Mommy Hair

So I have spent the last two days becoming completely addicted to inspired by stuff on Pinterest.  I knew Pintrest would be trouble before I even saw it, and I was right!  Such a wealth of awesomeness!  (and amazing time sucker!)

Anyway, I have been in limbo trying to decide wether or not I wanted to cut my hair.  I normally cut my hair every 6 months to a year.  I always do a big chop, let it grow, big chop, let it grow, short, long, short, long.  Well, after last nights browsing through braided hairstyle ideas on Pinterest I am quite happy that I haven't had the time or money to get my hair cut in a whole year and a half!  It is decently long right now, which means I can actually do some fun stuff with it.  And with all the great inspiration out there, I don't think I will be cutting my hair anytime soon.

Now, with 3 little girls to get ready in the morning I rarely have time to do much with my own hair.  Usually don't have time to blow dry it.  So I often wear it in some type of ponytail.  To jazz things up when I have a few extra minutes I throw in one of those cornrows in the bang area that goes back into a messy bun.  It's cute, but I need more than ONE hairstyle!

This video I stumbled on is PERFECT for me!  Meant to be done on wet hair, meant to look messy, fast and easy - PERFECT!  I was in a particularly big rush this morning but I had to try one of the styles out anyway.  Here is the video link:  5 Styles for Wet Hair in Under 10 minutes.

And here are the pics of my take on it:

My hair is not quite as long or thick as hers so it doesn't come out as amazing looking.  This pic was also taken at the end of the afternoon so my hair is no longer wet.

Because I was in such a big hurry I skipped the "dutch braid" as she calls it, better known to me as a "cornrow."  For that front section, I just grabbed a hunk of hair and made a regular braid.

So you can see it isn't quite as visually interesting up front without the cornrow but it still looked good in person.

I will be trying out more of these styles and others I have found on Pinterest.  Are you interested in seeing them?  Or do you just want to see kid styles?  I will also be modifying some things I am finding to do on the girls hair!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THIS WEEKS GIVEAWAY FOR A FREE SHADES OF US HAIR ACCESSORY!!!!!!

Katie

Shades of Us - GIVEAWAY!!!

Giveaway time!  Three lucky winners will win ANY hair accessory of their choosing from Shades of Us!

Have you gone over to the Shades of Us website to check out the cute and creative stuff she's got?  I think the really cool thing about this company is that you never know what you are going to get.  I was looking through the site last night and it had a ton of different stuff from the last time I was there!  I am sure it depends on what fabrics, flowers, jewels she happens to pick up at the time!  So if you buy something from Shades of Us, you can be pretty sure you won't see the same accessory on anyone else - they are so UNIQUE! Here are the pics of the cool stuff that Laura sent to Miss G!

 One thing I love about these clips is the very well-attached plastic faceted "crystal" button in the center. It really adds a fine finishing touch to these and makes them look very refined!

This unique hair clip was G's favorite. She loved that it was unusual and the black button off-center! (PS we have 4 floss hair wraps going on right now, with no end in sight! I did insist that we take out the first two which have been in for a couple of months! I've gotta tighten locs!)

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE remember to write a SEPARATE comment for EACH thing you do on the list.  If you put all of your entries in ONE comment you are selling yourself short!  Each comment gets a number for our random generator, so you want to get as many comments as possible.  

You have until NOON EST on Sunday, October 2nd to enter the drawing.  We will be choosing the winners from the comments left on THIS post!

To enter this giveaway please leave a comment on THIS blog and answer THIS question:

After visiting the Shades of Us website, which was your favorite hair accessory?  

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If you would like to earn EXTRA entries do one or all of these things:

1)  Go to the Shades of Us facebook page and become a fan! Leave a comment stating you are a fan.

2) Head on over to our Keep Me Curly! Facebook fan page and become a fan. Leave a comment stating that you are a fan. (or that you already were a fan)

3) "Share" our Keep Me Curly! Facebook page with your friends and come back and leave a comment letting us know what day you "shared" us THIS week.

4) Follow @keepmecurly on twitter Come back and post a comment that you are a follower and leave your Twitter ID. (or that you were already following)

5) Tweet any unique tweet announcing our blog or the giveaway with @keepmecurly in it! Cut and paste your tweet (not tweet id status) and post as a comment. You can get 1 entry for EVERY new and unique tweet!

6) Become a follower of our blog or subscribe to our blog through an RSS feed. Simply post a comment saying that you are a follower. (or that you were already following)

7) Subscribe to Katie's youtube channel and come back and leave a comment stating that you are a subscriber. (or that you were already a subscriber)

8) Leave a comment on one of Katie's youtube videos. Leave a comment HERE letting us know the title of the video you commented on.

9) Place an order at Snapaholics between 9/27 and 10/1 Noon EST. Leave a comment including your order number and order date.

10) Grab our badge! If you add our badge to your blog leave us a comment saying that you are using it with a link to your blog.

