She's Gone

Thank you to those that voted about that dang bikini ad on my blog! I have no idea why that has shown up instead of the text ads. Those ads are supposed to be related to the content of my blog - like bows, brushes and hair stuff. I guess it got fixated on the "hair" aspect somehow (or removal of it I guess.) I rarely touch my Google Ad stuff so I've had to go in and poke around a bit & I hope I've fixed it. Even if no one - or even just 1 person said they thought she should be banished I would have tried to get her removed! As a couple of my sweet commenters pointed out I am a "Mom for Modesty" and having something like that on my site is not exactly promoting it. As I said before, Babes in Hairland is a place that is supposed to be completely family friendly and so I apologize if it made anyone uncomfortable. This isn't the place that things like that should be promoted - especially to little girls - so she's officially gone!

That being said, I'll get off my soapbox! Just for fun I had to post a picture of Bee from tonight. I was helping the other girls with something before bedtime and she came running in jabbering away in her baby lingo all excited about something. I turned around to find her like this:

(This is her "look at me - I did sooo good, huh Mom" wrinkled up nose pose!) Looks like she wanted to get in on the headband action too! So if you are looking for another way to wear a headband - try this! Who knew they could be used as a sweat band too?! :)

Cinna-buns

A matter of business before we get down to hair .... don't know if appears all the time, or if it is just sometimes - but have you noticed on the right column of my blog a little ways down, a picture ad w/some lady in a bikini? There used to be word ads from Google over there, and suddenly "she" appeared. My biggest concern is -- does it bother you? I want my blog to be friendly for all ages & I know I'm not the most comfortable with it staring back at me (not just because it reminds me of what I DON'T look like hehe) So please vote in my poll on the right side of my blog if it bothers you or not. If you don't care then I'll let it run its course - but I don't want people to be offended or feel like they have to be guarded if your little DD is sitting with you looking at my hairdo's. If you don't like it I'll gladly get into my Google stuff and figure out how to get it removed. Or feel free to comment your thoughts/feelings! Thanks ladies for letting me know your opinion!

Now - back to business .... I did this clear back in August & it, along with a lot of other things, has gotten lost here in my computer! I'm trying to get "out with the old & in with the new!" So you're finally getting this one. Back when I did this I remember Bug telling me it looked like a #8 -- or cinnamon rolls - so call it what you will - this is how we did it. :-)

Start by making a 1/2 pony - parting from ear to ear. Secure it with a rubber band.

Divide that ponytail into 3 sections. Do corkscrew twists in the 2 outside sections & a regular 3 stranded braid in the middle one - be sure to tie them off with rubberbands.
This next part I really didn't document too well - and there really isn't an exactness to it. I just wrapped the 2 corkscrews around a bit in a curvy fashion -snaking them within each other, yet sort of forming a bun/circle & secured it all with bobby pins. I wanted the corkscrews to be the "center" of the bun, and then have the 3 stranded braid wrapped around the outside/top of it all.

I used bobby pins wherever I felt it needed to be anchored to hold it all in place. Hopefully you can see the 3 stranded braid wrapped there on top of it all....Then once you've finished the bun on top - take the hair that is still hanging down and pull it up into a ponytail. Try get it high enough that it's not too far away from the bun. Unless you're working with really thick hair - you don't want to have the ponytail down at the nape of the neck. You want to have the 2 buns touching.

Oh, and I tried to comb the hair on the sides down/back a little bit, to cover up the part that went ear to ear where you could see her scalp ... so it had a bit of a nicer look to it.
Divide the ponytail into 2 & make corkscrews out of the 2 sections of hair. Tie them off with rubber bands. (I made sure the little ends of the hair looped back up into the rubber band - to help them not poke out of the bun at a later time.)
Take the left corkscrew and wrap it around the base of the ponytail to cover up the rubber band of the ponytail. (By doing so the other corkscrew should be coming out of the center of it like this:

Then wrap the remaining corkscrew up and around the first one in a circular manner - making sure it eventually touches the bun up above it. My initial thought when I was doing this was to have them be so close that it'd look like all 1 bunch of hair - but it didn't turn out that way! I still liked the finished result though.
Here's a view from the side.

