Babes in Hairland

Lauren Conrad Inspired - Half French Braid Wrapped Ponytail

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Toward the end of last summer and into the fall this awesome tutorial popped up on Pinterest of a modified French braid on Lauren Conrad. It reminded me of our "half French braid" that we did the opposite way, pulling hair from the bottom & wrapping the hair around the head to make a bit of a crown.

{Source}

So this is a spin off of Lauren Conrad's version that is pictured above. We've done this a lot and I love it because with the wrapping of the ponytail there is no need for any hair accessories - it just looks awesome as is!

Begin by parting the hair off center on the right. Part further back on the top of the head.

Part it down to the ear and secure all the rest of the hair hanging down in the back for now.

At the top on the left side of your part, start plaiting a braid.

Once you've plaited one round of the braid, grab some hair from the top & add it in, like you're French braiding.

Only add hair in from the top as you're plaiting the braid.

Once you run out of hair to add & have reached that back part ...

Stop adding hair but continue doing a regular braid down to the end of the hair. Secure temporarily with a clip.

Flip that braid up out of the way and smooth all remaining hair around to the left side of the head.

Make a low side ponytail and flip your braid back down. (I probably could have added one more section of hair into the braid and I wouldn't of had that gap!)

Wrap the braid under your ponytail and bring it back around the top. *If you wrap it over the top it tends to make your French braided part pucker so I have more luck putting it under the ponytail.*

Loop the end of your braid back around and under itself so it's close to the head. I've done it the other way too, but this is the way I did it when I documented it all!

Wrap it as much as want, but I just do 1 full wrap at the base of the ponytail. Secure the braid to the ponytail with a clear rubber band. Cinch the rubber band up and it'll disappear under the braid.

Unbraid any left over braid that is hanging down into the ponytail below that clear rubber band.

This is what you'll have from the back.

That's it! Looks so cute and unique! You can also do this much more relaxed and messy and have it look totally great as well! Give it a try & we'd love for you to share pictures with us on our Facebook Page! Also - if you didn't take a look at our last post, let us know your thoughts! Have a great weekend!

Cool Comb Concept?

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

So, last week I noticed an update in my Facebook feed that Gimme Clips was doing a survey so I took it. As part of it, they showed some pictures of a concept for a funky looking new comb!

I'm always excited about "tools" and accessories that make doing hair easier and fun (i.e. flat irons, Spin Pins, headbands that don't hurt, etc.!) so I was rather intrigued by the concept of these combs. So I snagged a few pictures and thought I'd ask you guys ... I know what my opinion is on one comb vs. the other - but what do you think? Would you buy something like this - which one? What would the pros or cons be on the small comb vs. the bigger one? Click on the picture if you need to see the text better.

Disney on Ice Winner

2012-01-23T09:52:00.002-07:00

If you entered for a chance to win tickets to the upcoming Disney on Ice show - we've announced the winner over HERE on our giveaway blog. BUT .... Don't forget - you can still go get passes down at the Energy Solutions Arena today from 11 to noon by supporting the first ever "Hoedown Showdown Book Drive." What a wonderful cause to support -- it's totally a win-win situation! All the details can be found HERE.

Letter P Hairstyle

2012-01-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

"P" is for Party!

Welcome back to our next installment of our Alphabet Hairstyles series! This one is pretty quick and straight forward.

First make a half pony - parting the hair from ear to ear. Secure with a rubber band off center on the left side of the head. Next, divide the ponytail in half and make 2 rope/twist braids - or regular braids, etc. Whatever you prefer. Temporarily secure them on the ends for now.

Then take the remaining hair on the bottom & make a side pony. Make sure it's as low as you can get it at the nape of the neck and off to the left.

Then secure the left twist down onto the ponytail. I wanted the left part of the P to be longer so I didn't just add it where the ponytail is at the nape of the neck is.

Then take the right twist and form the shape of your P. Secure as needed with small bobby pins on the underside of the twist.

I forgot & didn't get pictures of the next part - but if you're working with longer hair, you're going to have hair left over from the loop of your P sticking out on the left side of your hairstyle. I just brought the rest of that twist and sort of hid it under/on the side of the rest of the twist going down to the bottom pony.

You can see the smaller twist on the left in the picture below. That's the rest of the right side twist coming down. I just joined it into the ponytail too. I used little bobby pins to keep things in place there too.

The letter P in sign is hard to capture on camera - so we went at it backwards this time!

Up close & a bit further away ...

And a happy little Bee ... who is excited because she'll be having a "P"arty soon!

And don't forget about our Disney on Ice Giveaway. You can get free tickets by donating to the book drive - read more about the book drive in the post just before this one HERE, or try to win them over HERE on our giveaway blog!

Disney on Ice Book Drive & Giveaway

2012-01-18T10:07:00.001-07:00

Hey all my local readers -- Just wanted to fill you in on a a wonderful cause & great way to get free Disney on Ice Toy Story 3 tickets (besides winning them of course!) Instead of a food drive this year, they are having a book drive ... and you don't have to get up at Oh-Dark-Hundred to be there either! Read on to find out the details, and at the bottom read about our giveaway... Girls & boys will be sure to love this since it's TS3 and not just princesses!

EVERYONE'S FAVORITE TOYS FROM

DISNEY ON ICE PRESENTS TOY STORY 3

AND THE ROAD TO SUCCESS OF SALT LAKE CITY

ARE KICKING OFF SALT LAKE CITY'S FIRST

"HOEDOWN SHOWDOWN BOOK DRIVE"

"No Book Is Left Behind" With The Help Of Woody,

Buzz & The Salt Lake City Community

To Help Bring The Joy of Reading To

Underserved Children & Families In Need

Accepting Donations Monday, January 23^rd

WHO/WHAT: Everybody's favorite toys are back in Salt Lake City with Disney On Ice presents Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3 and this time they are making sure "no book is left behind" as they round up the Salt Lake community to benefit Road To Success in a fun-filled "Hoedown Showdown Book Drive."

Buzz and Woody invite you to collect books for low-income families and pre-schools throughout Salt Lake City. The first 500 people to bring a new or gently used children's book, to the EnergySolutions Arena Plaza Door Six to donate to the Road to Success Organization. In appreciation for every book donation, each person will receive a free ticket* to the opening night performance of Disney On Ice presents Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3 playing at EnergySolutions Arena - March 7-11, 2012.

Poverty has a profound impact on literacy development and a good book can be a good friend, that's why Disney On Ice supports literacy in an effort to help provide the fundamental skills required for learning how to read. The Road to Success collects, repairs, and packages used books, which are then made available to families in need - free of charge. Excitement about reading books can be contagious, so donate your new or gently used children's books to local under served children!

WHERE: EnergySolutions Arena - 301 West South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84101

WHEN: Monday, January 23^rd @ 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m

About The Show

Inspired by the #1 animated movie of all time, Toy Story 3, and memorable moments from Toy Story and Toy Story 2, everyone's favorite characters are hitting the ice in the sensational live production, Disney On Ice presents Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3, coming to Salt Lake City at the EnergySolutions Arena for nine performances from March 7-11, 2012.

And for our Family 4 pack giveaway --

head over to our giveaway blog to see details

& enter for your chance to win. Click HERE!

Bobby Pins - Oh the Possibilities!

2012-01-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't be a secret how much we use (and love) bobby pins & hair pins around here. I don't know where I'd be without them. You can see some of our tips & videos about bobby pins HERE. Not to mention our Goody Spin Pins that are a fabulous substitute for lots of pins in a bun. You can check those out HERE and our video HERE But, obviously as wonderful as they are, you can't use those when holding back bangs, or small sections of hair, etc. And while back I'd written on Facebook that I'd seen on Pinterest that if you put the ridges of the bobby pin against your head instead of the flat side, it'll stay in your hair better (which I've tried & I agree - they do stay better!) So it got me thinking about bobby pins - a little too much I'm afraid!

I started poking around online and found all kinds of fun things! On Pinterest I found this fun instruction sheet that came with some bobby pins via the Bridal Guide (you'll need to click on it to enlarge it). Their post can be found here.

I also got thinking about how often we lose bobby pins. Please say I'm not the only one! And by lose, I mean find them later in the carpet, on the floor tucked in under the bathroom cabinets or have random ones floating around in your purse or coat pockets! I think I've even found them in my washing machine now and then since the girls take them and shove them in their pockets.

As I've perused around Pinterest I've seen some fun ways to store bobby pins, fun and creative ways to decorate them, as well as other uses for them (yes - besides in your hair!) So I thought I'd dedicate this post to bobby pins today!

First up - decorating, adding embellishments and such. Do you do this? Or do you buy them decked out instead? The possibilities are endless when it comes to doing stuff to them to add some spice to your hair. Of course you can hot glue things on like we did to hair pins in THIS post back when Goose got baptized. Here are just a few fun ones I found:

I thought this was pretty cool - these come from Henry Happened and she took wider black bobby pins and drew on them with a white pen. If you put a few in your hair right next to each other, it would look fabulous! You can read her whole post DIY Missoni Bobby Pins over here.

These fun bobby pins were just painted with fingernail polish. You could probably use just clear & then add some glitter to add some 'bling' out of her regular ol' bobby pins if you don't have sparkly polish. These are from The College Prepster who also found this on Pinterest ...

And for countless other ways to deck out bobby pins you can go here on Pinterest to see lots of the ones I found. You can add beads, buttons on the ends, flowers, the ideas are endless.

And back to the topic of keeping your bobby pins in one place, there is this great idea of putting them in a paper clip holder. I found this on A Law Student's Journey. She made this cutie in about 5 minutes. You can check it out over here. You could decorate this any way you wanted and shake the bobby's out as needed.

And I'm sure if you're on Pinterest, you've seen this floating around one floating around. You can see her whole post here. I've got one of those magnetic "pin cushions" I'm thinking of pulling out and sticking mine on. Right now they are in little organizers in my drawer, but they are hard to get out.

There wasn't a site that this one linked back to but I found this one found here. What a wonderful way to store them if you are traveling or want to keep some extra ones in your purse or backpack. I know you can buy some at Sally's Beauty that come in a little tin, but this is a great way too I think!

Then I found some other ways that bobby pins can be used instead of just in our hair. I found a cute little idea here. Ironically, Goose was trying to get her school planner to open to the correct page this morning and there was a bobby pin on the counter and she grabbed it and did just this very thing. I laughed & asked her if she'd knew what I was posting about today!

Here's another inovative way to use bobby pins found over here. You can slide them onto a hem to hold pleats in place as you iron them. Just be sure you don't iron on top of the bobby pin because it might make a nice mark on your skirt where the bobby pins were!

And last but certainly not least - this has got to be my favorite non-hair useage of bobby pins. Over at PBJ Stories she reorganized her kitchen and to rotate her cans she used a magazine storage container. But the cans would have rolled out the end. So she opened up bobby pins making them flat and spray painted them white and stuck them on the end to keep the cans from rolling out. How smart is that? Her whole post can be found here.

And if you're not on Pinterest, e-mail me & I'll send you an invite. If you are - feel free to follow us HERE! You can see what other stuff we like besides hair!

So - what ways do you store your bobby pins? What other uses have you found for them? We'd love it if you shared your tips or ideas!

Letter O Hairstyle

2012-01-06T08:52:00.001-07:00

"O" is for Octopus ... or Oprah!

This quick letter has just a few steps and the part that will probably take you the longest is securing it with bobby pins. So here we go...

Make a low ponytail as far down to the nape of the neck as you can. I guess you could do this just the opposite w/a really high ponytail too.

Divide the ponytail in half and braid all the way down. Secure the ends with rubber bands.

I didn't pull the ends through the last time I wrapped the rubber band. Doing this, or wrapping the tips all the way down with a rubber band helps keep all those tiny hairs from poking out when I'm trying to bobby pin them in & hide them.