11) Advertise our site or this giveaway in a forum or other blog! We would really love it if you wrote about our site or this giveaway on your blog. If you are passionate about natural hair care, or Katie's youtube videos have been really helpful to you, or if you love cute hair things, talk it up on your blog! Earn TWO entries for doing this one! Simply post a comment saying that you are talking about us with a link to the forum or blog, then put (first entry) then comment again and write (second entry).

12) Get a friend to talk about us or our giveaway on THEIR blog, earn two MORE entries! Just leave us a comment with a link to THEIR blog and tell us that you encouraged them to participate. Then make sure they enter the giveaway for themselves too!

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The winners will be announced on Monday, October 3rd. It is the responsibility of the winners to contact us at keepmecurly@gmail.com to let us know their mailing address and the hair accessory that they would like. IF the winners do not contact us by Friday, October 7th, we will choose a new winner.

Who can participate? US only please.  Shades of Us is a new business and is not yet set up for international customers.

*** If you have any questions or if you have comments that are not related to the giveaway please feel free to email us at keepmecurly@gmail.com or leave your comment on a different post. In order for this giveaway to work we have to ask that you do not leave any other comments on this post if they do not follow the guidelines of the contest.***

Shades of Us Hair Accessories - Review

It's been a long time coming, but I told you all we had another giveaway in the making.  Here it comes!  These adorable hair accessories come from Shades of Us.  Laura makes them all by hand and she has quite a variety of styles.  She sent all 4 of our girls 2 hair things each.  Katie's girls were SO THRILLED to get this package of beautiful hair stuff that they immediately put them in their hair!

They have continued to enjoy adding them to different styles to spice things up.  Here are a few pics:

Little E's favorite color is yellow and we have used these hair things A LOT!  I like that they are a solid color because they are a bit more versatile, I can pair them with so many outfits!

Miss V is ALL about the pink, so this pink and red fabric flower is perfect for her!  I love how unique this one is!

I know the pic of B is a bit overexposed, so I included a pic of this one in E's hair too.  B loves orange and turquoise, so this is the perfect choice for her! Aren't the different fabrics cool?

 These flowers are great for older girls.  I think the colors are bold and gorgeous!  I am a bit afraid to send my girls to school in these though because they can be so rough on their stuff!  I am sure they or their classmates will destroy them.  So I am reserving these ones for special occasions.

Here is another precious flower that I think is well suited for younger girls.  I love how it is made of soft, touchable fabric.  

You can check out Shades of Us on Facebook or at their website.  They have many many more styles than what we have shown you here!  There is something to suit every little girls fancy!  And priced from $3.00 to $12.00 (for headbands) these handmade and unique creations are a great buy!

Please come back tomorrow for your chance to win one of these fabulous hair accessories!

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know???

That Little E is growing up way too fast!

I am sure most mother's feel that way about the baby of the family.  Right? I have probably mentioned before how much I love babies.  The baby/toddler stage is my absolute favorite!

I adore the fact that our family was knit together through adoption, but I lament the fact that I didn't have the opportunity to know and love on my oldest three kids when they were babies.

So when God blessed our family with Little E, I was thrilled to finally have a baby!  I think I was hoping she would stay a baby forever.  Clearly that is not to be, because my baby turned 4 last week and had her first day of preschool yesterday!  Oh how time flies!

So, I will share with you a little photo montage of E's birthday and first day of school - mostly pics of her cute hairstyles!  And since she is still tiny and cute as a button, we will all pretend she is still a baby!

Little E has been begging for Soft Spikes for months!  It is so cute because I don't think she really cares about the end result, she just wants me to take pictures of her looking like a porcupine head and put them on the computer like I do with her Sissys!  I put three tiny cornrows up in the front before putting in the Soft Spikes.

Do you see that cute yellow flower clip in her hair?  That is a teaser of something we have coming up!

Picnic lunch with mom and dad for her birthday!

Ready to open presents now that the big kids are home from school!

Ready for preschool!

I almost always do cornrows on E (or inverted french braids) because my hands are more comfortable braiding underhand.  I decided to try a more traditional french braid on her and it looks so pretty!

Painting at school!

So, the big question here is:  When do we drop the "little" and start calling her Miss E?

Katie

Back to School 2011 - B's Hair

Nothing really new or impressive here, but I think it looks really cute and the best part of this kind of style on B is that it keeps the locs OUT OF HER FACE!  Kids- I'm telling ya!  Why on earth would you want to walk around and talk to people with hair hanging in your face????











All we did for this style was put in 7 cornrows from front to back:

 These cornrows on their own turned out pretty cute and we might do a variation on this for a style sometime, but it wasn't quite the look we were going for on a special day.

So, she washed her hair in the morning and I put in these rows.  She wore them all day and night and I took them out (half way) the next morning to get the wavy locs!