You can add a flower or bow - whatever to dress it up. I'd just bought some little flowers & glued them to some baby claw clips that worked nicely for this. I tried it with 1 flower ...
And then 2 flowers -- we ended out going with the 2 flowers for the rest of the day & I think it looked nice. We had a lot of compliments on this one!

Q & A

I've been going back through a bunch of old e-mails that I'd saved, where some of you had asked questions about all kinds of different things. Most of the people who asked questions, however, don't have an e-mail address that links me back to them so that I could respond. So - I'll post them all here, and hopefully those who asked, will read this & get their answers!

Several of you asked about my fun & wonderful magnetic bow holder that my sister made me for Christmas.
** Update -- the bow holder itself IS NOT magnetic - it's a piece of sheet metal or something & I have little round magnets that stick to that and I put the magnets all over the board & then my bows stick to those. Sorry if I caused any confusion. **
It is covered in scrap book paper - not fabric. However ... in hindsight my sis wishes it had been fabric because if exposed to moisture, the paper tends to bubble a bit. I can use my hairdryer and it'll flatten it back up right away -- but for this reason, I can't hang it in my bathroom which kinda bugs. I've ended out mounting it right outside my bathroom door in my bedroom which works fine, but obviously it'd be nicer to have it right in my bathroom. Regardless I love it & it is getting TONS of use!

Rachelle asked me forever ago after I'd posted my scarf hairdo's:

"I've tried using scarves before, but every time with knot at the back under the hair, I guess the knot is too big, or something cause it causes my girl's hair to get a weird bulge, or sometimes even part down at the base of the neck exposing the knot. How do you keep it from doing that?"

I know exactly what you are talking about & it does happen -- probably to a lot of people. I think it depends on which daughter I do it on. Goose has thicker hair, so this doesn't seem to be as big of a problem - but yes, it does happen on Bug and well ... it bugs! :-) I really haven't found a way to get past it - I just try to make as small/tight a knot as possible and that seems to help a bit. Sorry I can't be much more help on that. If anyone else has suggestions/tips - feel free to send them on over!

** UPDATE -- Just got this e-mail from Christine -- she's got a great suggestion that might just work ... if anyone tries it, you'll have to let us know!

I don't have kids and haven't tried this, but I wonder if you could use a small rubberband- maybe one of the really little uncoated ones- and use that to hold the scarf together under the hair. It seems like that would make a smaller lump and maybe not cause the problems with the bulge and parting. On my own hair, I've only tried the headbands, and since those stay on I tie a really loose knot down by my neck, rather than right on the hairline, but it seems for a scarf that needs to be held on a rubberband might do the trick!


Some of you have wanted to where I got the headbands & scarf headbands I've been giving away
Long story short - my friend's aunt has a friend (or something like that) that does "jewelry parties/open houses" - and the stuff is totally cute & very inexpensive. She has fun scarfs, hats, headbands, etc. as part of the stuff she sells. I've gone to a couple of them and snagged some fun stuff - including headbands like this:

Her website isn't like an etsy store or anything - her main thing is jewelry and people host parties at their homes. (I'm not trying to sell her stuff here btw!) Just trying to explain! But I e-mailed her to find out if I could refer people to her site or what I should do if you are interested in them. She said it's hard to do phone orders or whatever because her inventory is always changing, and she's sort of backed off on the head bands but if someone had a big order she'd be willing to mail them the stuff - or if there are enough of you that show interest she'd be willing to sell them to me and you could get them from me. Does that make sense? So, if you are interested & want to look around - her site is HERE. Heck - you may want to go to one of her jewelry parties if you're local - I don't know - but either way, you are informed! If you aren't one for a big order, e-mail me and if I get enough people interested I'll contact her & work something out. Sound good?

In regards to my Monthly Hair Share - I've had people ask why instructions aren't accompanying pictures. When I know a hairdo is from my blog I've tried to link you back to it within my blog. And if there is something I know for sure comes from the few hair blogs I frequent I'll link you on over - but there are sooo many blogs out there now I just don't have the time to hunt down the orignator of that certain hairdo. If you know where a certain do comes from, please let me know so I can give them credit. Also - some of the hairdo's people have altered to work w/their DD's hair or just come up with their own and not given instructions. As you've seen in previous posts - when people send me a hairdo w/instructions I love passing them on. So it's not that I'm trying to keep you in the dark on the stuff people send me - it's just that I probably don't know! Plus, it's more for the fun of just seeing "what you've been up to!"

