Quick Style

Hello everyone!  I am feeling a bit out of touch with you and I apologize for that.  I have a lot going on in my life right now that is taking up my time and energy and I have neglected you :(  We are going to be moving in a few weeks and it is a bit of an unexpected move so bear with me as I continue to be infrequent with my posts for awhile.

V's valentine style didn't hold up very well.  I am not sure if it is the winter time or what it is, but I only had it in for 3 weeks and MAN was it looking ROUGH this whole last week!  They were pretty small sized cornrows on top so I don't really have a good idea why the style didn't hold up as nicely as usual, but I decided to go with a one-week style this time around.  Probably a mistake when I am going to be so busy packing the next few weeks and I will need to redo her hair next weekend, but oh well!

Someone on the facebook page mentioned this style idea.  It was a little while back and I don't remember who said it, but she said she had gotten the idea from a little girl on Sesame Street.  I don't know if my interpretation of her written explanation is accurate or not, but I think it turned out cute and it was pretty quick and easy!

Cute right?

Step 1)  Part hair into 4 sections.  I did this the night before after I washed her hair.

Step 2)  Take the front right section and put in 3 cornrows.

Step 3)  Use the 3 cornrows as the beginning 3 strands of a french braid.  French braid all of the hair from the bottom half of the right side.

Step 4) Repeat on the Left!

I put two ballies on the bottom for extra bling!

Do you se that little dragon V is holding.  That is Spike, the class dragon.  He is visiting our home for the weekend.  Now he can say he made an appearance on our blog!

Crossing my fingers this style will hold up all week.  I'm not so sure about the back part!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday - Introducing "KAERO"

DID YOU KNOW???

That my cousin Kevin (aka KAERO) is about to make it big in the music business? He writes his own pop/dance songs with a killer beat. This is his first big video gig, BOOM!, and G knows the song by heart and inserts her own moves. I guarantee you will be up and dancing around!

He has a facebook page....come and "like" him!  He is also performing in the Sacramento and Los Angeles areas. You can listen to some of his other music on his official myspace music page

One disclaimer....he does use the word "ass"....as in dancin' and shakin'. G knows that we wouldn't say that word in polite company so when she listens to it she says "hips." The song is so fun and hey, it's family....so we just shrug and shake it anyway. He did record an audio version of the song and just sent it to me....with "butt" instead of "ass". You can download it here.

So Moms, get up and prepare to shake it like you mean it!

 ENJOY!!!

V Day at the G House

Hi all! Wow I haven't posted to you all in a while. I miss you guys! I very suddenly moved about a half mile away, but my apartment was extremely unprepared to be moved, so it was pretty hectic. It was a good move, we like the new place a lot, and we have a yard for the dog, which is super important!

Anyway, I spent several days prior to Valentine's day tightening G's locs and putting in her Valentine's day style. We also went with yarn. Ours was a variegated yarn, pink and red. I used this yarn a long time ago on a trip to Haiti, I gave her faux yarn ponytails. There was also some rainbow variegated braided into the pink that time.

When G saw Katie's style on V, with the pink yarn hanging down with all the beads, she wanted something similar. I was happy to oblige as I miss doing the crazy fun styles! I have not yet figured out a way to "weave" in the yarn to the locs and seamlessly transition all of it into ponytails. The last time I did the yarn fall...

I hid her bun of locs at the base of the ponytail, but it never quite looked exactly right....the locs are just too thick...the base of the ponytail is just unnaturally fat. So while I initially had visions of somehow figuring out how to morph the ends of all the locs into two ponytails, it didn't work. But I am GLAD it didn't, because what she ended up with, sort of Willow-Smith-Whip-My-Hair-esque knot/buns instead of ponytails, looks SO CUTE on her.

I used the long yarn twists with beads on the end which were going to be the faux ponytails as ties onto the buns so she could have some beads dangling to swing around. We only wore those on Sunday and Monday...now she just has the knots.

So here it is...

It was really very easy! All I did was box twists....9 locs per box (or a few more or less if some needed to be incorporated) and I plain-ole TIED the yarn onto two of the locs in the box before I started. I tied it in the center of the yarn so that two ends dangled down long. So I box twisted her whole head with one strand of yarn in each box. Tying the yarn on worked just fine and was so easy.

So then, I parted her hair for two ponytails (but intentionally crossed that front twist on the right over to the other side, as you can see in the middle photo). I gathered them all together, put in my elastic, cut all the extra long ends of yarn so that it was all about two inches longer than her actual hair....I braided the ponytails as best I could (they were not long enough to braid much, but the point was to make sure all the ends stayed together) and continued to braid that extra couple inches of yarn. Then I just tucked the ends of those braids under, and captured the yarn ends under the elastic on the bottom side of the ponytail. All I did after that was tie the beaded yarn twist ropes around it and let it hang!

If your child's ponytails are longer, you could probably braid or twist and then wrap the braid around maybe once or even twice into big knots. I think it looks just fabulous with all the pink twisted in there! The knots give a bit more mature look than ponytails.

I savored every minute of doing this style, and she got LOTS of compliments. I know, I know, it's OTT, but around here, her little girlfriends think its WAY cool.