At the point where I stopped taking out the cornrows I used 2 of her locs to tie off the braids so they wouldn't unravel.  You can't even see them!  Then we added the pretty butterfly headband - EASY!

The style looked just as adorable on day two without the headband.  And as a bonus we didn't need to wrestle with her bangs to get them out of her face for soccer practice - we didn't even put in a ponytail, she just wore it like this and it was perfect!

Katie

Back to School 2011 - V's Hair

We seem to have fallen into a pattern of giving V yarn braids every fall.  She did not have them for the first day of school last year, but we did them shortly after.  I really only like to do yarn braids once a year for several reasons.  1) they take a long time to put in 2) I leave them in a long time -which is both awesome and boring 3) I just like variety so once a year makes it exciting every time she gets them!  

This year I decided to basically repeat the fall inspired colors I did last year because I REALLY loved that style, but I HAD to make some changes.  I NEVER do any style exactly the same way twice!  I will be referring to last years braids all the way through, and I won't be explaining much about how I did the style so you should check last years post before reading this one!

Change 1-  I added Red yarn.  I was going to use this last year but thought it was too bright.  This year I was ok with it!  So we had black, brown, burgundy and red.

Change 2 - No beads.  The beads were great last year, but again I like change, and it is easier to get the hair into ponytails and other styles without a clump of beads on the ends.

Change 3 - I went for longer braids.  These are the longest we have ever done.

Change 4 -We did a layered look instead of a blunt cut look.  I usually try to have all braids the same length at the bottom, so for a change I tried layers.  I am not sure it is as cool looking as I envisioned, but to achieve this look I just made the bottom rows really long and then with the rows after that I made them a bit shorter each time.

Change 5 - We did piggy back braids on top.  Last year we had criss cross cornrows.  Again, I will leave these in for a few weeks and then take them out and put more yarn braids on top while leaving the back as it is.

Change 6 - I also kind of changed the pattern in which I put in the different colors of yarn.  This time I did the colors row by row from the bottom up.  I did two black rows on the bottom and than did a burgundy row, a brown row, a red row, and back to black etc.

I think that covers all the changes.  I made some little braided yarn pieces to use as hair accessories on the pigtails.  I kind of liked them, but I got sick of them and took them out after a few days.

Lastly, if you don't know how to do piggy back braid, here is one of our original videos on how to do them!  They are a great alternative for those who can't do cornrows.  Notice that B is the hair model in this video - before locs!

Katie

Back to School 2011

My kids went back to school today!  Last night I was giddy with excitement, like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Don't get me wrong, I loved having my kids around for most of the summer.  Family time is to be cherished, and we had a lot of it this year.  But for the last week or so we have all been needing a little space!  Not only am I ready for some peace and quiet, but I thrive on structure and schedules.  While I do enjoy a break in the summer, and I take full advantage of sleeping in almost every morning, I got a whole lot of pleasure over the amount of things I accomplished this morning ALL before I normally would have rolled out of bed!  I also LOVE when I can tidy up the house in the morning and it actually stays that way for a good 8 hours!

The funny thing is, as eager as I was to shoo them away today I had to choke back tears as I pulled out of the school parking lot!  I guess no matter how much they drive you C-R-A-Z-Y, you are still crazy about your kids!

Don't they look cute?  Who wouldn't be proud?

Little E starts preschool next week and I am seriously choked up about that one!  But as difficult as it will be to let go of my quickly growing baby, I am super excited to watch her with this new experience!  She is super shy and a big time mama's girl so I am expecting some tears on her end as well.  But I think after a few weeks of getting used to things she is going to LOVE it!

You are able to get a glimpse of B and V's hair in these pics.  There is nothing newly earth shattering about either style but they look sure do look pretty!  I will be posting detailed pics of V's yarn braids tomorrow and B's style on Thursday.

I know we are about the last schools in the country to go back for the fall, but for everyone else who had a "first day" today, I hope it was as wonderful as ours!

Katie

Labor Day Giveaway WINNER!!!!!

Happy Labor Day!!!

At my house we aren't so much celebrating Labor Day, since my kids finally go back to school tomorrow, we are celebrating the Last Day of Summer Break!  I LOVE my kids, but boy oh boy I couldn't be more ready for life to get back to routine and to have a few minutes of peace and quite around here!  Anyway, enough about me, let's find out who is the lucky winner of a beautiful piece of artwork from MossyRockDesigns!!!

And the winner is comment #29 - Congratulations Kierstin!

Kierstin said... [Reply to comment]

I'm a fan of Mossy Rock on FB

September 1, 2011 12:17 PM 

Kierstin, if you would please email us at keepmecurly@gmail.com and let us know which print you would like from the MossyRockDesigns etsy shop, and also your mailing address, we will forward it on to Katie Bradley right away!

Thanks everyone for playing!  We just love giving stuff away, so stick around because we have another giveaway coming right up!