And speaking of Hair Share -- if you have any pictures that you want included in my post next week (*sigh* - it's already going to be March!) please send them soon so I can be sure to get them on March's post!

Oh - and lastly -- PLEASE PLEASE -- don't copy pictures off my blog. I've recently found another site that had several of my girls pictures copied to it. I know usually people mean well when posting pictures on their blog that aren't their own -- especially when you are "singing praises" about my blog, but it's about integrity. I have my pictures copyrighted and have asked that they not be stolen. So please, respect that. If you want to give me a shoutout because you love what you see -- I totally appreciate that -- but it can be done just as easily by just linking them back to my site. Thank you.

Ok, that's all I think. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me. I just had so many about those things I figured it'd be easiest to just do a post about it all!

Thanks again for all the comments & blog love that you guys send! I really appreciate it. (And don't forget to send me your pictures for the monthly hair share!)

4 Strand Braid - Simple Pull Back

I love the way this turned out - just for the fact that the 4 stranded braid looks like rope or at least 3D and just has a nice look coming back from each side and joined in the middle.

Not much of any step by step pictures here - because once you've figured out the 4 stranded braid it's pretty self-explanatory. For those of you who didn't ever learn to do a 4 stranded braid - head back here for my video tutorials. Hopefully they'll help & you can do this simple pulled back hairdo.

All I did was part do a side part & then parted from ear to ear. With each section I did a 4 strand braid and then joined them in the middle with a rubberband. (I tied each braid off first to ensure they didn't come undone when I was centering them on the back of her head.)

I like how a 4 strand braid is a bit looser than a normal 3 stranded braid is (at least I always try to pull my 3 strand ones fairly tight.) Because it's a bit looser, it gives a bit of a "poof" or looser look in the front & you can't see the parts that go from ear to ear.
See how it's not overly tight up front? Love it!
I also curled/flipped the ends of her hair up with the flat iron. She's been liking that look lately - so why not!? Then I added this FAB-Tabulous bow I got from MADIBU BOWS. She's got a ton of darling bows. I love this one because it's got a little extra "bling" in the middle, plus she has a non-slip thinger in it so it stays put nicely! So go check her out!

Here's a little closer look at the braid. It looks much cooler in person I think - but you get the idea.
Let me know if you have any questions on the whole 4 strand stuff - I'd be more than willing to answer them!

Have a great weekend ya'll!

The Difference

I've had some people say their girls hair never looks as smooth or without fly-aways as the pictures I have on my blog (or in person) ... so I thought I'd show you the difference a bit of water and product can make in the look of your DD's hair. I'm not saying that people that don't use water or hairspray are wrong - I just prefer the "cleaner/tidier" look better. Some prefer to just pull hair back and put a ton of clips or bobby pins all over - which works sort of - but doesn't keep the fly aways or hairs from escaping for very long. This is probably quite obvious to most, but for those of you that have questioned why ... I'll show you!

In case you can't tell ... this isn't cousin It -- that's my little Bee under there! This is her after her bath & I've blown her hair dry & straight. Her hair isn't trained quite yet to go more towards the back of her head, instead it falls down in her face.

Yup - there she is in there!She is one that hates hair in her face, so she's immediately trying to get it out!
So here she is if I just pull her hair back in a ponytail with nothing else -- no water or anything. Some may stop there - which is totally fine - I just prefer to take it a bit further.
Here I redid it - using just a bit of water from our squirt bottle. (Since she was headed to bed, I obviously didn't use hairspray - but if it had not been bedtime I would have.) Depending on the day I'll leave her pony looped, but if I do pull it out I'll help it along with the curling iron if her curls aren't cooperating. But quite the difference between this picture and the one above, don't ya think?
Or .... if your DD has those little whispy short baby hairs up front that never want to stay back - no matter how much you try to plaster them with hairspray. You can try this ....
Try leaving some of them out and curling them (very very carefully of course!) Both Bee and Bug have cowlicks in the front so they'll never have much luck with bangs (if they're anything like me when I was young w/my stupid cowlick!) -- but at this stage just using Bee's little front baby hair's they work nicely - although they part a bit there on the left side of the picture.