Wrap the ends up towards the top of the head forming your "O" shape and secure them with bobby pins. I overlapped my braids on each side to try hide the ends of the braids and have it be one continuous circle. Secure with bobby pins as needed from underneath so you don't see them.

That's is. There's your letter "O!" You could wrap this with ribbon to secure it to the head as well and to add some color. It makes a pretty wreath that way.

She was having too much fun making her sign language letter O! Be sure to check out all our other ABC Hairstyles & share with us on our Facebook page over HERE!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Rubber Band Wrap Headband

2012-01-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

When we were on "The Daily Dish" the first time, I'd briefly demonstrated how to do a rubber band wrap & said we've done them over the head before like a headband & I realized I'd never posted that on here to show you. If you need a refresher on how to do a rubber band wrap - you can check out our video HERE.

I combined the rubber band wraps with THIS fabulous hairdo we did last year where we had a braided headband over the top of Goose's head. So for step by step pix on how I did most of this style refer back to that post as well. We just quickly put all the rubber bands in - I didn't care if it was as neat & precise as some of the other wraps I've done. You can use a thicker section of hair for the headband section too - we just took a little one in these pictures.

But instead of twisting the bangs backwards to join them on the back of her head, we made what we call "Barbie Bangs" where we smooth down the hair in front of the ears & then pull them back under all her hair & secure them with a rubber band at the nape of the neck. It covered up both parts of the "headband" where it starts & where it's secured nicely.

That's all & it looks so cute. It's fun to use brighter colored rubber bands so the color adds a splash of color, but she had a green sweater on today so we just used our light green ones that we had on hand.

Let me know if you have any questions or want more of a tutorial on this one! Be sure to post pictures on our FB page of the hairdo's you're doing! We love to see them all!

Letter N Hairstyle

2011-12-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

"N" is for New Year

And we wish you a wonderful one!

I know it's been a while since we've posted the next installment of our ABC hair series. December really got the best of me and I'm still trying to dig out!

This one is pretty straight forward - but here you go! Part the hair from ear to ear and then make a side part on the right. Make a pony tail on both sides and secure with rubber bands. On the left side, divide the pony in half & braid each section. You could do twists or whatever you want here. On the right side, just braid the pony - so you'll have a total of 3 braids. Just secure them temporarily on the ends.

With the rest of the hair in the back, continue your side part down to the nape of the neck.

With all the hair hanging down on the left side of the part, comb it into a ponytail and add the far left braid into it.

Then on the right side, comb all the hair hanging down into another pony and add the remaining 2 braids into it. Secure with rubber bands. That's it!

Once again I underestimated the curve of her head & didn't get the right pony as high as I'd of liked. Oh well!

And here is her letter N in sign language. She's excited she knows so many of the letters in sign now!

We hope you have a fabulous & fun New Years Eve!

See ya back here next year! :)

Our Latest Segment from The Daily Dish

2011-12-22T13:09:00.001-07:00

If you didn't catch us this morning on TV, or aren't local - here was our segment we did for The Daily Dish.

We thought it'd be a good reminder to show how to keep bows and headbands in place since it's winter hat weather. If you are new to our blog - Welcome! You can view a better video on how to keep the bows in place in this post HERE. For more info on the rubberbands we use, and the ones we gave Nicea --check out our video HERE. And for a couple creative ways we've come up with keeping head bands in place, you can see the "how to's" HERE and for a real fun way to dress up a plain headband go HERE. Also, all the darling bows & accessories we used today were from All Things Ribbon.com!

So here is our segment we did today:

Thanks to everyone who tuned in & for all your support! If you can't view the video - try going HERE instead.

We wish you all a wonderful Christmas and hope it is a stress-free holiday filled with joy & happiness and that you're able to spend time with those you love!! Merry Christmas & we'll be back sometime next week!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Since it's that time of year to send out Christmas cards and holiday letters, we thought we'd keep with tradition from years past & share a version of our card with all of you -- our friends in Hairland! But first ... we "mustache" you a question .... or maybe we'll just "shave" it for later! LOL Since we're all about hair here - we thought we'd be extra silly this year - even more so than last year's card and grow some facial hair! Hope this brings you a bit of Christmas cheer!

Have a wonderful day & hope you are able to put your feet up for a few minutes during this crazy time of year and enjoy the festivities!

Also, we're scheduled to do another segment on the CW30's "The Daily Dish" tomorrow morning -- so if you're local be sure to tune in and watch! Hopefully I'll be able to provide another link to a video once we're done!

No Heat Curls from Socks #2

2011-12-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

If you didn't win one of the sets of Curlformers last week, I've got another great way for you to get curls using no heat. I'm assuming you've got socks lying around your house that you could use - so if you do - you'll be able to do this! If you watched us on The Daily Dish last month HERE, Bee had curls in her hair and I briefly showed how I got them using socks while we were on the show (but I think the angle of the camera on TV didn't quite capture what I was doing) so here is a full tutorial on it. After I'd done the sock bun tutorial (you can see that HERE) I had one of my readers link me through to THIS video and I was so excited to see the results after the not so impressive results from the sock bun.

These are great for getting "rodeo princess curls" as Bee calls them & are perfect for any time you want beautiful curls for a special occasion. They relax nicely by the end of the day if you don't want such a "bouncy" curl. When I did this in Goose's hair, since her hair is thicker & heavier, the curls tended to be more wavy than the bouncy curl. But that was just fine too!

So here's the video tutorial & pictures we put together for you ... enjoy!

Curlformers Giveaway Winners

2011-12-16T09:44:00.001-07:00

Oh my goodness -- thank you so much to everyone who entered our Curlformers giveaway. We had an amazing response & I think Curlformers definitely felt the love over on their FB page too! And of course, a big thank you to Curlformers for offering the several kits for this giveaway.

So - what you've all been waiting for ...

The first 2 winners will receive the extra long/wide salon packs:

And...

The winner of the long/wide salon kit:

And last, but not least the winner of the long/wide starter packs & hook:

Congratulations to all of the winners. Please e-mail me w/in 24 hrs. or I will have to pick new winners for your unclaimed prize! Thank you again to everyone that entered and to Curlformers. Have a wonderful weekend.

PS -- Jenn @ Girly Do's is currently having a $25 GC giveaway to All Things Ribbon -- so if you haven't yet - head over HERE to enter to enter to win some amazing hair accessories!

Double Twists

2011-12-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

As each year gets close to ending, I try and get all my pictures ready to archive into a different folder on my computer and so I've been going back through this year's pictures and came across this simple but cute one that I did for Bee back on her first day of pre-school this year that I never posted.

But first -- if you somehow missed it -- we are having a fantastic Curlformers giveaway that ends TONIGHT -- so if you have yet to enter, scroll down to the next post to see the details on how you can enter to win! There are several different sets up for grabs!

All I did was part her hair off on the top left side of her head. Then I parted down to her ear and divided that whole front section in half to make 2 sections. I did a twist - some call it a french twist like I do in my bangs in this video HERE. Once I reached her ear and the part, I stopped adding hair and did a rope/twist braid with the the 2 strands so it would wrap around to the left side of her head.

I made 2 of those twists & then added them into a ponytail.

I curled her ponytail slightly w/my flat iron & topped it off with a darling bow from All Things Ribbon & she was set for her 1st day of school.

Let me know if you have any questions on this ... and don't forget to scroll down to enter our Curlformers giveaway! Be sure to make all your comments in that post to enter or they won't get counted! I'll announce the winners tomorrow!

Curlformers Giveaway -- IS OVER & CLOSED!

2011-12-13T08:43:00.001-07:00

The holidays wouldn't be the holidays if I wasn't able to share one of my favorite "hair tools" and so we're having a giveaway! My dear friends at Curlformers have generously given me some salon kits to giveaway along with some starter packs. That means you have several chances to win! And that means extra fancy hair for the holidays!

I'd thrown the question out there on FB recently what Curlformers you use or wish you had, and the majority of you said the extra long/wide ones. So since we use as well as just the long/wide ones the most, that's what we're giving away. I think they give the best curls -- not too tight and not too loose for those cute little heads of hair.

So here is what is up for grabs:

Each of these salon kits comes with 40 Curlformers and 2 hooks. The extra long/wide ones sell on their site for $68.95 and the long/wide ones are $58.95.

And a few of the starter packs. In the beginning, we had 2 of these (a total of 16 Curlformers) and did all our wonderful styles with them, so if you have girls with not as long or as much hair, a few packs of these are perfect! They sell for $11.99 on their site.

So here's how to enter and be sure to make a separate comment for EACH thing for which you qualify!

** First leave a comment telling us hi so we know you're here -- and which option you'd like to win.

** Like us on Facebook. If you don't - head over HERE and join in the fun!

** Hit the "share" button on FB and share the link I posted about this giveaway on your FB wall & leave a comment on this post that you did!

** If you don't already - Like Curlformers on FB -- go HERE for their page & like them.

** Send Curlformers some love on their FB page & tell them Babes in Hairland sent you!

** And lastly, are you on Pinterest? We've been for a while & it's awesome! Feel free to follow us there too for another entry! (Or if you need an invite let me know!) You can see all our boards and see what else we like besides hair over HERE!

*** Be sure to leave all your comments in THIS post or they won't get counted and included when we pick our winners. ****

You've got 6 ways to enter to win. Again -- leave a comment for each of the things you did. PLEASE be sure to leave a way for us to contact you!

I'm soooo excited about this giveaway. It closes Thursday 12/15 at midnight MST and I'll announce the winners on Friday 12/16/11. So what are you waiting for? Go enter to win!

If you're unsure exactly what these are - feel free to check out all our posts & recent videos on Curlformers HERE.

Letter M Hairstyle

2011-12-09T08:35:00.001-07:00

"M" is for Monkey

I know it's been a while since we posted our last ABC hairstyle, I went out of town for a week to Vegas to hang out while my husband was at a convention & attending meetings all day. So instead of doing the girls hair, I was curled up with a good book & thoroughly enjoying my view:

Anyway -- So now I'm playing catch up with everything, including blogging! So on with the hairdo ... Part the hair from ear to ear & down the middle of the head.

Pull the hair on the right side of the head into a ponytail & secure with a rubber band. Repeat on the left side.

Divide the little pony in half and make 2 twist/rope braids. You can do whatever you like here, but we did rope braids! Temporarily secure them at the bottom. Repeat on the left side.

Once all your twists are done part out a "V" in the back where the hair is hanging down.

Add the inside twists to this parted out section of hair. Secure it with a rubber band.

On the right side take the outer twist & combine it with the rest of the hair that is down on the right side of the head. Repeat on the left side. You will have 3 pony tails once everything has been combined at the bottom.

And of course our sign language letter M.

Have fun with this one! Can't believe we're half way through the alphabet already! Be sure to check out all our other ABC Hairstyles HERE!

Holiday Haircuts & Tips

2011-12-06T08:31:00.001-07:00

We recently had a fun GNO w/my BFF Jenn -- all 3 babes and myself. But it was a GNO for them to get their hair trimmed. If you didn't know, Jenn is going to cosmetology school & so I thought it'd be fun for her to cut all the babes hair.

Since it's the holidays and everyone wants to look their best we thought we'd share a few pictures & chat haircuts a little ....

One common myth out there is that if you cut your hair more often it'll grow faster & even thicker. In case you've been part of that school of thought - people believed that partly because when men shave it tends to grow back quickly and sometimes thicker. Unfortnately genetics plays a big part in your hair growth and cutting it more often is just going to get you ... well, shorter hair. You'll hear it recommended that you get your hair trimmed every 6-8 weeks. Feel free to do that, but it is not necessary. I don't get the girls hair trimmed that often at all. Yes, I should probably get it trimmed more than I do - but unless your hair has major split ends you don't need it cut that often. Obviously if you are trying to maintain a certain style or have shorter hair, yes, you'll get your hair cut more often because every little bit of hair makes a difference. But for a basic trim that often isn't always necessary.

