Saturday 30 May 2015

DIY Piano Dress | Make Thrift Buy #18

Presenting: one of my favourite Make Thrift Buy's I have done thus far! I'm so soooo excited about this one, and I hope that heaps of you give it a go - because it can be done on pretty much ANY dress (or shirt, or skirt for that matter! The possibilities are endless!)

Watch the tutorial here:


Please tag your creations #diyannika on instagram if you try it (or any of my other tutorials) out!







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Sunday 24 May 2015

My Week In Outfits #3 + My Birthday!

Hello everyone! Today I turn 23 years old.

I celebrated last night by being a birthday lion and hanging out with my besties, including, of course, Katie from Buddle and Squeak!
However, most of my week doesn't consist of me wearing onesies (in the daytime. As soon as I get home from uni, it's straight into the snuggly lion onesie for me). I really liked all my outfits last week, so I filmed them all and made a little video with them! Enjoy :)

Let me know which days outfits were your favourites!







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Thursday 14 May 2015

DIY Toast Pockets Skirt | MTB #17

Hooray! I finally got around to doing this Make Thrift Buy challenge that I've wanted to do since way back in October last year. It took me so long to get around to it that the original skirt (by Lazzari) is not longer in stores... haha *oops* - BUT on the other hand, that's even better for all the people who missed out on it (or couldn't afford it - it was $200), because now you'll be able to make one for yourself!

As mentioned in the video, I made some toast designs available for download.


(that was a weird sentence to write)

I hope that you've all been having a wonderful week,







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Friday 8 May 2015

My Week In Outfits #2

I got such wonderful feedback from my last "My Week In Outfits" video that I really wanted to make another one - so here it is! Unfortunately I didn't film what I was doing out-and-about this time because most of last week consisted of going to doctors appointments and and doing assignments, and that would have been super, super boring haha. Nonetheless, I hope that you all still like this video! Let me know which outfit was your favourite!
p.s. I've been having a mini-dilemma over what to "label" my style. Not that it really matters, but it was something I was thinking about when trying to come up with a video title (obviously, I gave up in the end and just called it "My Week In Outfits #2"). But, if you had to, how would you sum up my style in a short sentence?







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Sunday 3 May 2015

Doe, A Deer! & The Uncanny Valley

Well, I think this has been one of the longest blog hiatuses I've ever had! I hope you haven't all forgotten about me. Life update: I've had a spectacularly crappy couple of weeks, but everything is *fingers crossed* going to get better from here on in. I already feel like myself again - I've even been dressing up all cute again and slowly getting back into making clothes (even if it's only printed t-shirts for now, because they don't require a lot of energy to make!)
So I HAVE to talk about a couple of things in this outfit: the first is this brooch that was sent to me by the amazing Amanda from Hungry Designs! I've been wearing it out pretty much every time I leave the house, because it always gets commented on by other cute, well-dressed people, who want to know where I got it from!
And this bag. This bag is ~everything~! The roof is on a hinge so it lifts up to let you put all your stuff - keys, mobile, etc - inside it, and it's even got cute little farm animals painted all around the sides. To this day, it remains one of my best market finds ever. It also makes up part of my blog header!

Outfit details
Shirt is thrifted (Hong Kong Salvos)
Pinafore is vintage Country Road
Brooch c/o Hungry Designs
Bag is Vintage
Tights are from Clear It
Shoes are from Asos
Lipstick is Vixen by Gorgeous Cosmetics


So I really wanted to write a little science bit on that "My Idol" app that was taking off last week - and if you don't know what I'm talking about then you were possibly living under a rock/don't have social media.

Bascially, the My Idol app takes an image of your face and really cleverly fits it to a 3D animated model. And then makes it dance around. To Justin Timberlake. Creepiness ensues.
Posting these pictures on facebook elicited strong reactions of "OMG SCARY" and "I don't like it. Please stop".

Everyone's reaction was pretty much the same, which was: I am at the same time amused and terrified.

But why? Why do we find this so creepy, and have such a strong emotive reaction to something that's not-quite-human?

Well, this sense of "creepiness" has actually been well-studied and is known as the "uncanny valley".
Basically, the more human something appears, the more positively we react to it - until a point. This point, where the figure is almost-but-not-quite-human, is the point at which most people will experience a really strong negative reaction.

It's also the reason why human-like robots are also completely terrifying.
 Hanako the dental robot

Saya the reception robot

And that's also what's happening with the My Idol characters - they look just like us and they move in a human way, but something is just a little bit... off. They're uncanny. And so they fall right into that uncanny valley.
Cute clothes, though.
Did any of you also jump on the My Idol bandwagon and create some terrifying avatars last week? I want to hear all about it!

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







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