Knotted French Braids - TAKE TWO!

Remember how I said I would keep playing with the knotted french braid and give you an update?  I did, and I am.  I tried this style again on Little V when she was fresh out of the shower so her hair was a bit more wet.  This time I did a small braid on both sides of her head.  I think it came out slightly better than the first attempt.

First Attempt:

Second Attempt:

On the other hand, I am not sure it looks any "better,"  but I do like it with a braid on each side.  I am pretty sure that this is as good as it is going to get on Little E!

For more EXCITING results!  I am thrilled with what I figure out on Miss B and her locs!  So excited I had to make a video to demonstrate!  Remember with my first attempt how the braid, in my opinion, looked to thick and lopsided:

Problem solved!

I parted her hair down the middle this time so I wouldn't have to struggle with the lopsidedness, but do you see how less bulky the braids are?  And how nice they lay against her head?  The trick was that I skipped sections of her hair when I was picking up my next section to "knot" into the braid.  Kind of hard to explain, but simple to do.  That is why we filmed this quick video:

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????


That I have a ONE WEEK limit on free hair or puffs!  I do!  Maybe you have noticed.  Anytime I do a style that includes puffs, I tend to braid or twist the puffs or make some kind of style change a week later.

V's pretty little puffs from her latest style are no exception:

They held up quite nicely for the week.  Every morning when I sprayed her braids with our watered down Taliah Waajid spray, I also sprayed the puffs really thoroughly.  Then I used my fingers to work the spray into and all over the free hair.  Once satisfied with that, I would reshape them into those cute little rounded puffs.

Her cornrows are also holding up quite well for the first week, but I can now see them showing signs of frizzing!  Will I make it another two weeks?

As mentioned, I don't like to leave the puffs in for more than a week because I don't want them to get overly dried out, or overly tangled.  That would cause too much stress and breakage when I eventually did take them out.

So I decided to make each puff into a single braid.  The Results:

They don't want to hang straight down - but that's curly hair for ya!

If you can see - I didn't even take out the black, cloth hair ties I had on the end of each cornrow.  I separated the 4 ends from the puff - got them very wet, detangled and combed each one, then I combined the two smaller sections form the right so that I had 3 sections and braided!  Really Quick! 

Katie

Buddy Hair!

We got a lot of comments on V's latest style!  I am so glad that you all liked it as much as I did.  A simple favorite.  

The day I put that style in, V's best buddy, and also a neighbor and classmate, came over for the afternoon.  Miss A asked if I would put some braids in her hair too.  I always get excited to get my hands on a new head of hair!  I have been doing my own girls hair for so long that it gets a bit mundane sometimes, but getting my little fingers on new hair - well that is just fun!  

I thought the girls would enjoy it if I made Miss A's hair match V's.  As much as I could anyway, I certainly wasn't going to get any curly puffs out of Miss A's stick straight hair!  Whew!  My white girl hair skills are certainly lacking.  I am sure with more practice I would improve.  I do have Little E's straight hair, but you know she gives me a whole different set of challenges!  Miss A has VERY thick but VERY slippery fine hair.  It's so pretty!  Here are the results of my attempt:

Isn't she a pretty girl!

I only did 2 braids per side, instead of 4.  The girls wanted to play too, so I had to work fast!

Could be straighter - huh?

All in all, I think it came out pretty well.  Miss A was pleased.  She even borrowed one of V's sleep caps because she didn't want it to get messed up over night!  I happened to do lunch in their class room the next day and I was glad to see that it actually had made it over night!  Her hair was dry when I styled it (I only spritzed it with water a bit while I was working) and I just lightly sprayed it with hair spray when I was done.  Maybe her mom did some fixing in the morning before school?

I did snap a quick pic of the girls together.  So quick it's blurry!  But still cute.

Come back tomorrow and I will show you how I updated V's style.

Katie

Oh for the LOVE of Puffs!