Remember though, if you wait too long and the ends are really bad, obviously you are going to need more cut off to clean it all up and get rid of the split ends. Instead of maybe only getting a half of an inch off, you'll have to get several inches for your stylist to fix it. So yes, hair "maintenance" is important - but everyone's hair is different. Also -- be sure to be clear with the person cutting your hair what you want done. Regardless of if it is at a school or a regular salon. You don't want to walk out of there with a haircut you don't like.

Your hair can also be a reflection of your lifestyle. If you eat poorly it can negatively affect your hair as well. But again, genetics plays a big part too. And of course, the more hair drying, flat ironing, and coloring that you do to your hair will also affect how it looks.

Also - if you don't want to pay high salon prices just to get you or your dd's hair trimmed, might I suggest a cosmetology school. I have a hard time paying $20 just to get an inch or two cut off my girls hair. The benefit of taking them to a hair school is the stylists take their time since they are learning and tend to be more careful. Plus - they have an instructor that comes and double checks their work - so that's even better that you're probably not going to walk out of there with an uneven haircut. So keep that in mind next time you think about getting a trim. Oh, remember that just because it's a school doesn't mean you shouldn't tip them. They make their $$ off tips not the price of the haircut when they are in school. :)

And if you get an extra cool stylist or have connections - there is free entertainment too .... LOL

The girls had a blast combing the mannequins hair while they were waiting their turn!

Anyway, I just wanted to share our GNO w/you and give a HUGE thank you to Jenn for being a trooper and cutting all 3 of their hair. Their cuts all turned out great & we're happy to have nice looking hair for the holidays!

So -- how often do you trim your hair or your dd's hair? Have you ever gone to a cosmetology school for a cut or color?

Curlformer "How-To" Videos

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

It's no secret how much we love Curlformers around here and I know we've been posting styles using them forever. I've had so many requests for how we put them in and any tips or tricks we might have when we use them so I finally was able to finish putting together videos to show you what we do. Sorry they are a bit long, but hopefully they'll help you a bit. It usually takes me about 10-15 minutes to put these in my girlies hair but since I was talking and explaining stuff I spliced things together a bit so you didn't have to see all of that.

The 1st video showing us putting them in after her bath and the 2nd one is the results when we pull them out along with pics of several of our favorite Curlformer styles! Let me know if you have any more questions! And for all our posts on Curlformers -- Q&A, styles, etc., go HERE! Enjoy!

Our Segment on The Daily Dish

2011-11-28T08:59:00.001-07:00

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and enjoyed great time with family and friends - and of course had plenty of yummy food! Our holiday was so great and I have so much to be thankful for.

As I mentioned in our last post, we were asked to appear on a local TV show called "The Daily Dish." If you missed it or aren't local and couldn't tune in they posted our segment so we thought we'd share it with you guys.

We had such a fun time. They'd wanted us to come show some "holiday hairstyles" and so we showed them a few techniques for quick styles and then had a few styles already done to just show and explain a little about. One of them was the style we posted last time.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from while we were there as well as our segment and a few pictures from while we were there. Thanks to the lady in the studio audience for taking some pics, and to my BFF Jenn for taking some as well!

Here the girls are in the "green room" where we waited before all the fun started. Can you tell Goose is just a "might bit" excited?! They kept asking why it was called the green room, when in fact, it really isn't green!

Here's Nicea & Brianne talking about their major high heels before our segment! They were so funny together!

Again - more talk of those high heels! I seriously could never wear those!

And here we were as the segment got going ... I showed rubber band wraps and our uneven rope braids on Bug quickly...

We had a blast & the girls haven't stopped talking about it! So here it is:

If you can't view it here on our site, try watching it on their site HERE. Thanks to Nicea & Brianne for being so cute w/the girls & also to everyone who tuned in and for all your kind words. It was a fabulous experience and a fun way to start the Thanksgiving holiday

Also, just wanted to let you know, our Facebook Hair Gallery is totally updated now through last week - so if you can't find the style you are looking for you can look for it in our albums over HERE.

Cascading Messy Bun

2011-11-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

If you were able to watch us on CW30's "The Daily Dish" this morning, this is the hairstyle that Goose was wearing. It is perfect for any age, but looks great on her as she is in that "tween" stage of life. If you are visiting us because you saw us on The Daily Dish -- Welcome! We're so glad you're here! We hope you'll stay a while & take a look around! We've got hundreds of different styles for every age & every occasion so you're bound to find a thing or two to try on a cute little head of hair!

This first step is optional - Begin by parting out a section of hair on the crown to make a slight "bump" up front. Secure it with a few bobby pins. Our "bump" this day ended out not being much of a bump however!

Next, part the hair from ear to ear like you're making a half pony. Be careful not too pull too hard on those hairs you've bobby pinned when doing this. Make a half pony & on the last wrap of the rubber band, don't pull the hair through all the way so you end out with a loop that looks like this:

Now grab a small piece of hair that is from your half pony hanging below the loop-

With another finger, poke through the loop (there is no exactness to this btw). This part is hard to explain, so hopefully it makes sense!

Take the small piece of hair you'd pulled up from below & pass it through the loop where your finger was. If you have a topsy tail, this might be helpful at this part of the hairstyle. I just use my fingers to sort of weave the hair & pull it through.

A view from the side after you've pulled 1 piece up and woven it through a part of the looped hair.

Continue taking small pieces of hair from below & passing them randomly through sections of the loop above. They will cascade back down once you've pulled them through.

You can do as many of these as you want and it is all just randomly placed. If it looks random & maybe a bit messy that is fine.

You can leave all those cascading pieces of hair straight, or to make it a bit fancier of a style, I curl them. I use my small little iron for that.

Curl as few or as many of those pieces as you like.

Now here's another step you can choose to do. To hide the rubber band on top of the loop, I pull a few pieces from the top of the loop up and secure them with bobby pins just like I do in my messy bun. You can see a video of that HERE. By doing this to the top, the loop won't look saggy from the side as it's pulled down by the cascading hair.

I've done this style several times, so in these next pictures I pulled more hair up from below & pulled it through the loop of hair on top.

And to add some color, we added this darling headband from All Things Ribbon. Jen shows how to make this exact headband HERE on her blog. And when we were up visiting months back she gave us THE actual headband she shows on her blog! Thanks Jen, we love it! We couldn't decide which side of her head we liked it on the best though!

*** Also - a slight variation of this style you could do is pull all the hair up in back into a high pony tail and then make the loop. Then pull hair through the loop as shown above. We put Goose's hair over her shoulders in front to get it out of the way for a minute, and all that hair cascaded down so nicely. So you've got a couple options with this style ***

Let us know if you have any questions on this one. Trying to describe things sometimes gets tricky!

Be sure to check out all our styles on our Facebook page HERE in our photo galleries. They are current through last weeks hairstyles! We're also on Pinterest too if you find us "pinteresting!"

To see more styles using some of the techniques we used on The Daily Dish - you can see them HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE!

Letter L Hairstyle

2011-11-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

"L" is for Love

Speaking of Love -- I just thought I'd tell you some great news about 2 things I happen to love as well as tell you some exciting news ...

First off, our fabulous bow making friend over at All Things Ribbon is having her annual holiday dress giveaway. The dress & headband she is giving away is so beautiful. So go check out all the ways you can enter to win on her blog over HERE. Be sure to tell her I sent you on her FB page -- it gets me bonus friend points I think! lol Also, if you aren't wanting to try for the dress but are in need of her fabulous accessories, she's also got a code for 25% off your entire purchase for the duration of the giveaway. Just enter "Winter" at checkout.

And speaking of discounts -- if you don't follow us on Facebook or missed our post yesterday -- I got word from my friend at Curlformers that they are having a sale on Black Friday. Can I just say "hooray?!" I've been using these long enough to know it is rare for them to go on sale or be discounted -- so if you've got these on your Christmas list, now is the time to buy them! This Friday - 11/25/11 you can get 15% off any purchase on their site Curlformers.com. No code needed - it'll automatically be deducted at checkout. So be sure in all your black Friday shopping you take time to head to their site & buy the greatest curlers in the world! If you aren't familiar with them, check out our posts on them HERE.

Also - I just wanted to let you guys know that we're going to be on a local TV show tomorrow. It's called "The Daily Dish" on CW30. It airs from 9-10 a.m. I'm not sure when I'm slotted to appear, but the plan is to have all 3 of the girls with so if you are a local and can tune in - we'd love if you watched us! If you're unable to view it hopefully there will be a link I can share later. We're so excited!

Anyway - on with the hair tutorial! This probably has been the quickest letter of our whole series so far. Not hard to figure out. We just did regular braids for this one, but as always, you can do twists, or whatever your preference is for this.

Part the hair from ear to ear & make a ponytail off to the left side. Secure it with a rubber band & then braid it.

With the remaining hair on the bottom comb it all to the right side of the head & make a side pony as far to the right as you can. Make it nice and low too. Braid it & secure it temporarily with a clip.

Then bring that low side braid over to the left and combine it with the other braid. Tie them together with a rubber band.

To keep the L from pulling away from her head when she played I strategically put in a few bobby pins under the braid and by the pony at the neck and it worked just great. That's not necessary, but that's what I did! That's it -- you're done. It was funny to me to see how doing her hair this way made her pony tail so much shorter than it normally is! Strange to have such a short pony for a change!

And as easy as making the letter in her hair was - it was just as easy for her to do the letter L in sign language. Some of the other letters so far have been a bit tricky for her little hands so she was happy for this one being so easy!

Letter K Hairstyle

2011-11-17T08:26:00.001-07:00

K is for Karlee

(Bee's BFF!)

We're slowly but surely making our way through the alphabet! On today's agenda - the letter K! This one is pretty easy & quick too.

Start by parting the hair straight back down the middle of the head. Then part to the ears so you have 2 sections of hair. Make a pony tail with each & then make a rope/twist braid. If I do this again, I'll probably just do regular braids because they tend to be a bit stiffer in the whole "molding" process!

Secure those rope braids temporarily and then part the rest of the hair straight down the back to the nape of the neck.

Next take a rubber band and pull the right twist over to the left one & secure them together.

On the left side comb the hair underneath the twists down into a ponytail at the nape of the neck & add the twist on the left into it.

Repeat on the right side - comb the rest of the hair into a low ponytail and pull the twist on the right over into it as well.

That's all this one requires. Be sure to get the pony tails at the bottom even though! Like I mentioned before, I probably would use braids next time on this in the hopes the line on the left side would sit straighter and not pull in as much. ** Also another thing you can do is start the top right ponytail a bit further down/back on the head. It'll make the right side of the K look a little more like a K instead of an X perhaps.**

And a silly grin with her sign language letter K!

Happy Hair Doing & be sure to share your alphabet letter hair with us on our Facebook Page! "K?!!"

A Bun for Shorter Hair

2011-11-15T08:27:00.001-07:00

Ever since we cut Bug's hair off for Locks of Love it's been fun to watch it start growing back -- but the one thing that I haven't been able to do is a regular ol' bun. She has enough hair for a pony tail, but if I try braid or twist it and wrap it around for a regular bun it is too stubby! It won't even wrap 1 full time around. She likes buns, and as the weather gets colder and hats are worn more buns are nice because everything stays in place and her still looks nice and go all crazy with static.

So this was my cheating solution! Obviously, if your hair is majorly short even this won't work - and for that I suggest our messy bun, because even with my short hair I can manage one. But if you've got at least shoulder length hair, give this a try!

Make a ponytail. I suggest using a rubber band that is close to their hair color or clear since you might be able to see it later.

Split the pony in half and braid each section & secure the braids with rubber bands. I've also done this with rope/twist braids and it works well too. Braid further down if you don't want ends sticking out for the finished product at the end!

Now cross the right braid over the left one...

Pull both ends up around to the top of the ponytail -- so the right braid is going around the left side & the right braid is going around the left side. (Sorry it's hard to show that in a picture - but the braids are crossed over each other now.)

