The Pineneedle Collective

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,

Saturday, 26 July 2014

Harlequin Legs and Squid Suckers

I love pattern mixing! I will forever ignore the silly "fashion rule" that you shouldn't wear more than one pattern at a time. Clashing patterns forever! Who's with me?

I am pretty happy with this thrift shop dress find, though. I've pretty much replaced my entire wardrobe through thrifting this year, which was a goal that I didn't think I'd be able to achieve! Of course, it helps when you know how to sew, and you're able to alter your finds to make them just a little bit better! Seriously, if you haven't gotten into sewing yet (WHY NOT?) you should give it a go! It will open up so many fashion possibilities for you (which I assume you're all interested in, being on this page and all). For me, it has meant that I can take anything from a thrift shop - mens shirts, plain skivvies, giant coats, you name it - and turn it into something awesome.

Electron scanning microscopes are wonderful. They not only allow us to see things with much more clarity than traditional light microscopes, but they can see smaller too. Electron microscopes can see things down to 1 nanometre in size. That's 1 billionth of a metre. You may have seen cool pictures of hair follicles via electron scanning microscopy.

So this is a cool demonstration of electron scanning microscopy. Above is a normal underwater photograph of a squid's suckers. Pretty cool; squids = cool.

But guess what these suckers look like when you get up close? Very close.

Image credit: Jessica Schiffman and Caroline Schauer, Drexel University

This is a "false coloured" image, so keep in mind that they're not actually green, but other than that this is exactly what those suckers look like close up! THEY LOOK LIKE LITTLE MONSTERS. I actually think they're kinda cute.

The suckers of the squid have these little "teeth" to aid their suction, helping the squid stick to things.

And this is also just one of the many reasons that I will absolutely never, ever eat squid.

That's it from me! I hope that you're all having a lovely day,

Friday, 25 July 2014

Ask & Answer (and Alliteration!) with Annika

Hi! I'm just popping in today to post here (if you haven't already seen it) the Q & A video that I did a couple of days ago (my first vlog, omg)!

p.s. thank you so much for all your lovely, wonderful comments on my last post. They really meant the world to me. Some of you may have even made me cry (in a good way!) Words cannot express how grateful I am, so just... thank you.