Giving her "bangs" sort of changes the whole look of her I think -- more of a big girl look I guess.
Once I gave her a bear & her FurReal animal she was much more willing to smile!
I got her hair to look like this with just a bit of water and a few sprays of the hairspray (I use a cheapy by Suave -- nothing grandeous!) Then I used Garnier Curl Sculpting Cream Gel to fluff up her curls a bit on the sides and back.

See what a difference just a bit of
water & product can make?

Pull Through's & a Mary Jane Headband

I hope everyone had a great Valentines Day ... and for some a wonderful 3 day weekend. I did. Want to know the best part? I had no kids yesterday! My folks took them & my honey was home ... he did a bunch of stuff on his "honey-do" list & I got quite a bit accomplished around the house. It's amazing how much more you can get done when kids aren't around! :-) But I know ... that's know what you came here to find out ... so I'll get on with it!

I hope you're not sick of headband stuff yet. I know lots of the other blogger's have done "hair headbands" and I thought I was done with ideas on how to keep a "real" headband in place - that was until I got a FAB-tabulous little headband from this amaaaaazingly talented friend of mine. Because she wants to stay anonymous we'll call her "Jen."

Anyway - this one works nice for thinner headbands but will work with thick or thin I'm sure.

I didn't take step by step pix on this either because the camera wasn't anywhere near when I did her hair! So assuming you all know how to do a "pull through" it's very simple & quick & easy.

Part the hair on the side (or wherever you want depending on if your headband has a design, bow, etc.) Then part it from your side part down to the top of the ear. Make a ponytail & then tuck it under & pull it through the hole. Make another part that is slightly behind the ear and repeat, making another pull through. Repeat on the other side of her head. I then flipped her hair up on the ends with our flat iron.

This is a darling hair do in and of itself, I think . . .

. . . but for an added splash of color we put in our cute new Mary Jane headband.
Just position it between the 2 pull through's and it covers up that part that runs from ear to ear quite nicely. The pull through's act as a "bumper" of sorts to keep the headband in place. You also could make the 1st set of pull through's and then put on the headband and then do the 2nd set - so the hair crosses over the headband. I opted not to do that on this one because of the darling bow on top.

There you have it. Can I just say as a proud mama I just love this next picture of her! Anyway - this one is simple, quick & easy, and best of all soooo cute!

And if you're fairly new to my blog or want other fun ideas of how to keep a headband in place - check out these other posts I've done ... go here, here, or here. You'll never have to complain about a headband not staying in place again!

Bun & a Heart Shaped Craft Project

I don't know if it's just the age of Goose (almost 7 years old) but she's recently gotten into "beading" - necklaces, bracelets, you name it. She got a kit for Christmas that had charms and beads that she's really had fun with. Then this last weekend her cousin gave her a huge organizer full of beads and string because she has so many. While Goose has been making different things she suggested making something Valentines-y for her teacher. Which got me to thinking -- I'm always involved in making the girls hair look cute - but they rarely participate in the end result.

So ..... since Valentines Day is the day of love ... what happens when a basic hairdo & a fun kiddo craft project get married?!

THIS:

This turned out to be really fun because Bug (she happened to be around when we had time for this!) made the stand of beads and I did her hair. She thought it was really neat to play a part in this one!

All you'll need is a regular piece of pipe cleaner, and craft beads (not the ones that have a tiny hole in the middle meant only for string or elastic - they've got to be big enough for a pipe cleaner to go through the middle.)

String enough beads on the pipe cleaner until you only have a tiny bit on each end. ** Disclaimer - you obviously wouldn't want to do this on a little one who might tend to put things in her mouth & choke! **

Make a basic bun ...

Shape your pipe cleaner into your desired heart shape ...

She also did a red one the other day that I put around a ponytail (but the bottom of it was hidden because the pony hung over it.)

With the end of the pipe cleaner that doesn't have beads on it, you can either sort of bend it and hook it into the hair, or use a bobby pin like I did. I made a little hook or loop and then pushed the bobby pin through the loop and pushed it into the top of her bun.

And there you go ... it'll hold it's shape nicely because of the pipe cleaner.

Cheesy? Maybe ... Fun? Definitely! And the best part is that it's a win win situation --- she's happy cuz she got to make something, and you're happy because you got away with another hairdo without any complaining! :-) Woot woot!