Pull the 2 ends up as far as you can and tie them together with another rubber band. I like the ends spraying out all playful like, but if you don't, then you could braid further down so your don't have as long of ends sticking out & you can secure them down with bobby pins.

Add a few bobby pins to the bun to make sure it won't fall out.

I curled the ends down just a little bit so they weren't sticking up all willy nilly! And because I used a brown rubber band, you can't see it very much through the bun.

I realize this is very similar to a post we did a long time ago around Thanksgiving - "A basic bun with a little bit of turkey tail" but her hair just won't wrap like that anymore at this length. So I'm glad I finally figured out a way to get a bun in her shorter hair!

In the end I added a cute flower from Gimme Clips to add some color and the bun stayed in place all day.

That's it. Quick & easy and yeah- we finally have a fun!

Letter J Hairstyle

2011-11-09T09:30:00.001-07:00

"J" is for Jewelry

(This was Bee's response when I asked her "What starts with the letter J?"

She is a true-blue girl!)

This one is very similar to how the Letter I hairdo begins ... so here we go.

Begin by parting the hair down the middle & parting from ear to ear. Make 2 small ponytails with each section. Remember to get these ponies far enough back on the head so the top of the J will show.

Braid the 2 ponies and join them in the middle with a rubber band.

With the rest of the hair hanging down in back, I made a small ponytail at the nape of the neck.

Braid all the rest of the hair hanging down in the ponytail from the ponies on top.

Braid as far down as you can, and with a clear rubber band tie the end off & then don't pull it through the last time you wrap the rubber band. Having a little loop like this keeps all those hairs from the tail from poking out as bad.

One way you could do this is to wrap the J under the ponytail that is on the bottom - but I decided I didn't like that as much.

You'll want some smaller bobby pins for this style if you have them. You'll be needing to secure it randomly in a few places and the smaller ones are ideal for this - especially on the end of the J.

Once you've secured the downward stem of the J going down the back of the head with a few rubber bands, if the hair you are working with is long and the J scoops up too far like ours did -- tuck the tail under as far as you need to make the J look how you want.

Tuck it down & bobby pin it so that end will stay hidden under the rest of the braid.

That's it. Pretty easy -- just the strategic bobby pinning is all to keep it in place that took the time!

And since I can't take a still shot of the sign language letter J - and it would have been backwards -- she used her magic pinky finger and drew it for you & I just helped a little!! ;-)

Be sure to check out our whole ABC hairstyle series over HERE. And thanks to those of you who post your ABC hair pix on our Facebook page. We love seeing your versions and how they come out!

Letter I Hairstyle

2011-11-03T09:37:00.002-06:00

"I" is for Ice Cream

Sorry for the delay with the alphabet series. We were having too much fun with Halloween & I was busy sewing my heart out for a week - but now we're back in business!

This one is pretty straight forward I think. Part the hair straight down the middle and down to the ears & make little pony tails.

**Be sure to get the pony tails further back on the head or you can't see the top line of the I when you are done. So I parted further back by her ear. **

Once you have your 2 ponies, part the rest of the hair down the middle.

Make 2 more ponies that sit low & far apart at the base of the neck.

Here is where you can do what you want. I did this with puff braids one time, but didn't like it as much, so we opted for rope/twist braids. Make one in each ponytail & then combine them in the middle with a rubber band.

Make a rope/twist braid out of the 1 ponytail you now have in the middle & go down as far as your 2 ponytails at the bottom sit. Secure it with another rubber band.

Divide the hair underneath that rubberband back in half and make a rope/twist braid out of each half. You will pull each one over & secure it into the ponytails at the base of the neck for the bottom portion of the I.

You are done once you've combined the twists into the bottom ponytails. There are probably a couple other ways you could do this - pulling the bottom ponytails in like I did the top ponytails, and then you'd just have 1 ponytail hanging down when you are all done. But this is what we ended up with!

If you need a few bobby pins up across the top of the I under the twists to support it you can just slip them underneath the twists and it will make it not sag on top if that ends out being a problem.

And in keeping with tradition - the letter I in sign language!

Bee kept talking about needing a "dot on the i" so if you are wanting a lower case one, you'd need to do it different obviously. I did one a couple years back for my SITS day and you can check it out here - but I think if I did the lower case "I" again, I'd do it a bit differently. Anyway, it's there to look at if you are interested, but I didn't do a tutorial on that one. Be sure to check out all the other fun letters in our ABC hair series HERE! And as always, we love when you share them on our Facebook page!

Halloween Costumes & a Winner

2011-10-31T11:30:00.001-06:00

Happy Halloween everyone! We hope your whole day is fun & festive! We've announced our winner for the Disney on Ice "Treasure Trove" tickets, so if you entered, head over HERE to see if it was you.

We also wanted to share our costumes with you since we think they were pretty silly and I worked so hard on them since I am NOT a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination! There were no princesses or girly things this year ... they wanted to be Minions from the movie Despicable Me. If you aren't familiar with the movie -- these are the guys they were trying to look like. Ironically they picked how they wanted to look and we got their costumes all done & then we found THIS funny short on YouTube (I think it's on the BlueRay as well) and it's the 3 of them all together fighting over a banana. If you need a good laugh you should watch it.

Here's Goose -- she was didn't dare smile because she thought her yellow face paint would crack! She was the Minion Dave!

Here's our cute little Bug - aka the Minion Kevin.

And our little Bee -- and we couldn't figure out what her Minion name was on the movie!

Here's all 3 of them together. They were a HUGE hit -- especially when everyone saw them together!

Happy Halloween from

The Cute Little Minions in Hairland!

We hope your day is Spook-Tacular & full of fun!!

Don't forget to share your Halloween costumes with us on our Facebook Page over HERE!!

Halloween Headbands & Disney on Ice

2011-10-27T08:56:00.005-06:00

So I've got to give a HUGE apology to my friend Jen over at All Things Ribbon ... Months back I'd gone to visit my sister and the fabulous bow making Jen lives just a hop skip & a jump from her so we arranged for me to pay her a visit & meet her ... finally. She was so sweet and spent the afternoon with me, Goose and my sister and we saw her amazing bow-tique and I got to see first hand how she works her bow-magic. Simply put - I'm amazed. While we were there she put us "to work" and we got to help make these fun headbands for Halloween. I'd meant to post these forever ago and because Halloween was so far away at the time I totally forgot. We made one for each of the girls (although Bee is showing them all off here) and one for Beans from Girly Do's. We chatted the afternoon away and bonded over bows. You can't get better than that! So Thank You so much Jen for a fun filled day and for the headbands & I'm so glad I finally got to meet you!! (I would post pictures of our fun together but someone is a bit camera shy! wink wink)

Anyway, these are the ones that we put together and we just love them. I know I've said it before, but Jen is so talented and if you ever need bows or holiday hair accessories (and even dresses) her site is truly the place to go & she's on Facebook as well and she's always posting new & amazing things.

This one is my fav - she anchored the little skeleton with his hand so it looks like he's hanging on for dear life! Soooo cute!

So if you aren't up for crazy hair styles for pre-Halloween - you've definitely got to accessorize with something Halloweeny from All Things Ribbon!

Also ... another fun thing I have to share is that I've got a family 4 pack for Disney on Ice's "Treasure Trove" to give away for anyone in the Utah area, or that wants to make the drive. So head over to our giveaway blog HERE if you are interested in entering.

Now ... I'm off to finish sewing parts of the girls costumes. And I don't sew! :)

Crazy Hair Day Styles

2011-10-25T08:48:00.000-06:00

It's Red Ribbon Week this week where the girls go to school, which always means fun activities. We had crazy hair day and since Halloween is coming up - these silly & crazy styles fit right in. I've got to say, doing hair for crazy hair day takes more time than just regular hairstyles for us, so these pictures were snapped on the way out the door because we were almost late!

With Bug's hair we just did a bunch of the crazy buns all over her head. I guess technically these are called Bantu knots, but we weren't trying to make them look that good. We just parted her hair all over & added some silly curly pipe cleaner with all the random colored rubber bands. If you do these, remember you can get some great curl from them too - we did this on Goose as an experiment a long time ago. You can see the curls HERE.

And for Goose we thought we'd do a big massive sock bun on top of her head (you can see how we did it in THIS post). But to top it off and make it look even sillier, we have a soft finger puppet bird that we thought we'd perch on top to make it look like she had a birds nest on her head. Since there is a sock under all that hair, we just safety pinned the bird to the sock. If we'd of not been so short on time, I was going to add some raffia that I had lying around to make it more "straw like" but it was silly all the same!

A look from the back. You can sort of see the head of the safety pin, but we didn't care!

She was laughing all the way to school, until she got out of the car with a slight panic that today wasn't crazy hair day & she and Bug might be the only ones w/weird hair! Luckily we'd seen other kids on the way that had colored hair & such, so we were good!

For more crazy hair ideas - some seriously FABULOUS ones -check these out. I found this on Pinterest, but the actual post is here on Bee in our Bonnet. One of the hairstyles inspired the bird on top of Goose's hair - one of the pictures they did a birds nest for her hair, but it is much fancier than ours! Go check them out. If nothing else your kids could have amazing hair for Halloween if they are a bit past dressing up! This picture from Bee in our Bonnet is only 1 of many amazing & creative hairdos. I was in awe!

Oh, I love all the craziness at this time of year! Hope you are enjoying it too!

Halloween Hair - Jack O' Lantern Bun

2011-10-24T09:54:00.000-06:00

Sorry we didn't get the next letter in our alphabet series posted last week. We had fall break and the girls were out of school for a couple days so we took advantage of it and had some well spent family time. We'll get the next installment of our series up soon!

Wahoo, Halloween is in the air, and we've got a fun little way to add it into your dd's hair in the form of a bun that looks like a little Jack o' Lantern. Nothing overly complicated here - the hardest part will be deciding how you want the cute little face of your jack o' lantern to look.

You will need some construction paper, or if you want it to hold up better, some felt. Black and green to be exact. And you will need orange ribbon as well.

Cut your eyes, nose, and mouth out in black, and a little stem in green.

Then attach them to hair pins. You can tape them or hot glue them onto the pins. Bobby pins will work but I find hair pins work best for stuff like this because you can stick them straight down in the hair easier. Make sure you make the face parts big enough. I ended out making ours a bit bigger after this try!

Make a ponytail in the hair. Then add some orange ribbon. I thought I had plain bright orange ribbon but apparently not, so we used this funky orange one I had on hand. Add it to the hair under the rubber band of your pony so is secure.

You can do this a couple ways. You could add 3 strands of ribbon and do a regular 3 strand braid or we opted for one of our favorite techniques - we did a 4 strand braid with ribbon in it. You can see our video HERE on how we do that. Braid it to the end of the ponytail and secure with a rubber band.

Then twist it around to make your bun - or circle shape of the pumpkin. Secure with a few bobby pins.

Add your pins with the pumpkin face parts on it and you're done! The tricky part of this was getting the pins in and avoiding hitting the ribbon. In the end I just used some tape on the back of the mouth & stuck it to the ribbon since I was short on time.

Here it is with our small mouth & I decided we needed to make it a bit bigger. So that's what I mean about making sure the face pieces are proportionate to the size of bun you are working with!

I like the bigger mouth much better and so did Bee. She thought it was so fun having a pumpkin in her hair!

And as always, if you are looking for other fun Halloween Hair ideas - check all of ours out HERE. Our biggest hit was our Halloween Spider Hairdo that we did last year!

Double Braids into Pocahontas Braids

2011-10-19T09:14:00.001-06:00

If you remember our Triple Braided Pocahontas Braids we did not too long back, this is just a slight variation of it that we did for school the other day. Not hard and perfect for a school morning.

Obviously instead of the 3 braids on top, I just sectioned out two and then pulled them down into the Pocahontas braids. With Bug having shorter hair this worked a bit better. I wish the 2 small braids from up top were a bit longer so they'd have shown up more in the braids below, but you get the idea!

