If you've been around BIH long enough you know that I struggled for a long time with messy buns and finally came up with my own because I couldn't get the look that I wanted when I did them in the girls hair. Well, we started having that problem again as the girls hair has gotten longer and I found that I wasn't liking the looks of our messy bun as much. It still works - but I just am picky & didn't like it as much anymore. As Bee & Goose's hair has gotten longer, the messy buns tended to be a bit droopy or saggy. I find my messy bun looks best when their hair is shorter or a medium length.
I've finally had some time to get this video made, and I hope you like it as much as we do. The messy bun I mean! I'd mentioned this new messy bun back when I did THIS post - and in the hairdo I did on Bee, I'd used this technique, but I finally have made the video. I've actually made it a couple times - but let's just say Bee likes to make noises and be silly more than not, so I finally got her to keep noises to a minimum-ish! I also used this messy bun on Goose when she had her hair pulled up when she was wearing the fun headband/wrap from Stylish Mode.com HERE. So it works in really long & thick hair as well as Bee's hair that isn't as long or thick. So here is how we've adapted as the girls hair has gotten longer.
Here's the video - take a look & let us know what you think! I've already told one of my readers on FB about it and she used because she was needing a messy bun for her girls dance recital & they have long hair. She used this technique & it worked great. So it appears we're on to something here! :-)
It's quick & easy & would be a great one to use over the 4th of July to keep your hair up off your neck for those fun BBQ's and holiday activities you've got planned!
I'm always getting people asking me how I get my girls to sit still for me while I do their hair - and you can find several of my tips and suggestions under our menu "Hair 101" - but the more I think about it - the real answer to the question of "How do I get my girls to sit still" is this: I don't! They don't sit still! The real key is just getting them to STAY PUT! I do their hair on the counter in our bathroom and when they are smaller the key is to get them to stay put - to stay ON the counter and not get down. (Or wherever it is you do their hair.) To this day, they still don't hold totally still. They aren't statues and even Goose who is 9, still moves around and I still have to tell her to hold still from time to time or move her head back to where I need it to be! The fact is, you just have to get used to working on a moving target! Even if she moves just a little bit (because she is older) or a lot (because she is younger!)
The reason I bring this up is because my sister stayed with me recently while we were having our family reunion and her littlest dd isn't 2 yet and I came down and we were chatting while she was doing her dd's hair. And while she put little ponies in her hair, her cute little dd was moving around, and I watched as she does the same thing I do -- work on a moving target! *** But here is what she does to keep her dd to "stay put" on the counter. She gives her daughter her little toothbrush & then turns the faucet on ever so slightly and lets the water run. Then her dd takes and puts the toothbrush in the water and then pretends to brush her teeth. Back and forth her dd went with the toothbrush from the faucet to her mouth -- but there she sat -- on the counter. Did she move-- YES! But did she stay put and not try get down off the counter -- YES! But her hair got done & both mom & kiddo were happy! ***
So if you are working on a younger head of hair (and even an older one for that matter) chances are, they aren't going to hold completely still. The point is you just want to be able to get them to stay in a basic area so you can work on their hair. Let them bring a toy, or play with the other hair accessories or suck on the water bottle (*gasp!*) or whatever ...so they'll be entertained while you do their hair - if that's what it takes while they are younger and have a shorter attention span and until they are used to the routine of you doing their hair. They are going to move around, but don't let that frustrate you! Keep trying & eventually you'll both get used to the routine of it all!
Also, I just wanted to show you a new comb I recently bought for Goose. Her hair is getting so long again and it is so thick I wanted to try something knew to help combat the knots she gets.
I have her comb her hair out anymore so I don't have to deal with the knots and this has been helpful for her to have the wide teeth. She's also used it to comb conditioner through her hair when in the shower. That's been a huge help after when we've been drying her hair. It even is great in her dry hair for giving a bit of a "finger combed" look too when we pull it back into a ponytail, etc. We bought it at Target for a couple bucks I think. Anyone have one of these & like it?
This is a great 'do that is quick & easy & very cute for any age and will work on pretty much any length of hair ...toddler on up.
Part the hair right down the middle on the top of the head. As dead center as you can.
To the left of the part section out a small bit of hair & make a small braid. Plait a braid - but only down about half way.
Secure it temporarily with a rubber band or a little claw clip.
Toward the back of the crown where your part stops, part out another section of hair & plait another braid and braid it half way down as well.
Secure it temporarily with a rubber band too.
