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.

She let me do Christmas Hair!

As I mentioned before, I am definitely losing control over G's hair. She has her own ideas and it won't be long until I can't do the colorful bling anymore, I fear. But, I let her know a bit ago that I would be doing Christmas hair, and this evening she let me go for it :) I feel blessed!!!

Please nevermind the Sponge Bob pajamas. I wanted to get a photo of this before sending her to bed.

We used Sidewinders and it was HER idea to mix up the colors! I love it!

I used Snapaholics #3 black flower snaps on on a few locs in each sidewinder to hold them on. Basically this is just three flat twists from a right-side part over to the left. Then I twisted the two sections on the right side of her head and put more sidewinders on and gathered everything back into a ponytail, and used clear star ballies (also on Snapaholics).

Thankfully, G LOVES IT! I think this will stay in thru Christmas. I think I will go back in and lower the three sidewinders so there is not quite so much of the locs coming thru the bottom.

I'm just so excited that we have blingy hair yet again! I will post more photos when she has her holiday outfit on. Still gotta go and get her one LOL.

We hope you will send us pix of your holiday hair! We will do a post of all your photos!

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know??????

That Sidewinders are the PERFECT holiday hair accessory?  Not only do I love to have my girls hair accessories match their outfits, but I also love to have them match the holiday.  The only drawback is that if I spend hours loading their hair up with Christmas, St. Patty's, or Independence day colored hair accessories I am not going to want to change them out for at least a few weeks!  But then that goes against my whole coordinating with the outfit plan because I usually don't have weeks worth of Red, Green, or Flag colored clothing.

That is why I am proposing that Sidewinders are the best choice for holiday hair!  They are so much faster to put on the hair AND they can be easily swapped out for a different color long before you are planning to change the rest of the hair style.  AND sidewinders come in every color you could possibly need!

I don't actually have any examples of holiday box braids, but I think you all understand what I mean.  I DO however have some fun pics of things the girls and I did with sidewinders last night for some FUN Halloween styles.

On V we did a modified veil style with her yarn braids.  I could only fit 2 or 3 braids into the sidewinders so I had to get creative on the veil.  I did not include ALL of the yarn braids, I just used some of them and left the others hanging down underneath.  I also didn't use two sidewinders twirled together, ya know, I put in the first part of the sidewinder and it held so nice and snug that I didn't think I needed to try to wind a second one on with it.  Also I was planning to use black mixed with these oranges, but I figured you wouldn't really even notice the black up against the black braids.  This is a good way to stretch your sidewinders - it's like doubling the amount of sidewinders in your stash!

This was a simple and quick style for B.  We used solid Orange, translucent Orange and Purple.  They mixed beautifully with the pumpkin pony holder from Target!  Again, I stuffed so many locs into each sidewinder that I didn't double them up - I just put on the one sidewinder and it held so snug, it actually would have been difficult two twist the second half of the sidewinder up in there.  All we did was grab a few locs across the front and put on the sidewinder,  we did this all the way across the front and then just pulled all of her locs on top up into a half pony!

We didn't have any cute Halloween shirts for Little E, but of course she still wanted her hair done like her sisters!  We used the Orange and Black twisted together for the little missy.  Two braids going into pigtails.  Nothing to exciting, but still cute!

It might be a little late to order sidewinders for THIS Halloween, but there is always next year!  And of course, now would be a GREAT time to start thinking about Christmas and Valentine's Day styles!!!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Katie

A Sidewinder Style and Little E's Buns!

Not much time to write today, but I thought I would get some pics out to you all of some recent styles.  First up is a Sidewinder do' on B:

It is kind of hard to tell from these pictures but the sidewinders were wound onto braids.  I braided about 6 locs together in three places going from forehead to the back of her head on each side.  This looked really cute with the Orange and Purple outfits she had on!
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I have to admit my frustrations with doing Little E's hair!  It is just so different from my other girls hair.  Pretty much any idea I get for their hair I am able to do.  I might end up changing things as I go along for one reason or another, but at least I always have PLENTY of hair to do it!  Little E just doesn't have much going on up there!

I had a much different idea for this style, and it just wasn't going to happen.  I actually wanted to put beads on the braids that went into the buns also.  Here is the irony!  Even though E's hair is to thin and fine to do the styles I want to do, her little braids are often TO THICK to fit beads on!  It's so weird!  The other thing is that E's hair is really VERY fragile.  I know that B and V's hair needs to be handled with care, but it seems that all of the products and techniques I use on them do a great job of keeping their hair healthy and strong.  E, on the other hand, it seems no matter what I do with her hair it breaks.  And I hate to see her loose ANY of her hair since their isn't much of it.  So I don't actually style her hair that often.  It seems to do best if I just wash it, comb it, and leave it alone! Anyway, this style did turn out pretty cute, in the end, so I should stop complaining, but I just thought I would let you know my thoughts on doing E's hair!

