C-R-A-Z-Y Hair Day!

I know I keep saying this, but life has been so hurry, hurry, hurry around here lately that I have now missed a few good photo opportunities.  So you will have to forgive the gaps in this post, but do read on, because I did get pics of some of it!!!

It was C-R-A-Z-Y Hair Day at the kids school yesterday, as you might have guessed from the title of this post and that CRAZY looking girl in the picture!  As you know, V currently has yarn braids, so there was really only so much I could do with her hair.  I started by taking the twisty bangs she had and cornrowing them from the sides up to the middle.  When they both reached the middle I braided them together and added beads.  V actually thinks this is a good style and doesn't want me to take that part out!

Then I took the Criss Cross Cornrows from the top (they were all together in a half ponytail) and I split them into pigtails and looped them through some hair things.

Then with all of the hanging box braids in the back I made two arched cornrows.  Which looked super crazy because the ends with the beads were sticking out of the cornrows all over the place.

The End Result:  In BACK

In FRONT

A little later I was thinking that adding a bunch of different colored sidewinders might spice it up a bit more and I thought it would help make the loopy braids on top stick up more.  It did make the style look even busier, but didn't have quite the effect I was looking for.  But all in all V was pleased.

V's style was nuts and all over the place, but I really liked my idea for B even better.  But guess what?  NO PICS!  SORRY!!!!!!

Maybe you can visualize it....  I put 6 large cornrows from the nape of her neck to her forehead.  In the front where the tail ends of the braids were hanging down across her face I made bantu knots, which I secured with different brightly colored terry cloth hair ties.  I thought it was clever.  I will have to recreate it some day and take pics for you.  

On a separate note:

I am going to do a really proud mom bragging moment.  My oh so talented son, Young Man C had an amazing soccer game last night!  His middle school soccer team went totally undefeated this whole season and they were in the championship game last night.  It was super intense and I was crazy nervous the whole game.  C had an awesome goal and then scored on a penalty kick for a 3-1 win!!!!!!!!  It was super exciting!  (Also, his club soccer team is currently undefeated this season!)  Excuse me for a moment while I brag!  I took a few pics at the game, but then my battery died before I could get pics of the end of game celebration!  Here are a few:

Right after a header!

Taking a penalty kick

Can you see it?  Buried in the Net!  

Katie

Dad Life

This is a viral video on youtube. It's just totally funny. And awesome! It's completely un-hair related, but I guarantee you'll watch it over and over.

Let's hear it for the Dads out there!

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know?????


That putting chunky braids in locked hair is not only C-U-T-E, but gives you adorable waves when you take them out?  Yeah, Yeah, I am sure you did know.  It's not rocket science.  In fact, when I was a kid in the 80's and early 90's my sister and I used to do this to get that AWESOME crimped look.  Ya know, because we weren't cool enough to own a crimper.  The only difference is, we didn't go out in public with the braids in.  We just put the braids in over night to get the cool crimped look in the morning.

(Yes, I also realize this is pretty much what we normally would call a Braid Out - but I had never done it on locs before, so let's just all pretend I came up with a brand new idea.)

Well, these pics are terrible.  My apologies.  I told everyone on Facebook yesterday that life in my family is just totally crazy right now.  I only saw B in daylight for about 10 minutes yesterday and that was when I stopped by Young Man C's soccer game for a few minutes before heading off to teach a sign class.  So I quickly snapped a few pics of the chunky braids:

We are having some crazy hot and sunny weather for October here in Michigan.  Can you tell?

Anyway, we quickly took those braids out before B headed to school this morning, but that beautiful sun wasn't up yet, so again, more horrible pics.  Sorry.

I believe both of these styles were cuter in person, but you get the idea.

Hoping you are all having as beautiful weather in your neck of the woods as we are!

Katie

Snapaholics Coupon Sale!!! 20% Off!!!

Announcing Snapaholics first coupon sale at the new site! 

 Get 20% off your order (over $15) on most items! Just enter the coupon code "FIRSTSALE"

This is good for ONE WEEK, ends Oct 14.

 But get in on it now before stocks run low!

THANKS Y'ALL!!

 

THIS VIDEO ROCKS!

Where has this video been all our lives?

This is a video shot of the tv show Sesame Street.

