Bun with a Woven Ribbon Flower

I've had people ask me where I get my "inspiration" (if you will!) from. Well ... silly enough, this idea stemmed from one of the cutsie little embellishments I have here on my blog:
One day when I was messing around in Photo Shop with the above flower, I happened to look at the button in the middle & the little ribbon coming out of the middle of it & in my head I suddenly saw a head of hair -- with a bun w/a ribbon sort of laced around it forming a flower. So - I don't know if I'd call it inspiration & it's not like this 'do really resembles my blog flower - but either way -- this is where I came up with my idea! :-)

We were working w/some *cough*dirty*cough* hair this day so it was a perfect day for a bun! Make a ponytail-
Braid it - twist it - whatever your preference. Braid down as far as you can. Tie off with a rubber band. I pulled my little ends up in the rubber band so I wouldn't risk having them poke out somewhere.Wrap around to form your bun. Anchor with a few bobby pins.As I did in this post I did back around Valentines Day - I used a safety pin to lace the ribbon through the bun & hair on her head. It's probably a very good idea to use a safety pin on this due to the fact that you are poking it through the bun and then towards the direction of her head (rather than just lacing back & forth like shoe laces where you probably won't touch her actual head.)
Begin at the base of the bun and start by lacing the ribbon through a small section of the bun - in the direction of her head. Once out of the hair in the bun lace it under a small section of hair on her head as shown below.

Form a loop with the ribbon & then lace the pin & ribbon back up through a small section of the bun again. Then double back & go back towards the head. Hopefully the pictures speak for themselves.As you do on the first loop/petal, then go under a small section of hair with the ribbon & form another petal or U shape & head back towards the bun. You can make as few or as many of these "petals" as you like around the bun.
Depending on where you are on the bun, you may have to lace the ribbon through at a little bit different angle - but just mess with it until it looks like you want it to. Then once you've reached the under side of the bun again, tie the 2 ends together to form a little bow. Be sure to have plenty of ribbon to work with (I didn't cut the ribbon off the spool until I was sure I was done & things were even for me.) If your petals are uneven, just tug on them a bit and work the ribbon around to make them even. Once again - every loop is probably not exact but in the end it looked really cute & it stayed all day w/o a problem at all. Just be sure to use a thinner, silkier ribbon. I've since tried it with a thicker grosgrain and it didn't "flow" as easily! Also, no matter how I positioned Bug's head, I couldn't get a good straight on shot of this - sorry. Apparently I got the bun a bit off centered. Oh well. Never said I was perfect! :)

So there you have it - Ta Da! She loved this & so did everyone who saw it!

And before I forget to mention it -- Through May 1st @ 10p.m. (that's tomorrow) over at All Things Ribbon EVERYTHING is 25% off. Now, I've got to tell you -- we bought Goose's beau-ti-ful Easter dress from their site & I know you've seen a bunch of their bows over at Girly Do's -- so if you've yet to go check them out -- you must. You can't beat those dresses -- and at 25% off ... well, need I say more? When you go to check out be sure to enter SPRINGFEVER25 for your discount. Then you can be singing all day for the $$ you saved & then sing all the way back from your mailbox when your wonderful shipment arrives, and your DD will be singing you praises as she has a new fancy twirly dress & with matching bows! So head on over here & check her out!

P.S. Don't forget about my Monthly Hair Share. Some of you have already sent me your posts - but I'd love to get more to post for May.

A Sneak Peek & A Birthday Discount

You may have read on another blog or two that Every Little Detail is bumping up their wonderful spring discount from 20% -- but for ONE day only. It is Jess's birthday on Thursday, April 30th, & she is turning 28 (oh, to be young again!). And she has so generously offered a 28% off everything for her entire birthday day.

So if you are wanting in on this wonderful dealy-o -- head on over HERE and shop away. I know you won't be sorry for doing so! When you're done, enter the code BirthdayGirl to score your wonderful discount of 28% off. And what better way to show her some birthday love than giving her some business?! :-)

And for the sneak peek -- come back tomorrow for the how-to on this fun do:

So what are you waiting for .... if you've been holding out to buy anything from Every Little Detail - don't put it off any longer. Go HERE NOW! And Happy Birthday Jess!

