumble every week). We totally even started a hashtag #craftncrumble to document our Tuesday craft sessions, haha. #waytoocool

Anyway, after about 10 failed shrinky-dinks, shrunken chip packets and a lot of plastic fume inhalation (still not sure if putting plastic in the oven is the best idea in the world), I ended up making this necklace and I think it's one of my favourite things to come out of our crafting sessions so far.

Dress is from Lalamagic (a few years old now) | necklace is DIY | shoes are Naot

It's hard to see in the photo above, but one of my favourite things about it is the holes that connect the plastic to the chain - they're actually love-heart shaped! This was done using a heart-shaped hole punch.

So, something you might know from physics is that 1) nothing moves faster than the speed of light, and that 2) the universe once fit into an infinitesimally small point (then the Big Bang happened and it all expanded).

Well, actually, apparently not according to Veritasium.

Mind so, so blown. (Thought I do direct you to the comment below by my astrophysics friend Lamb).

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

Friday, 30 May 2014

Lady Vintage & Animal Language

Bodysuit is thrifted | skirt is thrifted | brooch c/o Ladybird Likes | shoes are Naot | blazer and bag are thrifted

Lately I've found a number of wonderful woolen vintage skirts at the op shop, and it's made me realise that sizes were a lot smaller in the past - although I'm usually a size 8 or 10, when it comes to vintage skirts I'm always a size 12-14! To match my vintage outfit, I also wore this handmade brooch based on a vintage sewing pattern sent to me by Ladybird Likes - isn't it gorgeous?

For your cute science story of the day: Fairy wren birds have distinct family names, which they use to call one another!

Image source: Robert Krulwich /NPR blogs

This name-calling has evolved as a way of protecting the fairy wren against the cuckoo, whose mothers drop their eggs into fairy wren nests, to the fairy wren into raising their offspring. Read about it here!

I hope that you're all having a gorgeous day,