Hope your Valentine's styles came out great! Share a photo with us on facebook!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My apologies for the lack of posts lately.  Steph has been in the middle of a sudden move and I have just had so much going on.  Admittedly I also tend to suffer from a bit of Seasonal Depression that just leaves me a bit unmotivated and very tired.  Last week was SO COLD I was miserable!  But the temps went up yesterday and this morning I got to surprise my young loves with a special Valentine's breakfast and other treats, so it's a GOOD DAY!

Here is what I ended up doing with B's hair.  I have some other ideas about yarn and locs, but this was all I had time for.  And I LOVE it!  This was a two step process but a pretty quick one.  Yesterday I cornrowed the front of her locs with the sparkle pink yarn.  I braided them all the way to the ends so that they would be wavy when I took them out in the morning, but my plan was to only leave the top cornrowed.  Then I also threw some quick cornrows in the back to get waves back there too.  So these are the before pics:

Cornrowing locs is SO much faster than free hair so this was pretty simple for me to do.  Adding the yarn is easy...would anyone like me to make a video of how I do it?

This morning I just unbraided the ends of the cornrows and the back.  Then I trimmed off a bit of the yarn that was hanging longer than her locs.  Lastly I cut some small pieces of yarn and tied them around the braids where the cornrows ended to try to keep the cornrows from unraveling during the day.  (you could use hair ties, I just thought this would add even more sparkle!)

It turned out great, and looks even better in person than in the pics.

For V, I wanted to do a little something to spice up her style for her Valentine's Day Party at school since she has already been wearing this style for a week.  Her twist bangs were getting unruly so I put two quick cornrows up front.  I added beads to one side, and the other side I swept back with the rest of the cornrows and used a little bow barrette to hold it in place.  Then I took a white ribbon and tied up the ends of her ponytail.

Little E and I have a busy day of house cleaning today and we won't be leaving the house, so no special hair do's for us!

HAVE A HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!

Katie

Valentine Hair!

Well here it is!  The Valentine Style!  I have to admit (keeping in mind that I am overly critical of myself) that it didn't come out quite as cute as my mental picture of it - but I am still pleased.  This was my first time braiding yarn into a cornrow and I think it might take a few more attempts to work out the kinks.  As you can see, the yarn kept wanting to hid in the hair, but I wanted it to be much more prominent on the heart.

I think I made the heart a little too big, and yes it looks really lopsided from this angle, but you can't really tell from other angels.  I still love the idea, I wanted a pink yarn heart on top with a ponytail of pink yarn and beads in back.  I just think with a few tweaks, it could have been even better.  Maybe next year...

So here is my step by step:

1) Make an ear to ear part to separate the top of the head from the back of the head.

2) Part off the outside line of the heart shape.

3) Make twist bangs in the front and put cornrows on the sides over the ears with the hair that was left after you made the heart parts. (I did this the night before after I washed her hair)

4) Part off the inside line of your heart so that you now have your section of hair that you will cornrow.

*** 5) This is how I did the heart, but I am not yet sure this was the best method - Starting on the right side of my center part I took a small section of hair to begin the cornrow.  But instead of splitting it into 3 pieces, I laid a piece of yarn (folded in half) under the hair and used the two sides of yarn as two of the strands and the section of hair as the third strand of my braid.  I began cornrowing as usual.  About half way through the cornrow I added another piece of yarn because I wanted more pink.  Too add in the yarn I just laid it across the braid and added one side to the hair on the right and one side to the hair on the left.***

6) Repeat on the left, braiding all the way to the ends of the hair - and beyond, as I made my yarn longer than her hair.

7) I decided to make a split cornrow in the middle of the heart, but I am not sure I like it.  I did not add yarn to these cornrows because I wanted the heart to really stand out.  But when I got to the end of the cornrowed hair, I added two pieces of yarn to the hanging part of the braid.

8) Then I added three more cornrows on either side of the middle one.  Also adding yarn to the hanging part of the braid.

9) Then I put 7 cornrows going up the back and meeting at the center for a ponytail.  Continuing to add yarn to the hanging parts of the braids.

10) I finished off all of the braids by adding a hodgepodge of pink beads to them and tying off the yarn in a knot.  Then I cut the extra yarn off below the knot.  This is such a fast and easy way to end braids!  (can we also talk about how un-characteristic it is for me to not have any kind of pattern or structure to my beads?  It nearly killed me, but I was trying to do something different and more free form.)

Overall, I am pleased with this style.  Miss V.  L-O-V-E-S it and that is all that really matters.  She said it was her favorite style EVER.  I didn't mention to her that I wasn't perfectly pleased with the outcome.  Why would I?!?!

Next weekend I plan to do something fun with the yarn for B's hair.  If you are doing any V day styles - PLEASE post pictures on the facebook page.  We LOVE to see your creativity too!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????

I bought this fun and festive yarn yesterday!

Pink with sparkles - can you guess what it is for?  I am super excited about an idea I have for V's Valentines Day hair!  I am planning to put the new style in this weekend and I really hope it turns out as cool as I am envisioning it!  Things rarely end up in real life the way I plan them in my head, but we shall see!

I believe I will also try to do something in B's hair with the yarn too.  Just not sure what yet!

Katie