Amazing Curls - CurlFormers

I'd wanted to get this post up sooner, but the girls have had a touch of the stomach flu here the last couple days & so, obviously, everything else has been put on the back burner. I think we are finally on the mend now though!

So in my last post I'd showed you this picture:
And most of you guessed it was some kind of curler. Well, let me tell you -- this isn't just any curler! This is a "Curlformer". A couple weeks ago, Micki, from Micki's Wing e-mailed me telling me about her amazing find -- namely these curlers. It took me a while, but I finally made it over to Sally's and bought some. I really debated at first though, because, well, yes ...I admit it I'm a cheap skate. Really - had they been any price, I still would have thought about it, but that's just my nature! Anyway, 1 package of these cost $11.99. They had 8 curlers in each and then on top of that you have to buy the hook with which you pull the hair through the curler. That was an additional $4, and I bought 2 packages of the curlers. (These come in several different lengths, colors and the ones that are for shorter hair are a bit wider than the ones for long hair -- I think I bought the medium ones.) And as a side note, as I was reading about them a bit further, they come in 2 colors in each package, because 1/2 are meant to curl clockwise, and the other counter clockwise. Pretty cool. Anyway -- so I gulped a bit at the price and bought them (remember I'm a cheap skate), but seriously ladies -- these curlers are the bomb! I'm totally in love with them ... I want to marry them! Ha just kidding. But they really are worth the price. So just to show you w/o step by step pictures on how this is done - here is a little video from YouTube that explains it all.



This was our first attempt at these. And btw - my husband put about 1/2 of these in. HE wanted to try them out first before me. Can you believe that guy?! He said it's only because he's secure with his manhood that he could do these & be ok with it! LOL Anyway, so here I am with "my new toy" & he insisted on playing with them first! Ha ha! He seriously did & he thought they were pretty cool too & was surprised at how easy they were to put in. So ladies, if you aren't around, even dad can do these & make your DD look fab-oo!

I found that it really works best on wet hair. And on a few sections that had started to dry by the time I got to them, the hair did not pull through easily at all, so I had to re-wet the section of hair. I should have bought the longer ones for her, but I figured I'd just touch up the ends with my little curling iron (yes, I know that defeats the purpose of these -- but I know they'll be perfect in Goose's hair!
So she slept on them all night. I think they would have been fine, but she's been fighting major allergies lately and so she was up in the night a couple times because she couldn't breath & so the curlers only added to the drama. Otherwise, I don't think there would have been any complaint since she's slept in regular rollers before.Once we pulled them out in the morning:

Then I touched the ends up so they weren't straight. I put a bit of product in - whatever you want is fine.
Then I kind of ran my fingers through them or my rat tail comb end. I sort of got rid of the ringlet look to begin with - but as the day wore on, they kind of all came back together a bit - it looked really nice.
Then I just took a few sections from the front (sort of the way they were already parted off from having the rollers in) and gave them a few twists & secured them with bobby pins. Since I didn't want to risk loosing any curl, I didn't wet the hair up front, instead I misted the section I was twisting with a bit of hair spray to get rid of the fly aways and then I twisted it and secured it. I took 1 section closer to the center top of the head & twisted it. Then took a section from the side/ear area and pulled it up towards the top of the head and twisted it. I secured that one on top of my first twist to hide the bobby pin.
Sort of did the same thing on the other side of her head. I really didn't do anything with exactness here, just a couple twists on both sides secured with bobby pins.I left a little hair out up front by the ears too to have ringlets in front as well. She really was tired & a bit miserable the day we did this, so no huge smiles from her today.
A view from the side-
And the back. Like I said - I didn't part anything, just kind of randomly grabbed the hair sections and twisted them up. Sorry for not having exact instructions to follow! With the curls I kind of let them dictate what I did!We added a few clips for a splash of color .... Now for the even cooler do's. These pictures are from Micki - the one who introduced me to these curlers. These are her 2 darling girls - & I really love the way their curls turned out -- better than mine. She used the same color of curlers that I did - & I think they worked much better on their length of hair. That's why I can't wait to try these on Goose.
Aren't those just awesome curls? The best part is - if you don't like to use a ton of heat on your little girls hair with flat irons & curling irons - these are your answer for amazing beautiful curls.
She just simply added a headband on her girls & they look wonderful. With such wonderful curls as these, you really hate to pull them up and hide them in any fancy hairdo. They do enough by themselves, don't you think?!Also, I didn't realize it, but over at Kenny Do's - she actually did a similar post on her blog with these a couple months back - but since I live under a rock & don't get out much, I was just informed of her post after I'd posted the pic of my curler last time.... so I apologize if this is old news to you guys. Seems I'm on a roll lately in repeats. Sorry! :) So if you want to see her post, go here - and if you want to see a few other pictures of Micki's experience with them, go here. Oh, and btw - Bug had this hair do on a rainy muggy day and at the end of the day she had just a bunch of plain ringlets in back -- they had stayed in all day despite being out in the rain a bit.

