The Pineneedle Collective

Saturday, 23 August 2014

A Post of Outtakes

In the age of the internet, instagram, blogs and selfies, it's fairly easy to compose a carefully-crafted version of yourself for the wider world to see. My world appears through a select composite of angles and arrangements, positions and poses, faces and filters.

To the unaware, this can lead to the impression that my life is perfect - that I live in an eternal picnic-world of cute patterns and prints and perfect lipstick; that I never have struggles or stresses; that I never wake up with bed hair or panda-eyes because I've forgotten to take off my makeup the night before.

But life isn't perfect, and it's good to be reminded now and again that everyone else doesn't just roll out of bed at 6am rocking perfect hair and eyeliner.

Besides, some of these photos are just way too hilarious not to share. So, enjoy this post of less-than-perfect outtakes (quickly, before I decide that this is the worst mistake of my life and I take this post down!)

When taking photos, I will inevitably get an unstoppable urge to pull a ridiculous face and completely ruin the photo. Me and Katie didn't even realise that both of us had done this at the same time (in the above photo) until looking at the photos afterwards. And here I am ruining the nice photo below:

Oh Annika... gosh... might I say that you are looking stunning today? Did you do something to your hair? (I didn't even know that my face was capable of doing this; thank goodness for cameras!)

I'm not quite sure what was going through my head when I decided to pose like this...

Again, not the best pose I've ever thought of (...robot girl?):

And, frankly, the next photo just terrifies me a little bit. This outfit clearly brought out the top model in me.

Hi, Annika. That is a good... face... you've got there.

Now I'll share with you guys a few photography tips and tricks. This is how I get all my flawless outfit shots.

There's the flawless hair-flick photos:

The "this is going to look AWESOME" spinning shot:

Then there's the classic "hang on, I can't tell if the camera is working" pose:

Apparently, I also pull a LOT of grumpy faces:

And I am thinking that I might use this as part of my modelling portfolio:

"Oh! This will be a cute pose!" *FAIL*

"The sun has suddenly come out and blinded me" pose:

And the "I'm just looking at this teeeeeny ant" pose:

Good one Annika, that'll make a great photo: because normal people often walk around holding all their hair out at the sides of their head.

Classic vintage pose (aka going to the toilet in the lake):

Elegance:

Okay, I think I have sufficiently destroyed my carefully-crafted internet persona now. Just remember, next time you start comparing your life to seemingly-perfect blogs and instagram accounts - they don't often post the outtakes of life.

I hope that you've all had a lovely week,

Saturday, 16 August 2014

Best Fr3ndz & X-Rays

Me and the gorgeous Katie had planned to spend all of Friday crafting together, when I remembered last minute that I had an appointment for an X-ray, smack-bang in the middle of the day. I was going to have to cancel our craft date - something we'd both been looking forward to all week - and spend the day being irradiated instead. Yay. But because Katie is amazing, she insisted on coming with me on the 2-hour long train trip to the radiologists, to sit with me in the boring waiting room and hold my hand. She even starved with me in solidarity (I had to fast before the X-ray). There is a reason best friends are called best friends - because they are the actual best.

Katie turned a potentially crappy day into a really lovely one, and we even did get to do a bit of crafting in the end - I'm helping Katie to make her very first dress (using my DIY dress pattern tutorial).

These pictures were taken a while ago now, but I think they're perfect for today's post!

Dress and jacket are thrifted | tights are from Japan | shoes are c/o Chicwish (ages old, no longer for sale) | Katie's dress is thrifted (a gift from me!)

Also, in honour of the amazing science and diagnostic tool that is x-rays, here is a wonderful series of gifs by Cameron Drake and Dr Noah Weiss that show the joints of the human body in motion:

The knee cap

Shoulder joint

Wrist and Hand

Human beings have a few different types of joints, including hinge joints (just like a hinge on a door, like in the knee), ball-and-socket (like in the shoulder, which allows wide rotation) and pivot joints (like the one at the top of your spine that allows you to rotate your head in a "no" motion). You don't really think about how they work until you start to have problems (or you are an anatomy student), but when you have a closer look, you can appreciate what an amazing machine the body is!

You can see a few more joints in motion on the IFLS website.

Sunday, 10 August 2014

Oh Mickey You're So Fine + Dorky Video (Get Ready With Me)

Shirt, skirt and jacket are thrifted | socks are from Clear It | shoes c/o Choies (out of stock, ages old) | necklace c/o Ginger Pickle (Eclectic Eccentricity) | badge is a vintage gift from Katie

WHY AM I SO SURLY IN THESE PHOTOS? Clearly I have a lot of angst. However, I'm pretty happy with my mostly-thrifted outfit today, and the fact that I found both this Mickey Mouse shirt and varsity jacket on the same day - score!

I also decided to make this super dorky outfit/"get ready with me" video to accompany this post.

Wait. "What's a 'Get ready with me' video, Annika?" OH GOSH! Have you been living under a rock, or have you NOT spent all your time watching beauty bloggers on youtube?

Tsk tsk.

Never fear, I'm here to educate you. If you haven't seen this particular style of video on youtube before, here is a salient example.

Now watch my video.

Just your average day for an average gal with fashion superpowers ☼

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

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!