Update! Update! -Reverse Sun Ray

I am SO EXCITED!

You know how those lopsided pigtails from our latest style were bugging me...

Yeah, I was only able to put up with them for 2 days!  I was kind of bummed to just throw them into a ponytail because I though it would loose all of its originality.  So, I took the pony holders out and I just started cornrowing the twists together (like I have done in a lot of previous styles).  But because of the placement of the cornrows, as I worked form the right side to the left, everything started curving almost into a circle!  It was starting to form a bun without me even trying!  So after all of the twists were incorporated into the ONE cornrow, I braided them all the way to the end.  Then I just brought the end around and tucked it up under to form a circle.  I used a couple bobby pins to hold it firmly.

I absolutely love it!  Since the ends were in twists instead of braids, it gives a whole different look when you cornrow them together!  And I think this is the cutest bun!  All of the cornrows sort of swirl into the middle!!!

I added the white ribbon (I know I need to buy some other colors of ribbons!)  I just wrapped the ribbon around the bun, but I ran it under the one part of the cornrow on the right side.

This is not at all what I had originally had in mind when I started this style, but I am SOOOO loving it!  I like buns, they have such a princess/ballerina look about them.

On a side note, I LOVE seeing all of the beautiful pictures of hairstyles you mamas have been posting on our facebook group!  Keep them coming!

Katie

Reverse Sun Ray Cornrows???

I know, this is a bad title, but I seem to have -0- creativity when it comes to titling hair styles!  This style is kind of a reverse of the last style I did, so I thought that would help you to visualize it well.  Pics?

Here was my thought process on this one:  All the hair from the front half of her head would go into one pigtail and all the hair from the back of her head would make up the second pigtail.

I suspected from the beginning that the pigtails would end up lopsided because one would be on the front side of the ear to ear part, and the other on the back side of the ear to ear part.  I was RIGHT!

I tried to prevent this by making my ear to ear part on a slight diagonal.  But it didn't quite work as you can see in the picture from the back.

Step 1) Make ear to ear part, but maybe try a more than slight diagonal?

Step 2)  Choose a spot along the part off to the LEFT where all of the cornrows from the front will end.  This is where the "reverse Sun Ray" idea comes in.  When making your parts, start at the spot and part outward toward the hairline.  But then when you braid START at the hairline and braid your way IN to the ear to ear part.  I ended up with 13 cornrows in the front so they are only slightly triangular shaped.  If you did fewer rows, they would look more like triangles (rays).

Step 3) Repeat in the back by choosing a spot along the ear to ear part on the RIGHT side where all of the rows will meet.  Make your parts from this spot out to the base of the neck.  But when you cornrow, START at the neck and braid UP to the ear to ear part.  I ended up with 11 rows back there.

Step 4) I forgot to mention that I ended my cornrows in twists instead of braids.  SO, the last step is to gather the braids from the front and make a pigtail.  Then gather the braids from the back to make your second pigtail.

We went sans beads this time around, but I have been using different ballies and hair things on the pigtails to match outfits.

I think because of the un-evenness of the pigtails, I will end up gathering them all into ONE ponytail, or maybe something more creative, because it is REALLY bugging me!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

DID YOU KNOW????

That I just got through reading a great blog post with lots of pix showing how a Mom named Sara manages her toddler's tight spiral coils? She uses Teri LaFlesh's "Tightly Curly" method. I believe this child is biracial....and wow does her hair look great at the end of the day...I mean look at this curl definition...!

Did I mention this is a TODDLER? Who has presumably been wandering around doing TODDLER stuff all day? Dang!!

If you have a child with awesome coils like this little girl, I encourage you to go and read Sara's blog post about how she gets these results.

Let us know if you try it and what your results are!

How the Girls Move

Hello everyone! Wow have things been nuts for me lately. I am on a committee at church that is responsible for social service work for the kids, PLUS the church kid's worship service decided to raise money for Haiti this year so I have been kind of heading that up. It's really rewarding though, you can read our blog about it....we have raised $3346 so far, and we have till the end of June to maybe even get to $4000! If you want to donate a buck or two while you are there, click on the red heart in the sidebar! :)

So annnyyyyway, over at the Yahoo Adoption Hair and Skin Care Group, we were talking about relaxers and texturizers, a subject that gets brought up now and then. Some folks do, some don't,  some are considering, some get talked out of it, some want to know the difference between the two, and what it all means for our kids' hair. As usual, I chime in with "hey, locs are a great alternative to relaxing if the issue is a child who hates having hair combed, or if you are a family constantly in a time crunch, or just want a more free type of hairstyle." That is more or less my usual spiel. I love G's locs and I LOVE LOVE that I never had to relax her hair but yet we still have such an easier time with her hair, and it's much more flexible and less time-consuming. And no combing, of course!