So all in all -- my review is simply -- GO BUY THESE! Save your $$ if you have to - ask for them for Mother's Day (you can use them on yourself too you know), go gather up all your couch change, because these ROCK!!!

Look What I Bought!

So, how do you know when you've reached true dorky-ness? When you get excited about walking out of Sally's with a 1 lb. box of these:
Yup - 1 beautiful pound of bobby pins! See -- I'm a true dork. That or people would say I'm too obsessed with this hair stuff. But know what? I'm ok with that! So Ha!

I actually have been burning through bobby pins like crazy lately because I've done several gals hair for prom and dances lately and I'm tired of only being able to get like 60 of them or whatever on little cards at Wally world. (Plus the girls like to play with them and I find them all over the house bent and ruined!) So when my sister was in town, she of course had some of these because she does (did) hair. She put a few of them in Bee's hair at one point and they seriously held a ton better than my regular ones did. I knew this - but just have been too lazy to go get any. But I finally braved the tantrum throwing 2 year old and went to Sally's and bought some!

I know I showed a pic similar to this back in my old "tips on using bobby pins" post, but just a reminder of how they do look a bit different. My new one is on the bottom. You can totally feel the difference when you go to put them in hair I think. And look what else I bought. Maybe it's obvious, but any guesses on what this might be? And I'll give you a hint - It's not a Chinese finger trap! Thanks from a wonderful suggestion from Micki's Wing, I bought some of these too -- 16 to be exact. Stay tuned to find out what I did with these.

And then as a quick apology - I had an e-mail from Bows and Such a while ago about a giveaway she is having, and it got lost in my inbox. She's new to the game & is having a fun spring giveaway. The giveaway is only going through tomorrow -- but Up for grabs is a bracelet....any color combination, any personalization, anything you want. Also, one korker set and one ribbon flower...all however you want. So head over there & enter before it's too late. And again, sorry about my spaciness! So head over and enter & show her some love!

Also - nothing to do with hair, but I just had to share -- look at what is finally growing in my flowerbed--
Happy Spring to you! These have been covered with snow for so long I'm so excited my tulips finally decided to poke their pretty little heads out and say hello! They still aren't all out yet - but they're FINALLY coming. (Ignore the neat weed poking out in front of my pavers -- I've yet to get out and do the first after winter yard stuff!)

And The Winner Is ....

Hey everyone ...

I was having issues getting the cute little display from Random.org to show the printed out # here in my post .... so out of 184 comments ...

# 110 is the winner -- And that # belonged to this comment:

Mandy said...I like w on that page ;)

Congratulations Mandy -- that was her 3rd comment -- so see -- every little entry helps! So I'll try e-mail you, but if I haven't heard from Mandy by tomorrow night, I'll draw another winner.

Thanks again to everyone who played along, and especially thank you to Flowerz in Her Hair for being so generous and offering this giveaway.

For the rest of you ... you don't go away completely empty handed. If you want to buy anything from Flowerz in Her Hair use the code: BABES for an extra 10% off your purchase. How nice is that?

Have a great day everyone! Thanks again for stopping by :)

Recycling ...

Happy Earth Day Everyone!

In honor of Earth Day - or Earth week -- whatever they are doing now-a-days ... I hope you don't mind that I decided to "recycle" a few of my favorite posts. Ok ok -- so really I just needed to remind you that today is the last day (through 10 p.m. MST) to enter THE GIVEAWAY for the $20 shopping spree from Flowerz In Her Hair (that includes free shipping btw - so none of your fun free cash will be eaten up by shipping charges!)