I love zig zag parts!

Again we just left the right side plain but you could certainly add 2 braids on this side as well.

And a quick smile before heading out the door. This one is a quick & easy one and just a fun way to jazz up your typical braids. You could do twists or any other version of braids or whatever your favorite thing is & then pull them down into the braids below.

Letter H Hairstyle

2011-10-14T09:23:00.002-06:00

"H" is for Hair . . . of course!

We're still going through the alphabet, one letter at a time and we have reached Bug's favorite letter - H! Be sure to check out all our other alphabet styles HERE.

The day I did this, I wasn't feeling overly well, and so if I do this again, I'll be sure to bring the ponytails on top a bit closer in. So keep that in mind when making your H hairdo.

Part the hair from front to back right down the middle.

On the right side of the head part down to the ear & make a small ponytail with the hair in front of the ear. Be sure to get it closer to the middle part than I did!

Braid, twist, or whatever you prefer to the ponytail. Temporarily secure it at the bottom.

With the remaining hair on bottom comb it into another ponytail. Be sure it lines up vertically with your pony above.

Add your braid straight down into the pony tail at the nape of the neck.

Repeat on the left side so you have 2 vertical braids into ponytails.

I opted to not do this like the Letter A hairstyle where I pulled braids across the middle since I was not feeling well & wanted this to be a bit faster. I also didn't want to break up the vertical lines of the H by pulling braids across. So I used ribbon instead. These craft needles are great for ribbon in hair:

Using the needle pull your ribbon through mid-way through the vertical braids on the left & right & then tie it in a bow or knot.

Once you've got your ribbon tied, you're H is all done.

And of course our letter H in sign language:

You could also put the remaining ponies in buns or something if you wish as well. I didn't even curl them this time - I just let them hang as is. This is a fun quick one and she like the ribbon in back. She said it was like her hair was a present! Be sure to share them with us on our FB Page when you do these! Bee loves to see them all!

No Heat Curls - from Socks

2011-10-12T09:59:00.002-06:00

Did you realize you can get curls from a sock bun? I stumbled upon THIS video at the end of summer and was all kinds of excited to try this on the girls. The fabulous gal in the video is the same one I got the idea from for our Figure 8 braid. She's got some great ideas! Anyway, Since we try to be careful w/the girls hair and not use a ton of heat to curl it I was antsy to try this to see the results!

Over the last couple of months I have tried this sock bun method at least a half dozen times on the girls in an attempt to achieve the amazing curls that are shown in the video. I've got to admit I was pretty bummed at first. So here's how a bunch of our "sock bun curl experiments" turned out!

Our 1st attempt was on Goose & I thought because she has such long hair I'd put 2 sock buns in for extra curl. I had random socks floating around that had holes in them so I cut the toes off & rolled them up. I figured for as much hair as she has I should use a big sock.

Put 2 pig tails in really high for her to sleep in.

Pulled the hair back down through the bun & started wrapping. It's kind of hard to see it in her video because the part where she wraps the ends in is out of her camera's view. One of these days I'll have to make a video so you can see that part.

When I got done she had HUGE sock buns on each side. And I mean they were HUGE. We laughed quite well about it!

The next morning this is how they looked. I was worried about them falling out so I'd used a few clips & bobby pins to try keep them attached to her head.

I unrolled them & there was a bit of curl. Not as much as I'd hoped for.

Once we got the ponies out and finger combed her hair, this is all that was left. I was so disappointed. Her hair always holds curl well so I was surprised. It also made her hair very dry feeling and almost straw like which it never does.

I ended out pretty much bagging the curl idea & pulling her hair back into a braid & leaving the bit of ends that had a little wave hanging out. I was sad it didn't turn out better.

Our 2nd attempt, I did it on both Bee & Goose. It was just with 1 bun like the gal does in her video. I thought maybe I'd rolled them wrong and just need to use the 1 sock. It was an even funnier site with them having these HUGE mounds of a bun on top of their heads!

The next morning Goose's had stayed put for the most part.

And the ponytail had a lot more curl it seemed. I assumed I hadn't rolled it right the 1st time I'd tried it or her hair had been too damp.

But sadly, once again after we'd let the ponytail down and finger combed it in the hopes it'd stay - the curl just turned to a very slight wave and it felt like straw. Weird. Good gravy -- how hard can this be? Strike #2.

But when I pulled Bee's out (I'd had to clip the bun to stay since her hair seemed to slide more) ...

Her pony wasn't as curly as Goose's had been ...

Once I'd done her hair we did still had a bit more curl but it was pretty much gone by the end of the day. Still not a total success.

I decided to try a smaller sock. We had the little socks I'd used clear back when I'd done the Ni Hao Kai-Lan Buns on Bee forever ago, and so I thought I'd try that instead of my big adult socks.

I just did one in Bee's hair & it was barely hanging on in the morning.

We got about the same result in the curly pony tail -

But when I let her hair down I was a lot more pleased with the result.

But sadly once I'd pulled her hair up, it seemed to already be relaxing and falling out.

So on yet ANOTHER attempt - with the small socks, I decided to give Bee 2 little buns on each side. BUT the ONE CHANGE I made was to put a bit of mousse in each pony before I rolled them up. I decided maybe that was needed to help achieve more curl - or at least curl that would hold.

Again, I'd sort of clipped them on to keep them in place, and in the morning they had still come off a little.

But her pony tails were much much curlier than any other result I'd had to this point.

And voila! Success -- FINALLY! These curls were gorgeous and reminded me of the ones you see the rodeo queens sporting! We sprayed the curls a bit with hair spray to hopefully keep them this time!

As in the past, I didn't want to disturb the curl too much so I simply twisted the hair on the sides & joined them in the middle on the back of her head. It was so pretty.

She was so excited that she got curls from a sock & that it finally worked -- and so was I! They held up pretty good, although she was wearing these for Church so it's not like she was running around being a crazy kid on Sunday. They relaxed a bit as the day went on, but it was finally a success!

So to sum it up -- I love these but I highly suggest you use some kind of product when doing them and don't use too big of a sock in your dd's hair. I never did try it again on Goose because after 3 tries (I haven't posted all the pictures from each attempt here) it just didn't seem to work. I'm assuming it is because her hair is so thick & long. The weight of her hair probably didn't help either. I had the most success in Bee's hair using the 2 socks which I continue to do.

Have you ever tried this? If so, what were your results - and did you find anything else helpful when doing it? We'd love to hear your tips!

Letter G Hairstyle

2011-10-06T09:04:00.000-06:00

"G" is for Grandma & Grandpa

Bee picked that one since our Grandma & Grandpa are coming home today after being in Australia for 18 months as missionaries for our church.
It's a happy day at our house!

Make a half pony parting the hair from ear to ear. When making the ponytail make it off center towards the right of the head. Then make a twist/rope braid in the ponytail and secure it with a rubber band.

With the remaining hair make another pony tail - but make it in the center of the head not off to the side. Don't make it too low or you won't have room for the bottom of the G to wrap around.

Make a rope/twist braid in that 2nd ponytail as well and secure it with a rubber band at the end. Be sure to twist as far down as you possibly can so don't have a lot of wispy ends that will stick out later.

Take your top twist and curve it over to the left for the top curve of your letter G. You will need bobby pins at this point to secure everything. Anchor with bobby pins as needed.

Secure the top twist all the way around until you are under the bottom ponytail. Don't secure the end of that twist quite yet.

With your twist on the bottom, pull it towards the right side to make the inside of your G and secure it with a bobby pin.

Now wrap the bottom twist around the bottom of the head and up into the other twist on the left side of the head. You'll want to position these so they kind of overlap and so that you can hide the tails of each of them underneath the other twists.

Once I got the bottom twist secured into the other one, I tucked the tail of the top twist up underneath everything and secured it with more bobby pins.

Here's views from all the angles!

And here is how our fabulous Laura W. did hers. She did a half-French braid all the way around and then pinned the end of her braid into the middle for the inside of the G. If you don't know how to do the half French braid you can check out our video HERE to see how to start one. You'd just need to begin up on the top of the head & wrap your way all the way around the head.

Bee thought the letter G in sign was funny to do because it was like a little gun. Maybe there is a correlation there I don't know! I'm not a pro when it comes to sign language!

And there you have it. The middle of my letter G was down just a bit low and so I tried to pull it up a bit with some hair pins. Be sure to get that ponytail high enough and you won't have that problem!

Have a great day everyone. If you haven't yet, feel free to check out the other letters in our ABC Hair Series by going HERE! And as always, we love seeing your pictures on our Facebook Page!

Fishbone Braided Ponytail & A Tip

2011-10-05T09:19:00.000-06:00

A week or so back, I saw this great picture over on Hair Romance's site that is from the 2012 Spring NY Fashion Weekand I thought it was pretty cool. So the other day for school I did a quick variation of it on Goose. I'm still going to have to try the real way they did it, but Goose had had braids the day before & I didn't want to loose her beautiful waves from that & I didn't want just a plain ol' pony tail. So we did this instead.

Just make a basic ponytail. Start making a fish bone braid and only braid a little way down. If you need a quick review on how to do a fish bone braid, check out my video at the end of THIS post. Or if you want to "fake it" and do our "Fake Fishbone Braid" technique - go HERE to see how we did that. As I pulled the last part of my fish bone braid over to the right side of the pony tail, I wrapped it around the bottom of the braid where the pony tail continues hanging down so it wouldn't have an abrupt ending to it. I then secured it with a clear rubber band so it all blended in nicely!

It looked really pretty with the braid at the top & the waves below. This is one we'll likely do again since dresses up a regular old ponytail quite nicely.

I also keep meaning to mention something I find very handy as I wash my girls hair. A hand held shower head. I don't know if you have one or not, but every place I've lived (which hasn't been a whole lot of places) when we move in I replace all the shower heads with hand held ones.

Not only does it make it easier to spray the showers down when cleaning, I've found it extremely helpful when I wash the girls hair. Even if your kiddo doesn't like showers, they still come in handy when trying to rinse their hair. I found out quickly that it is so hard to really get their hair rinsed well if you're doing it in the tub (especially with real long hair), since they just keep swimming in all the soapy water and their hair never really gets cleaned well. At least that's what I found. Anyway, if you don't have one, I highly recommend getting some kind of shower head you can pull down. It has also helped the girls as well as they've learned to wash their own hair. You can get way fancy & expensive ones that have all kinds of settings & ways they spray (which is nice too) but there are really inexpensive ones as well and you can buy them just about anywhere bathroom hardware is sold. So that's my tip for the day!

7 Little Ponies Hairstyle

2011-09-30T09:48:00.000-06:00

We recently were at our State Fair and as the girls were riding one of the rides, I saw a little girl about Bee's age sporting this hairdo. She had bright rubber bands in it and she had beautiful long dark hair. It looked so cute. I love this one because if you've got a baby with enough hair or a toddler this will work great too. Nothing hard here, just parting things out takes the time.

Part out 1 small ponytail at the top center of the head. Don't make the square of hair too big though.

Then make 2 small ponies on the right & the left side of the head. Once you are done, you should have 5 little pony tails around the top of her head. The colored rubber bands are what make this one so cute I think. Again, don't part too far back - make sure your part is just barely by the ear & not past it.

Once you are done with the 5 little ponies, divide the top middle one in half. Make a part in the middle of the head straight back from the split pony tail.

Then part down from that middle part to behind the ear.

Now pull the 2 side ponies and the half of the middle pony into that section of hair you just parted out. Combine them all & secure it with a rubber band. Repeat on the other side.

That's it. Nice & easy!

A look from above. It's always so hard to capture all of the pony tails around the head in a picture!

She really liked this one - but wondered how to make the letter in sign language since it looks like there are M's and W's in this one! She was a bit disappointed when I told her there wasn't a sign to go along with this hairdo!