So we were at the dog park today kicking around the soccer ball, and I grabbed my iPhone and took a quick video of her being silly with me, just so you can see how locs move and behave, in case you are considering them. Hers are more or less microlocs, I'd say the fattest one she has is still smaller than the diameter of a pencil. She has had them for almost 3 years, and I installed and maintain them myself. I took this video today because her locs are just flyin' free, she has nothing in them at all. This is just "her girls" being themselves.

And yeah, we roughhouse a lot! She thinks it's hysterical when instead of playing "clean" I just grab her arm and spin her out of the way or bump her to the ground in order to get the ball. :) She's fun!

Oh and we had a great laugh later when I pointed out that I said something dumb....."Hey, there's no kicking in soccer!" She got major mileage out of that one....

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????

We are moving?  Of course you do, I have only mentioned it like 10 times.  Which seems crazy because this has all happened relatively fast and yet I feel like the actual MOVE day has taken ages to get here?  weird?  Anyway, I spent the last 4 days working on getting the kids bedrooms ready to move in.  The colors in the rooms previously were awful and I really wanted to do something fun for the kids since we haven't ever really personalized their rooms before.

All 3 of our girls share a room.  I wanted them all to feel involved in the process of decorating the room, but that can be hard to do with many differing opinions.  Not to mention that I am a control freak.  So in true controlling mommy style.... I scoured the internet for room decal stickers, looked at hundreds of them, and then showed the girls the 5 choices I liked best and convinced them that my favorite one was the best choice!  Guess what?  It worked!  ALL 3 of them agreed on it!  And they were super excited about it too!  So these are the stickers we chose:

The picture of the flower decals I found showed them on a green wall and everyone liked that too, so as you can see, we went with it.  But I didn't want the whole room green because I knew Young Man C would want a green room.  So I told the girls we would just do the flower wall green and pick a different color for the other 3 walls.  I brought home 2 blue and 1 purple swatch, and again, amazingly they all agreed on a blue one!  So what do you think?

I think it turned out really great!  I can't wait for the girls to start living in it!  I'm pretty proud of this room as it involved many hours of painting and then the application of 70 stems, 70 flowers, 10 grass sections and 15 butterflies!  Yes, Yes, hand over my mother of the year award please!  Little E was hanging out with me today while I did more work on C's room.  She likes it.

The Young Man's favorite color has been green since the day I met him, so it is no surprise he requested a green room.  He asked for it to be the color of his school soccer team sweatshirt.  It is a bright, cheery green so I obliged.  His room wasn't really photo ready today, but I wanted to share it with you anyway:

You can see the blue painters tape hasn't come off yet, I still have a tiny bit of touching up to do.  But don't both rooms just make you feel happy inside?  They do for me and it helps to keep me excited about this move even though it's a LOT of work!

***I MUST take a moment to give a shout out to my wonderful sister and brother-in-law who gave up their Saturday to help me paint!  Couldn't have done it without you two!  I also have to give HUGE props to my hubby who has been holding down the fort and taking care of all the kiddies while I have been MIA.  Love you babe!***

Anybody have any fun kids bedroom pics they want to share on our facebook page?  We would love to see them!

Katie

Sun Rays

Maybe my craving for Summer and Sunshine led to my choosing this cornrow pattern, but I have always liked the look of this one, and I haven't done it in awhile.  I am hoping even though V's hair has been giving me some trouble lately that this will last us 3 solid weeks, because I will not be doing any more hair until after we are all moved in to our new place!

I don't have any step by step instructions for you.  This is a pretty basic style.  She has 8 cornrows going down the back.  1 Cornrow across the forehead to try to tame her bang area.  And 9 cornrows in the Sun Ray pattern on the top.  To do the Sun Ray - Just choose a starting point off center and make triangles going out from that point.

I added 3 BGP chubby beads (get yours here...they rock!) to the end of each braid.  DONE!

Katie

Quick Style - UPDATE

Well, as expected the french braid part in the back of this hairstyle did NOT hold up for long.  By day 3 it was pretty much done for!

The large cornrows in the front were also getting fuzzy fast, but I knew I could make them stretch till the end of the week.  So all I did was:

1) Remove french braids

2) Wet and Comb each side.  Then put the hair from the back and the braids from the front into pigtails.  (I did criss cross the two middle braids and added them to the ponytail on the opposite side.)

3) Make 3 more braids out of the free hair from the back.

4) Since the braids from the front had been in the cornrows they were all wavy/curly.  This didn't look good mixed with the straight braids I had just put in.  So I took the 3 new braids and braided them together.  Then I looped them up and tucked them back into the ponytail holder.  Then I braided the 3 original braids together and did the same thing so that I had little braided bun type of things.

I took this picture the next afternoon.  See how much fuzzy hair already popped out at the bottom!

The next morning, to try to distract from the fuzz, I made another change and I took the braids out of the braids (are you following me?) and so I had 6 wavy/curly braids per pigtail.  Sorry no pic.

Man the winter is taking a toll on this girls hair!  I can't wait for some warmer, moister weather!

Katie