The Pineneedle Collective

Monday 16 September 2013

Bright Orange on an Overcast Day

dress, gloves and tights are from Dangerfield clearance store, headband is c/o Milanoo and shoes are from Italy.

I moved house! And this wall is part of my new backyard - I have a plain white wall to take photos against! Finally! I was so excited, in fact, to find that I've got endless possibilities for photo taking around my new home. It's a fashion blogger's dream home. Because the best thing is that we're right next door to a big park with all these amazing community murals; there will definitely be some photos taken against those!

I couldn't resist this dress from the Dangerfield clearance store "Clear It" (118 King St if you live in Sydney - go, and search through the $5 defective stock bin - it's amazing). The dress was from stock that was going to be thrown out because of some slight defect (in this case, a button that needed to be sewn back on). I also couldn't resist these gloves because they were only $4. It's pretty warm now - we've basically said goodbye to the cardigan and coat season - but I wonder if I can pull off gloves without people looking oddly at me? These photos are my attempt to do so, anyway. What do you think about gloves when it's not the middle of winter?

And if you're currently somewhere that's not overcast or raining, raining, raining like Sydney is, then see if this video makes you want to go outside and get some fresh air ;)

Friday 13 September 2013

Spring Fling / Meeting Minute Physics and Asap Science

dress is c/o Modcloth, cardigan is Forever 21, bag is thrifted, hat is wholesale.

Today I remembered that I entirely forgot to post these shots! Which is great, as I've packed away my tripod and camera for moving house tomorrow, (eek, tomorrow?? I really have to pack my clothes)!

Before I get back to packing up, let me quickly tell you about this outfit. These photos were taken on the first day of Spring in this beautiful dress from Modcloth. I'm trying to rewear the "older" stuff in my wardrobe a lot more, and I can't believe I had neglected this dress for so long (in fact, the last time I wore it was on the first day of Spring last year!) For shame! It's got such a gorgeous vintage cut and the super-bold print of sunflowers is magnificent.

Today's science story also happens to be some exciting Annika news - please indulge me. And possibly also get jealous. About a month ago, I met the brains behind minute physics (Henry) and asap science (Gregory and Mitchell), whose videos I have featured countless times on this blog before - see here and here for example. I also managed to also palm off blog business cards to them both, though I don't know if they've ever had a look! I met them because they were in Australia for the IFLS Live show (to which I missed out on tickets), but they had a "meet up" in Sydney beforehand to which I enthusiastically attended with about 3 other fans - and then awkwardly said hello because I didn't actually know what they looked like, seeing as their videos mainly feature their hands. They were all such lovely people, though, and my housemate and I chatted to them for almost an hour!

Real-life proof that I met Henry (left), Mitchell and Gregory (right).

Here's a couple of amazing science videos from these guys.

Firstly, asap science aims to destroy any notion that what you see is really real. (I recently made a very similar post about the illusion of reality).

And this is a favourite video of mine from minute physics, which I posted about nearly a year ago now in relation to this pink dress, about how the colour pink doesn't physically exist.

I hope you're all super dooper fantastically well,

Thursday 12 September 2013

Night At The Museum

The other night, my friend Clare and I went to the Australian Museum's open night (also known as Jurassic Lounge). I'm currently moving house and don't have much clothing-wise to post for you guys - and I have packed up my camera - so I thought I'd post some photos from the other night (science!) If you're in Sydney, I highly recommend going to Jurassic Lounge while it's still running, which is every Tuesday night until November. There's music, drinks, exhibitions, comedy, performances and science! Plus basically everyone there was super well-dressed. I saw a lot of vintage and modcloth-clad people. It's basically my ideal kind of place.

Make sure you check out the turtle skeleton, the walrus skull and the factoids on giant worms in the above photos!

I'll be back with more posts when I'm done moving house and not so craaaazy busy! (Currently it's 1 day until moving day, and I haven't packed up any of my clothes yet! *Gulp*)

Sunday 8 September 2013

Pineapples! (and Watermelons)

sweater and bag c/o Choies, skirt is thrifted, socks are thrifted, necklace is thrifted and shoes are from Asos.

Well, I can't say much more about this outfit other than I'm wearing a heck load of pineapples.

I also want to point out that this is one of my last posts with sponsored clothes from the companies that I am discontinuing sponsorship with, and now I am endeavoring to make many more of my own clothes (see below)!