This is a great one to have for a couple days, or mix up by adding braids or a few more ponies. Maybe we'll post a variation of it another day!

Letter F Hairstyle

2011-09-28T08:49:00.001-06:00

"F" is for Fairy

Obviously this one is just one part different from our Letter E hairstyle, and I was tempted to just do them both at the same time and take pics, but I wanted to do something different than twists so I did this on a different day. Looking at things now, however, the twists are much more tight & defined than the uneven 3 strand braids. But that's ok!

Part the hair in the middle and then part out a section of hair down to the top of the ear. Make a little ponytail.

Continue your middle part further back on the head & then part out another section of hair and make another pony. Make sure you get this pony tail higher than I did!

On the left side of the head, section out hair parted down to the ear as well. Make another pony tail.

Back to the strand on the right braid the section and pull it across to the left pony tail. (This is where your preferences can come in!) I opted for an uneven 3 strand braid. Secure your hair to the pony on the left with another rubber band.

Braid the hair hanging down on the left part way down.

Braid the other pony on the right & pull it over to the left & combine the 2 with a rubber band.

Then continue braiding down the hair that remains.

And because I spaced those 2 parts of the F out a bit too much, I felt like the left braid needed to be a bit longer than just ending at the nape of the neck. I made a side ponytail with the remaining hair hanging down on the left.

I braided a bit further down & then secured it to the ponytail with another rubber band.

And to make sure it stayed put, I put a little bobby pin down the back of the braid into the ponytail.

And there is your fabulous letter F! I think this one definitely needs a bit of ribbon or something to make it pop a bit more and stand out as the letter F. I didn't have time to do that though! The only thing I'd change about this one is I got the braids a bit too far apart for my liking. Just be sure when you do this one that you get the bottom line from the F a bit higher when you make the 2nd pony tail on the right.

And as we continue with the sign language - here is her letter F!

Be sure to check out all of our ABC Hairstyles if you haven't yet, and if you do any of these, we'd love it if you shared them with us on our Facebook page!

Knots and Twists

2011-09-23T08:59:00.000-06:00

This one was inspired by a picture that one of my readers posted on our Facebook page. I hadn't done anything with these knots in quite a while and I just love them - so this is just a quick one that I did one day for Bug just before school started.

Start by parting out a rectangle of hair on the very top of the head - I parted straight back from the temples. Then divided it into 2 sections (not very straight I might add!) and made the basic shoe string knot. I used these in one of my favorites from years ago - Single Knots Criss Cross -- so if you need to know how I did the knots, step by step pictures can be found HERE. But you are tying the hair like you would when you start tying your shoe. Then hold them in place with a clip.

On the right side of the head take the 2 tails from your knots and make a rope/twist braid. Secure it temporarily for now.

With the hair hanging down on the right side, section it off, parting right by the ear & make another rope braid. Temporarily secure it so it won't unwind.

At this point you can take your 2 twists and form a Hawser braid if you wish ...

But I just opted to leave them apart & not twist the 2 together.

Repeat the twists on the left side of the head & then bring all 4 twists together in the back & secure with a rubber band. Now you can remove the clips that are holding the knots together.

I used my flat iron to smooth the rest of her hair out and curled the ends under just a little bit. Then we added one of our favorite bows from All Things Ribbon to finish it off.

This is a great one for school days because it is quick & easy & you can mix it up so many different ways! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Letter E Hairstyle

2011-09-22T09:03:00.000-06:00

"E" is for Elephant

Welcome back to our next ABC hairstyle. As always, this is just how I did ours, but do what works with the cute little head of hair you are working with!

Part the hair almost dead center from the forehead back to the nape of the neck.

On the right side of the head, part out 3 sections of hair & secure them with rubber bands so you have 3 pony tails.

This next step is optional -- the twists I mean. You can make them puffy braids, regular 3 strand braids, or just pull them straight across eventually. I did rope braids & temporarily secured them at the bottom.

Then on the left side-- part from the ear up to your middle part. Make a little ponytail & secure with a rubber band.

Then take your top rope/twist braid from the right side and pull it across the head and secure with another rubber band into that pony tail on the left.

Once you've secured that top twist, continue making a rope/twist braid with the pony on the left. Don't go down too far though.

Once you've twisted far enough down, add the middle section of your E into that twist and secure with another rubber band.

Repeat the process, twisting the ponytail down on the left & then once you get down far enough, add the bottom twist into it & secure it with a rubber band.

Once all 3 twists from the right are secured on the left, take the remaining hair that hangs down and form it into a side pony at the nape of the neck adding in the twists from your letter E.

Her hair was fairly damp after a bath & so I dried her ponytail & curled it a little with my flat iron.

And that's it -- there's your Letter E!

And for a splash of color we added 2 cute little bows we got from Flowerz in Her Hair.

Here's the entire look -- I just wish the bottom twist had been a bit thicker - but she loved it & that's all that counts!

Just for another view on how this can be done here's how Laura did her dd's letter E -

Photo used with permission from Laura W.

Bee found the letter E much easier to make in sign language than the D! Have an Excellent day!

And since she's sporting her favorite red shirt with the flag on it - I just wanted to mention if you didn't get a chance to see our post on the Healing Field - go HERE to read about it. For more information on Healing Fields, you can check out their FB page HERE -- if you're interested in hosting one or want more info they'll be able to help you. If you "like" them you'll get the updates on where they will be held in the future as well as support a fabulous organization! Definitely a cause worth supporting!

Letter D Hairstyle

2011-09-16T09:45:00.001-06:00

"D" is for Dad

(Ours has been out of town for a while & we miss him!)

This one is very much like The Letter B, but it's even easier. Again, think out of the box on these and add your own twist to them! But here is our version. This is nice & quick so here we go:

Part the hair from ear to ear & make a half pony - make it off to the left side of the head & secure with a rubber band.

Divide that ponytail in half and braid both sections.

Gather the rest of the hair hanging down into a low side pony at the nape of the neck. Add the left braid to that ponytail.

Take the braid on the right and loop it around to form the rest of the letter D. I used a few little bobby pins to help secure it on top so it will hold it's shape. Add it into the base of the ponytail once you've got your D arranged how you want it.

That's it! Really easy, huh?! I initially tried doing one braid down the left side and looping it back up so the end of my ponytail/braid came back up and met at the top to join the D together but her hair didn't quite reach & it didn't look as good, so we went with this instead!

Add a few little flowers to cover the rubber bands if you wish. These are cuties from Gimme Clips.

Here is Laura's version of the D. I know I had someone on FB post one similar to this as well where they did the French braid to make the full D. There are so many options!

Photo used w/permission of Laura W.

Since some of the letters in sign are rather hard to capture as she holds them in front of herself - we opted to do it like this today!

Add a big smile & your "D" is complete!

Again, we love seeing it when you try these, so please share them with us on our FB page, or feel free to e-mail them to me too! Have a wonderful weekend.

Healing Field

2011-09-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

I know I said in yesterday's post to come back today for a hairdo, and my intent was just that, but on Monday I took the girls to a Healing Field that was in a town close by to us that was to commemorate all those who died in the 9/11 attacks, and I just haven't been able to get it out of my mind. It was so inspiring and I was very overwhelmed by the entire thing that I just felt compelled to share.

On the North end of the field an amazing statue has been erected that will stand as a reminder to us all of that day. It, of course, was to replicate those 3 firemen that raised the flag amongst all the rubble at Ground Zero.

Then looking across the street by the local city hall there were rows and rows of flags -- thousands and thousands of them standing 8 feet high. Each representing every person that lost their lives on that dreadful day. On 9/11 I was ironing my husbands pants before we went to work when my mom called & told me to turn on the TV. I was pregnant with Goose when it happened and I remember being scared as could be, wondering how I could bring an innocent child into a world where things like this could happen. I remember wishing I could keep her inside of me forever and shield her from the world. And now she is was with me, plus 2 more daughters walking through this field of flags. I can't believe it's been 10 years.

These pictures don't do it justice because the field was flat and I'm just not tall!

As soon as I walked into the flags I was overcome with emotion. Seeing the flag fly has always affected me somehow, but I didn't expect the extreme emotion to wash over me as I was surrounded by all the flags & realized what each one represented. I cried.

Each flag had a name attached to it. Each one had been a living breathing soul who needlessly lost their life that day - a mother, a father, a daughter or son, people of all ages, from all walks of life died. We walked and walked and read name after name & read story after story. I am so glad Goose and Bug can read because they too stopped and read. They were shocked at how young people were, or about certain facts about people. Although they still can't totally comprehend what happened that day, I was glad they could read about these people and their lives.

Towards the end just before walking out of the Healing Field I picked up one more name on a flag, and it was none other than Jeremy Glick, who was one of the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 who kept their plane from becoming another weapon of destruction. My stomach did a little flip.

Almost every time I stopped to take their picture, Bug would put her hand on her heart. They were so good as we walked around, realizing the seriousness of why we were there and they showed such respect to all the flags.

While it is a horrific thing that happened-- it did-- and I'm so thankful I could take the girls and share with them a piece of history. When we got home I found my old Time and Newsweek magazines and showed them some of the pictures from that day and we've had some good discussions about things since then.

I love what the sign says at the bottom: Remember the day we lost so many .... and stood together.

For more information on Healing Fields or if there is one in your area you can visit their website HERE. Has anyone else been to one of these? I'd love to hear about your experience or any thoughts you might have since the events of that day touched everyone in one way or another. If you ever have the chance to go to one of these for whatever reason I highly recommend going. The feelings I felt are indescribable.

Circus Winner

2011-09-13T11:11:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to thank everyone who entered to win our circus giveaways over the past several weeks. Time has flown and it's hard to believe it'll be in town next week. I've announced our last winner on our giveaway blog, so head over HERE if you submitted a video to try & win! There's also info on dates and some discounts for tickets to the show if you head over to that same post too. Thanks again & if you go, we hope you enjoy the show!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for a new 'do!

Letter C Hairstyle

2011-09-09T07:00:00.000-06:00

"C" is for ... Circus

(That's only appropriate since it's been on my brain lately, right?!)

(And don't forget to be making your video for your last chance to win those tickets!)

Thanks to those of you that have gotten in the spirit of these fun Hair Letters and been posting them on our Facebook page. I LOVE that you've taken it upon yourself to come up with your own way of doing them. That's exactly what you should be doing! Lots of these will be rather obvious on how they can be done, but obviously I can't skip a letter, now can I?!

Make an off-center part on the right side of the head from the forehead to the nape of the neck.

Divide that section of hair in half and make 2 pony tails with it. Make sure the ponies are at least centered in the section or further to the right of the head. You don't want them too close to the left. (This obviously will vary depending on the length of hair you are working with.)

Make 2 rope/twist braids, regular braids, or whatever you choose & secure them temporarily at the ends.

With the rest of the hair on the left make a side pony - very far to the left.

Take the top twist and pull it over the top of the head so it curves like the top of the C. Secure it to the side ponytail with a rubber band. Don't pull it too tight or it won't have the right curve of a C.

Repeat the process with your bottom twist. Use bobby pins if necessary to hold them in place a bit better so the "C" holds its shape.

And there is your cute letter "C!" I opted not to add any accessories on top of the ponytail so it wouldn't break up the middle of the letter. You could totally wrap this with ribbon though, as one of my FB fans did. It really made it pop and added a nice touch of color.

And here is the beautiful version from Laura, who of course inspired me to start this whole project. She did an inside out half French braided crown. Hers looks very elegant & I love that there are no parts in it, but like I mentioned before though, I'm wanting to keep this whole project to regular braids, twists etc., so we'll see how I fair! You do what works best for you!

Photo Courtesy of Laura W.

She was just as excited for this letter as the last 2, but for whatever reason, she couldn't seem to get her fingers to hold the letter C for her sign language picture. I opted for a smiling picture instead of frustrating her!

Hope this style goes over as swimmingly as the other letters. Be sure to share them with us on our Facebook page! Bee has had fun seeing them!