Katie

Shout Out for Guests AND Feedback

Hello everyone, this is a shout out! 

This is something I am very excited about. We already have a few people who have agreed to guest post for us on various topics. We also have all you awesome readers sending us hairstyle pix, which is great. We have received some fab ones!

I would like to put a call out to any reader who would be interested in guest posting for us on the topic of keeping hair natural as a girl grows into a teen. Ideally, a mom with such a teen would be wonderful! We want to know HOW DID YOU DO IT? LOL

Seriously, if you have a teen who still has natural hair, embraces it, and you have some great teen style advice to share, and/or style pix, please email us at keepmecurly@gmail.com and let's talk! We would love to have you do a guest post for us. If you successfully helped steer your child away from wanting a relaxer, we want to know your secret to that, too.

Secondly, now that we have a few giveaways under our belt, we would like to hear from those of you who won items or who have ordered products from the featured vendors...we want to know what you think! Please email us with comments, stories, photos, anything!

For example, we were forwarded some feedback from our reader Sheila who had ordered Sidewinders.....now LOOK at this adorableness!

 Here is what Sheila had to say about her experience:

This is our "Halfro" style.  The half-cornrows stagger diagonally with over-lapping parts.  The 'fro in the back half gives the added fullness that really seems to frame her cute smile.

 

The orange and black was for back to school.  The multi-colors are perfect with her "giggle" shirt.  We LOVE that we can change these every day to match clothes or momentary whims.  We have even used the 2" size to "racer-back" the straps of a swimsuit that was a little too big.

 

Thanks for your quick service and great color selection!

 

That racer-back idea for shirts and swimsuits? LOVE IT! We use cute barrettes to do that now but I can't wait to try the Sidewinders for this purpose!

So let's hear from you!

WINNERS! WINNERS!

Well, it's entirely too late at night for me to be up, but it IS past midnight, so time for our big drawing! Three comments have been chosen by the random number generator at random.org, and here are the winners!

HCBJCS, ZINAYA, and NOTTHECOOLMOM!

Congratulations!!!  You guys have all won a set of sidewinders from Hairholders.com! YEAH!!!

Please email Susie from Hair Holders at this address: lowry.susie@att.net.  Tell her that you are a winner from the Keep Me Curly giveaway and let her know what two colors of sidewinders you would like, as well as your shipping information.  Please claim your prize by Friday, July 16th or we will choose another winner.

After you receive your new hair goodies send us a pic of your cool new style!  We hope you have enjoyed our first giveaway. If you didn't win this time, please continue to check in at Keep Me Curly, we plan to do many more giveaways in the future!

It's Our First Giveaway Day!

We are so excited about yesterday's successful website launch! We can't believe we had 600 visits to the site including people from more than 15 different countries!!! You all are great fans! Now we are going to ask you to step it up a notch and let ALL YOUR FRIENDS know about our website too! In return for your hard work,we would love to reward you with a fantastic giveaway! Remember those super cool Sidewinder hair holders that Katie reviewed on her girls a few weeks ago???? Well, here are some pics to help you remember just how awesome they are:

And if you haven't seen the videos, Katie made three separate videos to demonstrate how to use them on three different hair types. You can find them under the product review tab or just click here! And please go visit the Sidewinders website too!

So read the directions carefully, then do what they say, and you can earn yourself multiple entries into this fabulous giveaway! You have until 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 11th, to enter. We will be using a randomonline generator to choose the winners from the comments left on THIS post.

Three lucky winners will each receive a package of 10 sidewinders! (2 inch size) You may choose whatever two colors (5 of each) you would like!!!!

To enter please leave a comment on THIS post and answer this question: What is your FAVORITE hair accessory in your little girl's stash and why? (you may only comment ONE time with an answer to this question)

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If you would like to earn EXTRA entries do one or all of these things:
1) Go check out the Sidewinders website and leave us a comment telling us what your favorite color combination would be!
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.
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 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) Go to Steph's Snapaholics website and leave a note in her guestbook. Come back and leave a comment HERE letting us know that you signed the guestbook.
10) Place an order at Snapaholics between 7/6 and 7/11. Leave a comment including your order number and order date.
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 advertising with a link to the forum or blog, then put (first entry) then comment again and write (second entry).
12) Grab our button! If you add our button to your blog leave us a comment saying that you are using it with a link to your blog.
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The winners will be announced on Monday morning, July 12th. It is the responsibility of the winners to contact us at keepmecurly@gmail.com to let us know their mailing address and the colors of sidewinders that they would like. IF the winners do not contact us by Friday, July 16th, we will choose new winners.

Who can participate? Anyone! Non-US residents are welcome!!!

*** 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 yesterdays 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.***

***Also make sure you leave a SEPARATE comment for EACH thing that you do. Every comment will be assigned a number and an online generator will choose the winners from those numbers. The more things you do, the more comments you can leave and the more chances you have to win.***