Get your little ones and gather round now!

We've Been Awarded!

A BIG thanks to Margaret from Take a Walk With Me for giving us the Versatile Blogger Award!

How sweet of Margaret to give us this award.  I hope that you all see us as being somewhat versatile even though we are primarily a blog about hair.  We certainly are versatile in the types of hair we are blogging about, and if you count the random diaper posts I did the other week, well, then, I guess we are even versatile in our subject matter!  

The rules of this award state that we are supposed to pass this on to 15 other blogs!  Well, honestly, I don't have time to read and follow that many blogs, so this is hard.  Do you think it is ok if we break the rules a little bit here?  I have 2 blogs I would like to pass this on too, and I am sure Steph has a few also.  I want to be true to the award and only pass it on to blogs that I think are versatile, and for the sake of keeping things interesting I don't want to mention any blogs we have linked to in the past.  So, here are my top two choices:

Amateurian - This blog is by a friend of mine, Angi.  She is a fellow adoptive mother of an absolutely gorgeous baby girl, and she also has two other beautiful children.  I love the diversity of topics that Angi talks about on her blog.  We don't really know each other very well, but I am fascinated by her as she just doesn't seem to be the kind of girl who was born and raised in a small Michigan town.  She presents herself as a very cultured, highly educated, super classy girl.  Basically everything that I am not!  But at the same time, she is totally down to earth and an every day mommy, just trying to do what is best for her kids.  She also runs several little side business that in themselves are totally diverse.  Love her!  Today is also a REALLY good day to check out her blog because she is giving away a Kindle and the competition ends tomorrow!  

I Love Purple More Than You  - I am really giving this award to the writer Julie, because she is SO diverse she has 3 different blogs!  This first blog is about her awesome self, her awesome kids and her 34 pets.  No seriously, she has so many pets I have lost count, but the most important one is her Giant Flemish Rabbit.  I had never heard of such a thing but now that she has one, I have vowed to own one before I die.  Julie was already hilarious and entertaining on her first blog, but she needed another outlet for her comedy so she started this blog:  Gingersnaps In The Morning.  It is like a daily news show about crazy things she finds in the media and pop culture stuff and it's totally silly and fun.  Third, she also has a daughter who is adopted and she recently started a blog all about her hair called Marlie's Hair.  That's pretty versatile right?

And Steph's choices are:

Welcome To My Brain. This is Christine's blog about lots of things (aka versatile) including adoption, parenting traumatized children, being a "freegan vegan flexitarian," owning an RV park, being a funky chick with a funky cool family, and everything and nothing all at once. She just plain rocks. If you are an adoptive parent, especially of children with any trauma issues, you MUST get to know Christine's blog.

Crockpot 365. This epitomizes the word versatile because you never DREAMED that a crockpot could be SO VERSATILE! Anything you can think of, Stephanie O'Dea can make in her crockpot. Your search for slow cooker recipes is over. Check out her blog!

Watching the Waters. In some ways similar to Welcome To My Brain. In many ways different. Corey is also an adoptive mom, also parenting traumatized children. A lot of times what Corey has to say makes me tear up. She also gives a lot of stuff away and posts good recipes! She is the organizer extraordinaire of the Moms' Retreat in Orlando.

So if you received this award from us and you would like to accept it, these are the rules:

 (which we did not follow!)

Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

Share 7 things about yourself.

Pass the award along to 15 other bloggers who you discovered and think are fabulous.

Contact the bloggers you chose and let them know about the award.

Oh Sheesh!  We need to tell you 7 things about ourselves!  Well, since there are 2 of us, how about we each tell you 4 things that you may not have known about us:

Katie-

1)  I was born in Wisconsin and therefore it is only right that my favorite food group is CHEESE!

2)  I was the captain of the cheerleading squad my Junior and Senior years of High School.

3)  I got married when I was 19 years old and recently celebrated my 10th anniversary!

4)  I used to be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and I have a basement full of crafting supplies that I no longer have time to use.

Steph - 

1)  I lived in Japan for 3.5 years and played the Japanese taiko drums while there

2)  I just bought a very cheap 1978 Dodge Delta Motorhome for myself and my RV-obsessed daughter. It's unbelievably funky (read: 70's green and wood interior)! I am now not obligated to buy anything impressive for at least 2 Christmases and a birthday!