2 Little Fish Bone Braids & Final Circus Ticket Giveaway

2011-09-06T09:35:00.000-06:00

For those of you entering the circus giveaways, our 3rd winner has been announced HERE and the last giveaway is also up and running over HERE.

Today's hairdo is a quick & easy one. I didn't take step by step pictures because it is nothing major. As long as you know how to make a fish bone braid, you're set. If you don't, head over to THIS old post and watch my quick video (looks like I need to redo this & get it posted to my YouTube channel!).

Part out a rectangular section on the top of the head - not in the middle of the head though. Do it slightly off center! Then divide it in half and make 2 pony tails. Make fish bone braids in the ponies & tie them off at the bottom with little rubber bands.

With the remaining hair that hung down, I slightly curled random strands of hair all around her head to dress it up a bit.

You can either leave the 2 little fish bones hanging straight down as is ...

Or join them together at the bottom with an accessory. This fun polka-dot flower we used is one of Gimme Clips new ones for fall.

That's it. A cute & simple 'do for keeping the hair out of her eyes while working at school and out on the playground playing.

Letter B Hairstyle

2011-09-02T07:00:00.003-06:00

"B" is for Buzzy Bee ...

and our little "Bee" of course!

Welcome back to our next installment of our ABC/alphabet hairstyle series! Just a quick thought about these styles first .... I realize there are many different ways these can be done, but I decided to try keep them as simple as possible -- using braids, twists, puffy braids, etc. to keep with the whole "basic & elementary" theme of this project! Some of them would look much prettier done with French braids, etc., but I realize not everyone can do those - so we're just stickin' to the basics here so hopefully everyone can do these styles. You can switch them up however you like - adapt them to the length of hair you are working with, etc. This is just the basic idea for the letter, so feel free to be creative & of course have fun with these! The sky is the limit!

Make a half pony, parting the hair from ear to ear.

Secure it with a rubber band - but make sure the pony is off center towards the left side of the head.

Divide the pony in half & braid both sections all the way down to the tips of the hair. Secure the left one temporarily with a clip & tie the right one off with a clear rubber band.

Lay the left braid down in the position you want and make a part that runs parallel with the right side of it. It should come "right out of the middle" of the 2 braids. Smooth the hair down underneath the braid on the left like you are going to make a ponytail & then add the braid into it securing it with a rubber band. This is the left side of your letter B.

Take the remaining hair that is hanging down on the lower right side of the head and comb it into a ponytail. Position it somewhere in the middle of the section of hair so it will fall correctly to form the lower loop of the B.

Braid that ponytail & secure it temporarily with a clip.

Now you'll need some bobby pins. I find that the littler ones work well when I do stuff like this because they hide nicely in the hair. But either is ok.

Now it's time to position the "loops" of your letter B. Lay the braid so it looks how you want it & secure with a few bobby pins as needed. If you're working with shorter hair you obviously can make these smaller. Pull the end of your braid across the top of the lower braid. to cover the rubber band.

A little trick I use to keep all those pointy ends from showing is this - I leave it looped up through the rubber band. Then I tucked these ends up under the braid on the left and secured them in with a bobby pin.

Once the top loop is positioned, move on to the bottom one & lay it as you want it. Remove your clip & add it into the ponytail on the far left side with another rubber band. Add bobby pins as necessary to secure the loop as well to the hair underneath.

And there is your letter "B." Looking at the pictures now I wish I had moved my bottom loop up just a bit higher and more to the left, but other than that it turned out great!

We decided it needed just a little something, so we added one of our old favorite little flowers for just a touch of color. You could also add one at the top of the B too!

Bee showing you the letter "B" in sign language:

One fun thing we've done as we've been doing these letter hairstyles is having it be our "letter of the day" as we do her hair. We make it a game to come up with as many words as possible that start with that letter. She also is totally into rhyming lately so we'll also rhyme with words that start with that letter. It's really made hair time even more fun for her. The best part is she is learning right along with it! You might try doing something similar too as you do these cute & silly alphabet hairstyles!

Don't forget to share your fun alphabet hairstyles with us on our Facebook Page! We love to see what you do!

Wedding Hair & Circus Tickets

2011-08-30T10:15:00.001-06:00

Not a normal combo -- but I keep forgetting to show you the pictures from the wedding hair I did last month. I chatted with my friend & she was gracious enough to let me share pictures that I took from her special day. She has gorgeous naturally curly hair, but being that she was getting married on a hot July day & was having an outside reception she wanted her hair up and off her neck and out of the way. She was very easy going about how she wanted her hair and after a "practice day" on her hair this is what she decided she wanted.

Because of the time in the morning, her hair was fairly damp. She wanted her bangs/hair in front twisted back & so I did it like I did on my bangs in this video HERE and then continued twisting it in a rope braid which I then pulled it back into a feather braided bun which I did HERE so it would cascade beautifully over her veil which we tacked up underneath the bun. She'd made some beautiful pearl accessories with a gem in the middle that she wanted to be in the twist around the front.

How it looked in the back:

The beautiful bride & groom after they were married:

It was quite windy so her veil wouldn't stay put very well so she ended out taking it out. But I loved how you could see her pearls up in her twist up front. It really added the quite the "pop" to dress her hair up. She looked amazing.

Once her hair was drier it wasn't quite as heavy & it held the curls a bit better. After pictures and the wind, we had time before the reception to go back & touch her hair up a little. She'd made some little flowers to stick around in the back of her hair instead of having her veil in her hair so it wouldn't get pulled out as people hugged her at her reception. She kept the cute pearls in the twists up front. She looked amazing!

I think doing hair for weddings & proms has got to be one of my favorite parts of this ~~"job"~~ hobby! Thanks so much Kindy for letting me part of your special day.

And if you are wanting to get in on the circus fun .... We're half way through our circus ticket giveaways! 2 down - 2 to go! We've announced the winner for our 2nd circus ticket family 4 pack -- so if you entered that giveaway go see if you're the winner HERE. We've also got the 3rd giveaway for 4 more passes up and going as well so if you want to enter, click HERE to go to the giveaway post.

A is for Alphabet

2011-08-24T07:30:00.003-06:00

I'm sooo excited about our fun new hair series we're starting. If you've been around for a while here at BIH I used to do a monthly hair share (before we had our FB page) and I'd post pictures of the hairdo's you guys were doing on your dd's. About a year ago, I posted a hair share showing some fabulous creations from one of my wonderful readers Laura. She'd embarked on a fun quest to do the entire alphabet in her daughter's hair.

Well, I sorta tucked that fun idea away in my head with plans to do it in Bee's hair since she's in pre-school now. When I told her what I was wanting to do she got so excited at the mere suggestion! So I hope you'll enjoy our fun adventure we have as we proceed to create A-Z in Bee's hair & share it with you!

So since school starts for us next week, I thought it only appropriate that we start our alphabet series up now. Obviously this can be done with twists, or altered to fit the length of hair your working with. But this is what we came up with. Feel free to recreate them however suits you and your dd!

Part the hair into a triangular section coming back from the temples on an angle to make somewhat of a triangle. Make a ponytail & secure it with a rubber band.

Divide the pony tail in half and also part all the hair down in the back right down the middle (or as close too it as you can!)

Take the left half of the ponytail and braid it part way down - secure it temporarily with a clip or have your dd hold it.

Make a part from the ear across to your middle part and make a ponytail.

Add your braid into that ponytail.

Take a small section off the top of the pony tail you just made -

Braid that section of hair and then temporarily secure it with a clip or rubber band.

Back to the pony tail on top -- braid it part way down. Part out another section of hair from the ear back into your middle part and form another ponytail adding in your braid. (You technically could do this first before the step just before this one!)

Now take that 3rd braid that has been hanging down & pull it from the left side of the head & join it into the ponytail on the right. Secure it with a rubber band. It should sort of cover up the part you made.

Braid the remaining hair in the ponytail that is hanging down on the right side and temporarily secure it. Then with the hair that is down below everything for a little ponytail and secure it with a rubber band.

Add your braid into that ponytail.

**Then the optional step is you can continue braiding the rest of the way down for a longer side on your "A" **

So here's a look from above.

And from the sides:

Bee was so excited when I got done. It was a hit for sure!

Periodically I'll share with you Laura's version of how she did the letter and so here is how she made her A. She used a ribbon to cross her A. I love how she got the angle on her A much higher and depending on how much time you have in the morning, hers might be a bit faster for you.

Photo used by permission from Laura W.

So -- "A" is for Alphabet ... but my husband says "A" is for "Aggies!" for all you USU fans! :-) And Bee has learned her sign language alphabet, so she'll be sharing that too!

If you try any of our hair from our alphabet series, we'd love it if you shared it with us on our Facebook page! Hope everyone is adjusting back into the swing of things with school schedules and such. Monday is our 1st day back so wish us luck!

Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey - Fully Charged Tickets Giveaway #2

2011-08-23T10:06:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to let you know that our winner for our 1st circus ticket giveaway has been announced. If you entered that giveaway go see if you're the winner HERE. We've also got the 2nd giveaway for 4 more passes up and going as well so if you want to enter, click HERE to go to the giveaway post.

Come back tomorrow to see a fun new hair series that we'll be starting! I can hardly wait to show you!

Triple Braided Pocahontas Braids & Circus Tickets

2011-08-17T09:17:00.000-06:00

No, our hairdo today doesn't involve braids and circus tickets! BUT - it's that time of year again, and I've got circus tickets to give away! So if you are interested in winning tickets to this year's Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey "Fully Charged" Circus head over to our giveaway blog HERE to find out how.

Today's tut' is is nothing majorly difficult, just something to jazz up your standard braids.

Divide the hair however you prefer like you're going to make typical braids on each side of the head. I do a straight part off center on top of the head, and then a zig-zag part down the back.

Off to the right of the part on top of the head, make a long rectangular part. Part it out into 3 sections and make small braids.

Braid them all the way down to the ends and tie them off with clear rubber bands.

I didn't get any pictures of the next steps -- but add the 3 mini-braids into your middle strand of your main braid for your Pocahontas braid. I tried adding one braid into each section of the thick braid, but they didn't lay well. Tie the braid off with a rubber band once you reach the bottom.

Braid the other side just regular. You could add 3 braids on this side, but I opted to just leave it plain.

How it should look from above:

If you're really careful about getting those little braids to stay on top of your thick braid as you work your way down, it'll look really cool like this:

And then you'll have a happy little girl like this!:

Like I said, nothing majorly hard, but a fun way to mix things up from the typical braids for school one day.

Winner of Thirty-One Gifts Giveaway

2011-08-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in our giveaway from Thirty-One Gifts this last week. Hopefully you had as much fun going through their catalog as I did!

Random.org has picked our winner for us and it's #29:

And that means that Brooke is that lucky #29!

So Brooke, please e-mail me a.s.a.p. and I'll get you in touch with Jessica!

(If I haven't heard from our winner w/in 48 hours I reserve the right to pick another winner.)

BUT WAIT!!!

There's good news for everyone else too!

Despite not everyone being able to win the Little’s Carry-All Caddy and small rosette clip, for the month of August every customer of Thirty-One Gifts wins with 15% off everything in the whole catalog through August 30th. Order online at mythirtyone.com/JessStewart before August 30th to get some great bags and other fabulous products for the fall. There are no codes needed, just order by clicking on her link above or go HERE and you'll automatically receive 15% off your order. You can also still sign up to receive her newsletter by going HERE.

Thanks again to everyone for participating & thank you Jess for offering the fun giveaway!

Hair Things on Vacation

2011-08-11T10:05:00.000-06:00

First off, just a reminder, we've got a fun giveaway going on from Thirty-One Gifts, so if you haven't had a chance to enter yet, click HERE, or keep scrolling to find it so you can enter! It ends Saturday, so time is running out! You don't want to miss out on this one!