Join them together with a little claw clip above the rubber bands so they form a V & remove the rubber bands.
Once you remove the rubber bands, braid the hair hanging down below your claw clip. Braid down as far as you wish & then secure the end with a rubber band.
Repeat to the other side if you wish and you are done.
I'm not a huge fan of having her hair straight down and "nothing done" to it, but this was just enough that it kept it out of her face and she really liked it.
If you try this one (or any of our other styles), we'd love it if you'd share pictures with us on our Facebook page! We hope you're all enjoying your summer & having lots of fun in the sun!
If you follow us on Facebook, you know I had a family reunion going this last weekend and so this whole last week was crazy and then I was having fun with family this whole weekend. I'd wanted to post this earlier, but I knew my husband would see it on our blog and then my husband ended out unplugging everything on my computer to use stuff for things during the reunion so I wasn't even able to have this post while I was out having fun. I realize this isn't hair related, but it turned out so cute, I just had to share!
If you follow Hip2Save I sent it to her & she ended out posting it (you can see her post here because there was a deal at Walgreen's going on & that's why I sent this to her) since I knew my husband wouldn't see it on her site, but it was a fun & creative way of showing our fabulous Dad we love him. So even though Father's Day is over - you can maybe keep this in mind for your Dad/husband another time. I love my husband so much & he is such a trooper with all this hair stuff, I just had to share our fun creation we made for him.
I had to get up on a ladder to take these pictures (which is asking a lot since I'm afraid of heights) and the girls formed the letters. In the "A" I had them pull funny faces. I ended out taking each individual letter and placing them where I wanted in Photoshop & then uploading the whole thing as 1 picture to Walgreen's rather than making a collage. My husband loved it. We put it in a cute little frame & it went to work with him this morning to sit on his desk at work! Anyway, thanks for humoring me & letting me share our fun & creative way that we told our Dad how much we love him!
If you've been checking a few of the other hair blogs lately, you know that Jen from All Things Ribbon sent us some of her beautiful flower clips she calls "Vintage Mums" and so we've kind of had "The Mum Challenge" going on! First off, I've got to say that Jen of all the things I've gotten from Jen, these satin Mums are by far my FAV! The names she gives them make them sound yummy (like Raspberries & Cream or English Toffee), but when you see them in real life, they truly are divine! :) I'd planned on getting this posted sooner, but my computer and Photoshop haven't liked me much lately, so I'm sorry for the delay.
If you remember my recent post where I introduced our Figure 8 braid - well this is a second way to do it. One of my subscribers on YouTube suggested it & we gave it a try & loved it. We hope you do too! The pictures don't do it justice because they sort of make it look like a braid with 1 strand braided, but it's totally not! We've gotten so many compliments & people stopping us with this one!
First we made a side part - fairly far off on the right & then parted out a square of hair on top of the head. Make a small pony tail with that section of hair.
Then for the technique on how to achieve this I've made a video to show you. But basically it's the same idea as the Figure 8 braid, but instead of leaving the strand of hair straight that you wrap in a "figure 8" fashion around the hair - you braid it first.
So here's the video:
With that first ponytail make a Figure 8 Braid #2 (with the wrapping braid) and wrap it as far as you can & secure it with a rubber band.
Part out another square of hair behind the first one. I was planning on putting a headband between these two, so I wanted the ponytail (the one w/the pink rubber band) closer to the front.
Repeat the process & make another Figure 8 Braid & tie off with a rubber band.
Take the remaining hair and bring to the left side of the head & make a loose side pony by the left ear.
Then I took our darling headband from All Things Ribbon and positioned it between our braids. I should have braided down just a little further on our front braid! Pull the front one underneath the headband and back toward the ponytail.
I forgot a picture of this step - but secure the 2 braids to the base of your ponytail.Then start wrapping the tails of your 2 braids around the base to cover your rubber band.
Mist the hair with a little water if you feel like it's not smooth enough & then gently comb through it. Once you've wrapped it a few times, take a clear rubber band and secure the tails to the rest of the ponytail & cinch the rubber band up so it hides inside the wrapped hair.
Here I've cinched it up & you can't really see the rubber band underneath the wrapped hair:
We added a few curls to the end of her pony tail & that was it. These Mum's are simply delish!
The best part about this do was Goose wore it for a couple days. We just re-did the side pony each day. I just loved how her summer highlights came through in the little braid that wrapped around the other strands. It looked so cool! Here she is without the headband and wearing another one of All Things Ribbon's Mums. Again - simply beautiful. She wore this to the dentist the other day & all the hygienists were totally gaga over it!