So I love pineapple and watermelon-printed-anything at the moment, and if you didn't see it on my facebook or instagram the other day, I'm currently in the process of making this:

Hand-drawing all those watermelons took a while but it was totally worth it! I can't wait to share the tutorial with you all really soon!

So this comic from the Oatmeal about why the Mantis Shrimp is the coolest animal in the world is both sciencey and hilarious - and you should have a read of it! Not only do mantis shrimp have 16 colour receptors (as opposed to our measly three which alone allow us to see some pretty amazing sunsets), but they're also insanely strong. I won't give away much more - you can have a read here. The Mantis Shrimp will either become your favourite animal or the animal of your nightmares.

Photo from The Oatmeal

What's your favourite animal and why?

I hope you're all having a lovely day,

Saturday 7 September 2013

Girl, Boy and Life from Mars

Skirt, necklace and shoes are thrifted. Cardigan is from Forever 21 and top is c/o Choies.

I was trying to pose next to a lemon tree in some of these photos to accentuate both the yellows and "spring-ness" of my outfit (it being the beginning of Spring in the southern hemisphere), buuuut you totally can't see the lemons, so that whole idea kind of failed. Still, isn't this thrifted necklace the cutest thing ever? My 2-year-old niece absolutely loves the necklace as well, and as she has just learnt how to talk, she kept pointing at it and saying "Agga!" (her name for me) "Look! Two girls!" I almost went to correct her and say "No, it's actually a boy and a girl", but then I paused. It almost made me feel like I was telling her that only boys and girls should kiss, which is obviously stupid and not something you should tell to any child. Even though this necklace was most likely made to be a stylised cartoon boy and girl, I was shocked that it took a 2-year-old's perspective to make me realise how ingrained gender roles and stereotypes are in my own brain, that I would immediately assume that this necklace could only be of a boy and a girl. Why not a girl with short hair and a boy with a ponytail? Or two girls? Or two boys? So now I like to think of it as my "two people kissing" necklace.

So I have been really excited to mention this for a couple of weeks, and now I finally can! I'm on the writing team for the Australian online magazine Birdee! It's quite like Rookie magazine, but for Australian readers the articles may seem a lot more relevant. It covers style, science, art, politics (both Australian and world), love, sex - and a bunch of other diverse topics. The articles written by my fellow writers are incredible and I hope that mine come even close to their standards! You can read my first article here.

Image source

Did life on Earth originate on Mars? This theory (which you might have learnt about in school as panspermia), while taken somewhat seriously as a possibility for the origins of life, has never really had too much evidence behind it. However, two separate studies very recently emerged suggesting that the conditions of Mars would have been much more suitable than Earth for "getting the ball rolling" on creating organic molecules (this includes carbon binding with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, and is essentially what all living things are composed of). A meteorite from Mars would then have had to travel to Earth (which we know has happened at least once - it's how we know that Mars contains the element boron). In fact, it's boron that probably would have been needed to be around to allow RNA (similar to DNA, but not as stable) to form in the first place. It's certainly not conclusive proof that we're all technically martians, however it does make this possibility a lot more likely. Read more about the two separate discoveries here and here.

I hope you're all having a great day!

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Back to School & Barreleye Fish

Annika is wearing dress c/o Lashes of London, sweater from Japan, socks from Cotton On, Thrifted basket and shoes c/o Yeswalker. Ashley is wearing top c/o Romwe, sweater from Emoda, skirt from Valley Girl, shoes c/o Sammydress.

The number of times that I've walked through this glorious courtyard at Sydney University and wanted to take pictures... I was beyond delighted to finally do a photoshoot there with Ashley the other week! The only thing that would have made it better would be if we had been allowed to walk on the grass...but Sydney University has their gorgeous grass roped off 364 days of the year so that it remains immaculate. Silly prestigious university.

Today, I discovered that this fish exists, so I really wanted to share it with you all. This is a barreleye fish.
What looks like it's eyes (it's sad, sad eyes) are actually its nostrils. Its eyes exist within its transparent head, which protects its eyes and also helps them to collect more light. That green bit that looks like a plant inside its transparent head are in fact the fish's eyes.
Of course, this critter lives very deep within the ocean. Deep sea creatures are fantastically bizarre, and this guy is no exception to that rule.

Image via National Geographic

That's your weird animal fact for the day! And I hope you're all having a good day too :)