I mentioned before in a post, as well as on FB that we'd been on vacation. I thought I'd share a few things from our vacation with you! I've got to tell you that it didn't start out overly well in the "hair department." We had quite the drive to get to our final destination, so we stayed overnight in a hotel for the first night away. So our first morning, I woke up to find that I'd forgotten my "favorite comb." Does anyone else have one of those? The one that just sorta makes you have a "good hair day?" My husband laughed quite hard at me. Well, once I'd gotten over that and managed to get my hair done I went to use my hair spray. Mind you, I'd grabbed a new bottle from my stash because my other bottle was almost empty & I didn't want to have to bother with buying a new bottle while on vacation. Well I pumped and pumped to try get hairspray out & nothing came. I know you must "prime the pump" but it was ridiculous the time I pumped. Finally I took the lid off & this is what I found:

Yup -- I about died. There was NO straw that went down into the hairspray. I deemed a "Hair Emergency!" Let me tell you my husband laughed so hard at me!! Well, I played "McGyver" (for those of you that know that lovely old show) and pulled out a bottle of body spray /perfume and thought I could use the straw from interchangeably. No luck. So I ended out just holding the entire sprayer/straw from my body spray onto the bottle of hair spray (since it wasn't the same size to be able to screw on) to get hair spray out. Dumb I know -- but I was desperate. I'm a hair spray using gal. Desperate times call for desperate measures! Eventually I bought a new bottle once we got to where we were staying, but I was so bugged to have to pay for a new bottle, since that is why I'd purposely grabbed the new bottle from my stash in the first place! Oh well! We still laugh about it today!

We headed to the Oregon coast on vacation. We just LOVE it there. If follow us on FB we shared a few of these pictures over there - but just in case, thought we'd post them here too for fun ...

I had some people ask if that was a ship or a whale in the background ... no, it's just a big rock out in the ocean. This beach is one of our favorites to come to.

It was funny because I'd written this in the sand and the girls had been playing forever in another area because tide was low. A while later I told them to come over and take a picture by it and I managed to take this 1 picture with them sitting down by it ....

Bee turned around and told me the water was coming, which I told her not to worry about since tide was so low, but - nope, she was right .... :-)

And on another interesting hair note -- not one I expected to find at a light house .... we went down to the Yaquina Bay lighthouse in Newport Beach. It's not the biggest one you've ever seen, but a fun one with a house to wander through, so the girls found it really interesting.

But in the parlor, this is what I found interesting .... Above the fireplace was this (click on it to enlarge it):

Off to the side was this sign that says:

"This type of craft has been traced as far back as the late 17th century. It appears to have begun in the British Isles. It spread to the European Countries and across the seas to America. It probably began from the practice of saving a lock of a loved one's hair as a memorial.

Preserving hair progressed into making jewelry such as earrings, bracelets, and watch chains. Women saved their hair from their hair brushes and put it into a jar on the dressing table.

In the mid-1800's hair jewelry advanced to hair pictures & wreathes. Pattern books were published and it became a popular craft. Many Victorian homes had hair pictures hanging in the parlor."

The cross wasn't what I found odd -- it was everything else around it!! It was so bizarre! I couldn't get a great picture due to the lighting and windows in the room. Have you seen anything like this before? Maybe I've just been living under a rock & am the first!

It made me laugh really! I say we've come a long way! Instead of keeping our hair - we donate it to Locks of Love. And could you see Martha Stewart doing a segment about this on her next show? "Next up - How to create a darling pair of earrings out of hair that will go perfectly with your new Spring outfit." "It's a Good Thing!" LOL

Anyway, thanks for letting me share a little bit of our vacation - hair & non-hair related with you! And don't forget to keep scrolling to enter our giveaway, if you haven't already!

Giveaway from Thirty-One Gifts is OVER

2011-08-08T13:02:00.008-06:00

I'm so excited for this giveaway today! I've been chatting with Jessica Stewart & she is an independent consultant for Thirty-One Gifts. She's the one who is offering up the fun items for the giveaway, for a while & this has been in the works for a while, but timing has just been crazy for both of us. I don't know if you've ever heard of Thirty-One Gifts before, but they've got a catalog that is almost 50 pages that are full of so many things I couldn't even begin to choose what to buy! They are designed so cute - but they are so practical too! Anyway, here's a little more about them:

Thirty-One Gifts is a faith based organization that offers personalized gifts such as lunch totes, purses, beach bags, baby gifts, a men’s line and much more! Function & style…designed for your life! With Thirty-One Gifts, you can find the perfect personalized gifts for birthdays, teacher gifts, baby showers, bridal showers, Christmas and more!

Jessica thought it would be fun to giveaway one of the things she uses regularly - a Little’s Carry-All Caddy:

(Items in carry all not included!)

This is what she says about these cute totes:

"One of the great hair organization tools I use is the Little’s Carry-All Caddy. I keep my gels, sprays and brushes in the main pocket. I keep my combs and hair clips in the front mesh pocket. What I love about keeping all my hair stuff in this one spot is how easy it is to move from the upstairs to my downstairs on those crazy mornings when we are running behind. I can send my oldest upstairs to grab the caddy and I can do all the hair downstairs and out we go. I have also found that by using this wonderful caddy my kids bathroom has stayed cleaner and I am not looking for things as often."

The tote comes if 7 different darling patterns from which you can choose. (click on the image to enlarge it):

She's also giving away one of these darling small rosette clips to adorn your little ones hair (click the image to enlarge it): Who wouldn't want one of these to finish off one of your hairdos?! They are so too cute!

So here's how to enter to win both of these cute items:

For 1 entry: Go to their catalog HERE and and then come back & comment on this post about what item you would LOVE to have.

For a 2nd entry: Subscribe to Jessica's newsletter newsletter (go HERE to subscribe) - & Be sure to leave a 2nd comment for your 2nd entry.

This giveaway will be open through Saturday 8/13/11. I'll announce the winner the following Monday. To get more information on Thirty-One Gifts, please feel free to contact Jessica Stewart to find out more about their fun products. If you have specific questions about Thirty-One Gifts, would like to learn more about becoming a consultant or have questions about ordering from Jessica, please contact Jessica directly by clicking here.

Thanks Jess for offering these to our readers. So head on over to their catalog & sign up for her newsletter so you don't miss out on any of their great products!

Me in Curlformers

2011-08-04T07:00:00.008-06:00

First off, thanks so much to everyone that left such kind comments in response to my last post. You really know how to make a girl feel good! Sorry for the delay in posting more regarding my curls. If you follow us on Facebook, you know we've been off having fun on a much needed family vacation (more on that another day) and since we've been back I've been playing the catch up game. I've tried to get this posted a couple times but my internet connection has been less than cooperative.

To answer everyone's question --- YES!! I used Curlformers! And if you're new here or aren't overly familiar with Curlformers, feel free to check out my posts about them HERE!

A little background here first .... If you didn't know, I've been growing my hair out slowly but surely. It's a painfully slow process since it's been in an A-line for years. It's gotten through the hardest stages I think & so I've been excited to try our Long & Extra Wide Curlformers ever since we got them.

Recently I was home with a migraine and was feeling totally awful. I'd been in bed all morning trying to sleep it off - thanks to my meds I take for them. I got up mid day and of course felt rather hung over (although I honestly don't know what that feels like) I needed a pick-me-up. I still felt rather lousy but I needed to do something. I needed to shower, which I did - but after I got out I decided I couldn't handle the noise of my hair dryer and I hate the way my hair looks when it just air dries but I wanted to feel cute. I needed something to make me feel better despite feeling so crappy. I spotted my Curlformers and knew that was the answer!

I grabbed my mousse, my Curlformer hook, and my Curlformers and went to town. The real short hair at the nape of my neck I decided were a bit too short and weren't staying too well in the Extra Wide ones, so I threw in a few of the extra long/wide ones instead. Then I used the extra wide ones for the rest of my head. I assumed I'd need help doing it on myself, but it turned out to be easy. The first few sections in the back were a bit tricky, but once I got the hang of it, it was no biggy at all.

Sorry about some of the pictures - my girls had to help out and they aren't always a steady hand, and keep in mind I wasn't feeling overly great & so I was trying to look like I felt ok! :)

When I do this again, I'm going to put more of the orange & light pink ones in the back I think.

Here's how random it looked from up top:

I opted to leave my bangs out & use my flat iron on them a bit once I pulled the curlers out. I wasn't sure I wanted curly bangs with the first attempt. (Note to self & the rest of you -- don't try pull a tight necked shirt over your head when wearing these! It's a bit tricky & can cause a bit of discomfort!)

Since my hair isn't overly thick & it was a nice warm day, I only had these in for about 3 1/2 hours I think - maybe four. I was a bit anxious to get them out and see what the result was!

Here's what things looked like right after I pulled them all out: (I want to experiment a bit with how I put them in on the back of my head with mixing the colors and sizes up because I wanted a bit more curl back there too but not too bad for a first attempt.)

And here it was when I'd fingered through the curls a bit. Things were much curlier up front because I'd put them in smaller sections vs. how I'd done things in the back. Like I said, I'll change thing the way I do things in back the next time I do it.

I decided I wanted to "cute-sify" things even more, so I grabbed one of the girls headbands (one I snagged at the dollar store) and put that in for a quick try. Yes, I realize pearls don't go with a t-shirt but oh well! :)

Hmmm? Yes? No?!!

Either way - taking pictures of yourself into the mirror is a bit tricky & is not my favorite thing to do! And all joking aside ... I was sooo loving my curls when I was done! They weren't too loose & they weren't too tight. They were perfect in my opinion. My honey's words were "so cute & flirty!"

It made me so excited to know that I can put them in myself. The curl even lasted through the next day. I did, however, pull these out towards the latter part of the day, so I'd be interested to know how my hair will hold it if I'd done them in the morning. I actually went to the store sporting my 2nd day curls & I usually wear a hat to the store because I never can have "2nd day hair! So that's sayin' something!

Anyway, I've said it so many times before that we love love love Curlformers. But now I have just one more reason to love them -- because I can use them!

Let me know if you have any questions about these. Be sure to leave a way to contact you in your comment or e-mail me directly. Or, as always drop us a line on our Facebook page!

Me in Curls

2011-07-27T07:00:00.004-06:00

Soooo .... I tried something recently ...

What do you think? Please be kind -- I'm rather fragile these days!

Other Simple Patriotic Do's

2011-07-21T07:30:00.007-06:00

As I've been uploading a ton of July pictures from my SD card to my computer I realized I had both of these on there as well. I figured I might as well share them now or they'd be lost in my archives for good!

If you've been around from Babes in Hairland's infancy, you'll remember when I did The 7 Days of Christmas - Hairdo's and Giveaways. That's when I first introduced "Hair Fancy's" as I know them. Check out how little Goose looked & how short her hair was when we first tried these out back in 2008 HERE! Wow how time flies!!! I know there are other things similar out there, but these are simply called "Hair Fancy's." Goose thought it'd be fun for one of the rodeo's we went to, to have the red & white stripes in her hair across the front, so this was the look we went with:

Then to add our red & white bows in back, Goose suggested we slide the clip of a smaller red bow through the top loop of the big white bow - both came from All Things Ribbon. These basic bows are some of our fav's and get used on a regular basis at our house!

And for Bee we did a simple pull through on top and pulled the rest through into a messy bun for long hair. I posted the video for that HERE. Then we put "fireworks" in her bun using the technique Jenn @ Girly Do's posted forever ago HERE. Her post had disappeared off her blog & she was kind enough to dig through all her pictures and repost it recently! This is a great one if you're short on time or "accessories" for any festive occasion!

Once I made our bun - I put the ribbon on our hairpins and stuck them randomly in her bun. I told her they were "fireworks" and she was all kinds of excited! Nothing but silliness for all the pictures because of it ...

See? Pure giddiness & excitement?! She wouldn't hold still or be serious for a single picture! That's when I know I've done my job well! :)