I can't tell you how much I am loving puff's these days!  I am sure I don't have to, it has been pretty obvious in my recent style choices.  Well, we recently put a new style in V's hair and the puffs have popped up again!


Sometimes I get really burned out on doing hair.  I get tired of being creative.  I even "dread" an upcoming hair style change, strictly due to the amount of time I know it will take me.  So, I have a few styles that I return to regularly when I am feeling that way.  They are quick and easy and look great EVERY time!  One of my absolute favorites you may have seen before.  These pics are in our Cornrow album:

And if you look at the video in our sidebar-------> you will see a back-of-the-head shot similar to the one above but all of the braids come into a ponytail instead of pigtails.

Why do I love this style?  It is only 8 cornrows.  Anyway you look at it, that is just way faster to put in than 16 or 20 cornrows or 50 box braids, you get the picture!  Also, I have just always loved the way this looks from the front.  Instead of having the cornrows going straight back from the hairline, they all start at a center point in the front.

I'm not going to lie.  Winter is not my favorite time of year.  I seem to lose creativity, enthusiasm, excitement, motivation, etc. during these cold, dreary months.  The great news is that the beautiful and lovely PUFF has brought me great cheer this week!  I decided to pull out this tried and true favorite style but give it a new kick with puffs!

The day before I had removed V's previous style, washed her hair, and gave her these cute braided pigtails for church that night.

You can't see the front of her hair, but I had also put two cornrows in the front where her "bangs" are.

Since her hair was clean and ready to go, and also parted down the center, I was ready to get started the next day!  Starting on the right side, I made a diagonal part from the center of her forehead to her neck dividing that side of her head in half.  (now you can see the cornrowed bangs)

Then beginning with the section closest to her ear, I split the section in half AGAIN and put in the first cornrow.

Then I took the remaining hair and put in our second cornrow.

Moving on two the second half (of the right side of her head) I again split it in two and put in two more cornrows.  Now the right side of her head has 4 total cornrows. (not including the bangs)

You can see that I used ponytail holders at the base of her neck to hold the cornrows.  I did NOT braid all the way to the ends as I usually would do.

Next I moved to the left side of her head and repeated the process.  So we now have 4 cornrows on the left side - for our grand total of 8 cornrows!

Lastly, I gathered the ends of the 4 braids on the right and wrapped another ponytail holder over top of the existing ones.  Did the same on the left.  Then I spritzed and scrunched the ends of her hair and WAH LAH - darling puffs!

For a finishing touch I added a few beads to the two cornrows in the front.

V had asked if we were going to do beads with the new style.  She starts to miss them if I have to many styles in a row without beads.  Happily, these two braids in the front were enough to satisfy her request!  She loves puffs as much as I do!

Do you know what else is exciting about this style?  As quick as it is to put in, it is even FASTER to take out!  Oh happy day!  The down side to these bigger braids is that they don't look nice for as long, so I am hoping to get 3 weeks out of this style.

Do you have any styles that you revert back to over and over again when a lack of inspiration or enthusiasm over takes you?

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????

That trimming our daughters curly hair is a cinch!  There really is nothing to it.  Their kinks and coils are very forgiving.  That is, as long as you intend to have them wear their hair in cornrows, braids, twists, puffs and afros.  You really can't go wrong.  IF you intend to straight iron your daughters hair or blow it out straight, that is a different story.  In that case a professional might be money worth spending.  But since Miss V never wears her hair in those styles, I might as well do it myself and save the cash!!!

I pretty much say all that needs to be said in this video.  So give it a watch -



Have you ever cut your kids hair, or are you intimidated by the idea?

Katie

Knotted French Braid

Here I am borrowing again!  I thought this Knotted Braid Style on The Princess Hairstyles looked really 1) pretty, 2) simple & 3) FUN!  So I had to give it a try. (Please click the link for instructions on how to do the style)  I first tried it out on little E.  We were in a hurry before church so I didn't have a chance to really play around with it, but it still looked cute.  It is SO easy to do and comes out just slightly different looking than a french braid.  I think it would have been better if E's hair had been a little more damp when I was trying to style it, but like I said, we were in a hurry!