So anyway - as far as the recycling part goes ... I'd say these rank in my top fav's when it comes to hairdo's I've done since I started my blog. Some of you may have been around when I did these, some of you not, so either way -- thanks for humoring me! So here's the 5 that I picked. It actually was kind of hard, but it was fun to take a trip down memory lane - especially to see the changes in my Baby Bee!

Since coming up with several different techniques to keep headbands in place, these headband do's have quickly become some of our favorites.

#1 - Pull Through's & A Mary Jane Headband


#2 - Dressed Up HeadbandAnd on the funky & fun side:
#3 The Peacock's Tail
And holy cow - she seems so small here.... and still so much a baby. Her hair is so short here too, and it was just back in August that these were shot.

#4 - Baby Square Knots

And last but not least - one of our favorites on the extra dressy side -
#5 - The Fancy Schmancy Princess

And of course - just a reminder to do everything possible to help make the world just a little greener .... turn off those lights when you're not in the room, turn your car off if stopped for more than a short period of time, recycle, buy some of those reusable shopping bags, etc. As a side note, I must say, I'm impressed the stores are finally coming around to the recycled/reusable shopping bags. This was something that's been done forever over in Germany - and probably Europe in general. I remember having to pack along all our cloth sacks whenever we went grocery shopping. It was just the normal thing to do. We take all that kind of stuff for granted here in the States I think, so I'm glad it's starting to catch on here -- or at least in my neck of the woods. Because as they say, Earth Day is every day... so don't forget to do your part!

So check back here sometime on Thursday for the winner of the Flowerz in Her Hair giveaway. Go HERE if you haven't entered yet.

P.S. Hopefully all the links & pictures show up on this post. I was having major issues with my computer & Blogger tonight. It took for-evuh to get this post put together & it should have been relatively painless. So I apologize if there is anything glitchy with this post.

Hiding Bobby Pins Trick

So for a different version of yesterday's hairdo -- here's another option:

Over the last couple weeks, I've done several people's hair that have had shorter hair even than Goose. I've been faced with a few problems #1 - they weren't young enough that I could cover up bobby pins with a cute flower or bow (so we're talking teens & adults here!) & #2 - Their hair wasn't long enough to really reach together in the back to make a little ponytail with a clear rubber band that could just disappear into the hair. So this was my solution. I think it worked a bit better on their hair, but you'll get the idea. I've got another do I did on Goose using this technique since her hair is shorter, but I'll save that for another day. So here you go.....

From this point where you've got all the bobby pins locked in x's

Take hair a thin strip of hair from underneath the "pony" and mist it with hairspray to get it smooth and neat looking. (Be sure it's from the pony itself, and not just the hair hanging down, because you'll probably get a part or see the scalp from where you pull the hair across if you do. Does that make sense?)

Then pull it across the bobby pins to the other side of the "pony." Tuck it back underneath the pony and secure it with a bobby pin - sort of from the underside. If you can get it to connect with some of the bobby pins that are already there - all the better.Then do the same from the opposite side. Pull the hair in the opposite direction and secure with a bobby pin underneath as well. Depending on how big the area is that you are trying to hide with the hair, you may only need to do this 1 or 2 times. But I did it 3 times to get the big area of bobby pins fully covered.So here is how it looked to cover them all up. Like I said, I liked how it turned out on the gals with shorter hair for some reason, but this is about the technique I guess! Kinda looks like a "hair barrette" huh?!
But to dress that up just a little bit, I took 2 separate strands of hair that were hanging down below the "hair barrette" & just pulled them up & secured each one with a bobby pin. The ends hung down adding a little curl and "loopy" look to the whole back of her head.
And then because she still wanted the flower, we slipped it in up front on the side just behind the part of her "bangs" and it stayed nicely. So she still had that darling burst of color from the flower up front and not a bunch of bobby pins staring back at you from behind!

Remember - you have until tomorrow night - 4/22 at 10pm MST to enter the $20 giveaway from Flowerz in Her Hair. If you haven't entered yet -- scroll down to the next post to enter.