So when it comes to this hairstyle & especially to these flowers from All Things Ribbon -- "MUM is most definitely NOT the word!" Be sure to "like" her on Facebook HERE - she's always adding new things & visit her site at All Things Ribbon.com. Thanks so much Jen for letting us be part of this fun challenge & for the beautiful flowers. We love them & look forward to using them for years to come!
Hey everyone! I realized I never posted it here on my main blog, but I announced our winner for the Stylish Mode giveaway the other day, as well as on Facebook a couple times & I still haven't heard back from the winner. Last call for our winner. I'll pick a new one first thing tomorrow morning if I haven't heard from her. Head over HERE to see if you are the lucky winner of the $25 gift certificate to Stylish Mode.
So I had a friend come and borrow some of my Curlformers the other day and then after chatting briefly with Curlformers on Facebook I realized yesterday that I never posted pictures from our first attempt at using our Long & Extra Wide Curlformers. We've only ever used the pink & orange ones that are the long (or extra long) and wide ones. If you're not familiar with Curlformers, feel free to check out my old posts about them HERE. But Curlformers was so generous to send us a pack of the long & extra wide ones - they are yellow and hot pink. They give what I like to call a more "mature" curl or wave. These are what they look like:
I used these for Easter Sunday in Goose's hair and was excited to see what the result would be. Obviously her hair is much longer than the curlers are, but the curl at the bottom of her hair is what I was going for anyway.
Here's the result before I touched them at all:
They were definitely a looser curl/wave than we were used to from the pink & orange ones we've always used. At first I was almost disappointed - well, disappointed isn't the right word - but I'm just so used to the "major curl" the other ones give and these gave such a looser curl it was hard to get used to at first! I only used the tail of my rat tail comb to go through the curls.
We simply pulled back a bit of the hair on both sides & I had a monstro flower I'd made last minute to match her Easter dress and that was it.
The curls achieved by the extra wide Curlformers are really beautiful. A much more mature curl or wave is achieved - perfect for a teen or adult. In fact, now that my hair is getting a bit longer, I really want to try them in my hair!
I posted this pic on FB back around Easter, but this was the girls all guzzied up before church.
I really like these other Curlformers and I'm anxious to try them again. I actually think I might use less of them and add more hair to each curler next time. And I seriously need to try these on myself. If I do, I'll be sure to post pictures. Does anyone have the long & extra wide Curlformers? We'd love it if you shared your Curlformer pictures with us on our Facebook page!
It's officially Summer Time here at our house. The last day of school was yesterday and I couldn't be more excited for summer break. That also means more time to do hair, but also more time to spent with my girls and less time on the computer. So I hope you'll have patience with me! I had every intention of getting another hair tutorial up for you this week, but we've got some major projects going on at our house that are currently taking a lot of my time, so instead I thought I'd share with you links to this fun tutorial related to "time" that I made for the girls teachers for the end of the year. Although we have teacher appreciation in May & we do stuff for them then, I always try and do something for the teachers once school is over to tell them again how much we love & appreciate them.
You may have seen these before, but I hadn't. I stumbled upon these posts months back & bookmarked them with the intent of doing them for the end of the year. I think they turned out darling & hopefully they'll be able to be used for years to come. I blocked out the name of their teachers, but hopefully you'll get the idea. Since Goose learned cursive this year, I used the font that is cursive, but for Bug I used the basic "handwriting font."
I tried to personalize them a bit with things I know they like, or say, favorite colors, and of course school supplies.
So for those links -- Plucky Momo had the very detailed instructions - measurements, fonts (I snagged both the cursive & basic elementary font at the site she links), etc., so go HERE for her tutorial. And then Diary of a Crafty Lady gave me the idea to write a bit more on the face and between the 2 put different items on the face. So you can see her tut' HERE.
And remember, our Stylish Mode giveaway for your chance at $25 towards her fabulous headbands is still going on, so don't forget to enter daily. It ends June 6th, so the "clock is ticking!" :-) Head over to our giveaway blog to enter. Click HERE to go there NOW!
So - how are you going to be spending your Summer "Time?!"
Thanks to DSO (Digital Scrapbook Obsession) for the great stuff for my new blog look. Also, to Digifree.blogspot.com for all their great links to fun free scrapbooking stuff!
Posts