Then I tried it on B's locs.  The first time I tried I used all of her hair and was going to do it just like the princess style - going into a low ponytail in the back.  Well, B's locs are getting SO THICK that this came out looking HUGE sticking off the sides of her head.  Although it was easy to do, I was not at all excited about how it looked.  I don't have a pic of that though - sorry.  So next I thought, maybe if I just used the top half of her hair and went into a half pony it would be better.  Well, you can see from this pictures that it still came out a bit odd looking.  Since she has a side part, the side with less hair looks really pretty.  But the other side looks goofy.  I think the braid needs to be down closer to her ear.

Overall - this was a fun new technique to try!  And after I play around with it some more I am certain I will come up with a way to make it work on B.  Stay tuned for an update on this style on both girls!

Katie

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Sidewinders This Past Holiday!

Hello everyone! I thought I would share with you all what we did with G's hair over the holiday and into 2011. I had a lot of fun with the versatility of the Sidewinders this year.

I flat twisted her bangs way over to the side (three rows) and did a mix of Sidewinder Christmas colors plus clear. Then on the opposite side I made two sections of twists and put more Sidewinders on, but these I included in a big ponytail. Her chosen outfit this year was just red and white, which of course was my cue to find the glitziest green hair ribbon I could...which I did (she still has green sparkles in her hair!)

Then, a few days later, we went to our first Kwanzaa celebration with our African Drum and Dance Group, and I swapped out the clear Sidewinders for some black (Kwanzaa colors are black, green, and red).

Next, on Dec. 30, we met up with all our cousins and aunts and uncles on my Dad's side of the family in San Francisco. G chose her soft pink pullover, and quick as a whip I changed the Kwanzaa colored Sidewinders for three shades of light and hot pink, red, and ivory.!

I had to include the above photo because the outfit was G's Christmas gift from my Aunt Lee, and is SO darling I can hardly stand it. She doesn't usually have such tailored-looking clothes, but I just LOVE this...I'll have to seek out more like this. Thanks Auntie!

Then finally, we swapped colors for back-to-school to match her school color!

Last but not least, we decided to go completely 90's (I didn't know just how 90's it was till she put on the flashdance sweater LOL) and do a twistout. I ended up putting the bangs in Soft Spikes that night for some even more serious waves. She is still rocking this style today.

So that's my kid this past holiday! Hope yours was great, and if you have any styles that you believe rocked the holiday, please send us some pix!  We would love to do a post of all your best holiday hair.

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know????

That I have really gotten into the habit of "re-fashioning" V's hairstyles one or more times during the 3-4 weeks she has them in?  I have really taken to doing this for a few reasons.

One reason is, I get bored quick.  I used to put in a braided style and leave it for a month without much thought.  But now that we have been doing this for a few years, I get bored with looking at the same style for so long and I need to change it up - even if it is just a little bit!

The other reason is that I think it can help disguise a style that is getting fuzzy, and not so fresh.  Maybe that is just an elusion because I am really just noticing the "freshness" of the changed up style, but it works for me!

So this was V's Christmas style:

After the first week I got tired of the ribbon so I took that out.  I also gathered all of the twists in the back and put them into a ponytail.  We used different fun and frilly hair ties on the ponytail every day to continue to keep things exciting.  (sorry no pic)

Now we have changed it up again to try to get us through the last week or so of this style.  I took out the braided headband which left me with some really curly braids from the ends of the cornrows up front.  Then I combined those curly braids with the twists in the back to make some funky little pigtails.  I could also do a twist out with those twists, but I haven't done that yet.

So I am wondering....Do you make small changes in your daughters hair styles to keep things feeling fresh?

Katie