Stay tuned for some more fun stuff with beads ... coming soon ...

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY
EVERYONE!!

Ponies & a Ribbon Heart

Like I said yesterday, I hadn't planned on the whole heart hair posts, but I also bought some really thin red ribbon for like 50 cents, so I thought I'd throw this in for good measure. (And no, Bee is not hanging from the ceiling! Just thought I'd show it from the correct angle!) This can probably be done on those girls w/limited hair, because the design is from the ribbon not so much the hair.

No step-by-step pix on this one since I didn't know what I was doing when I started it. But this one is pretty straight forward & easy.

Part the hair into 3 sections on top of the head. Make the 2 side sections into ponytails. In the center section divide it into 2 squares. Make a ponytail in the front one. Then combine it into a 2nd pony at the back.

Then take your ribbon (pulled through with the end attached to a safety pin, like in yesterday's post). Start at the back middle pony and threat the ribbon through a little piece of hair underneath the pony. Then head diagonally to the side pony and pass under a bit of hair there in 2 different spots.

Then kind of arch out to make the heart shape & come in underneath the front middle ponytail. If I did this again I'd actually go through the top of the ponytail itself so you could see the part of the heart that dips in the middle. Head back out from under that front ponytail to the next side pony, continuing the shape of the heart. I also weaved under the hair 2 times on the other side pony. Then went back where I started from at the back middle ponytail.
Then I joined all 3 ponytails together with a rubberband. Then I pulled my ribbon out from underneath that middle ponytail and made 2 little bows. Fluffed her curls a little & away we went.
She's becoming harder to get front shots with her smiling or even willing to look at the camera. You can't really tell this is a heart from the front, so you get a smile that was on its way out (dang shutter lag!) Like the little bruise on her forehead? Her dad didn't realize she was by the back door when he came in the other night & knocked her right on her can! The bruise was the end result! :-) Nice since I was hoping to get her 2 year old pictures taken this week. Not! Anyway, don't know if any of this made sense, but it really wasn't difficult.
The end.

Heart to Heart

Since it seems like everyone else & their dog's has been doing lots of fun heart hair the last little while I hadn't planned on posting anything heart-ish - as not to be overkill! But I was at Michael's over the weekend & they had some of their holiday ribbon way cheap, so it got me to thinking .... and this was what I ended out doing ..... Nothing rocket science worthy, but fun all the same.

Make your basic ponytail - rather high on the head depending on how much hair you are working with. Then split the pony in 2 and make 2 corkscrews. I twisted as far down as I could and then tied each on off nicely with a rubberband so there weren't too many fly aways.

Shape each corkscrew to make the halves of the heart. I used bobby pins pushing them in from behind to secure it to her head. When you get to the bottom of the heart where the point is made, if you have extra hair (which we did) just double it back up underneath the corkscrew and bobby pin it so it all stays up and out of the way.

Now for the ribbon. Since I was going to be working right against her scalp, I didn't want to use a real needle, and I didn't have any of those big plastic kind that aren't sharp, but are still a needle. So I settled for the next best thing - ironically a Safety Pin! Poke the safety pin through the ribbon & then latch it closed like this (sorry it's blurry.) Start on one side of the point of the heart at the nape of her neck. Then push the safety pin through a little section of hair and pull it through.
Basically you'll be "outlining" the corkscrew heart with the ribbon - weaving in and out through little sections of hair.

Once I got to the middle peak of the heart since I was working w/ribbon with a pattern on it - only on one side, I had to twist it around a bit to get it to be right side out once I headed over on the other side of the heart. Just play with it until it looks the way you want it. This didn't quite get the shape I'd hoped for, but you get the idea.


Once I'd gone down the other side of the heart I tied the ends of the ribbon around the very tip of the heart (it wasn't holding on to very much hair) and tied a bow. If I were to do this again, I'd be more careful not to cinch the bow too tight once I got to the point of the heart because depending on the angle you look at her head, the ribbon tends to slip in underneath the corkscrew & doesn't show as much. I took my rat tail comb out and sort of pushed it out a bit to solve that problem!
She liked it in the end, although got a bit impatient as I was doing the ribbon part!So here it is - the final result.