3)  I was once married in my 20's for 4.5 years!

4)  I used to be a Scentsy consultant and although I ADORE the product and the scents, I also no longer have the time to devote to it. But I have a lot of smelly good wax to burn for a long time!

Thanks for the award Margaret and have fun checking out some of our favorite versatile bloggers!

Fall Inspired Yarn Braids

As you can see we have used three different colors of yarn.  I wanted to really make sure the colors were noticeable, but not over powering so, I still used a lot more black than I did brown and burgundy.  I used two strands of yarn for each braid so what I did for the braids with the brown and burgundy yarn was combine 1 piece of color yarn with 1 piece of black yarn.  Then I alternated like this: 1 all black, 1 half brown, 1 all black, 1 half burgundy, 1 all black, 1 half brown.....and so on.  I think I got the exact effect I was hoping for!

Originally I was also going to use red yarn, but once it was cut and lying out next to the other three colors it was just to bright.  I thought it would stick out like a sore thumb so I didn't use it.

Similarly, I had originally planned to use 5 beads per braid.  I ended up just using two shades of brown and one red bead.  But at first I also had a pearly orange and a warm yellow with them.  Again, I thought that was two bright and not quite the look I was going for, so I stuck with just 3 beads per braid.

I decided to go with a two step plan for these braids.  For the first 3-4 weeks it will be in this style - yarn braids in the back with Criss Cross Cornrows in the front.  I did add yarn to the ends of the cornrows so that they blend right in with the braids in the back.  They are just a bit thicker at the top.  After about 3 weeks, I will take out the cornrows and put the front into regular yarn braids and leave them in for another 3-4 weeks.  I did this last fall also and the braids in the back ended up being in for almost 8 weeks since I only changed the front, but they held up GREAT!  I am hoping for the same results this time around.

When I picked her up from school today she told me she got "like 100 compliments" on her hair today!

So these braids were inspired by my love of fall colors, but I was also inspired by one of our readers, Holly, who sent us these pretty yarn braid pictures awhile back.  I loved the colors in the first one, and I really liked the length of the braids (and the colors) in the second picture.  I tried to make V's braids a bit longer this time, but somehow they always seems to end up pretty close to the same length!

Katie

SECOND UPDATE! Painted Beads

Ok, I had two pink beads and one orange bead in her hair yesterday. The pink beads were painted with Folkart Outdoor Metallics Rose Shimmer

This paint is holding up very well. It's acrylic paint designed for metal, wood, terracotta, stone...like for painting flowerpots. However the orange bead is not doing so nicely...it's just Apple Barrel Acrylic Craft Paint. Here is how it looks at the end of the day, next to the two pink beads.

I like the look of the shimmery paint anyway, so I would definitely recommend the paints designed for outdoors.

The bits of orange that came off were nothing to just brush out of her hair.

Looking forward to your experiments!

UPDATE! Painted Beads

Hi everyone, I thought I'd update you on the status of our beads from Tidbit Tuesday that I painted on the inside. I braided three of her locs in front and added the beads and a snap (I'm a big fan of pink with orange!) and off she went to school. I asked her if she minded the big beads swinging around her face all day, and she shook her head and said "nope!! I like it!" (music to my ears).

So the outcome was, no paint on her locs! I checked later, and the paint was still on the beads. No pink locs. The next trial was last night. I oiled the braid with jojoba and coconut oil and even rubbed the beads back and forth. I checked if any paint had scraped off, and it hadn't! This is the acrylic craft paint I used, by the way. I haven't tried the stain yet.  With the acrylic paint, you need a couple coats.

I can't speak to ALL hair products, but these did fine with the coconut and jojoba oil...so far. If anything changes, I'll let you know. If you try it and have anything to add, please tell us!!!

(the incoming teeth crack me up!)

Notes about yesterday's hairstyle post...

Wow!  You guys left so many comments on V's style yesterday that I thought I would write a quick post to answer a few questions.

First of all, I LOVE wooden beads, but I don't have any!  These beads are just regular plastic pony beads, but they are the BGP size!  I really want some wooden beads that are even larger than these ponies but every time I see them in the store the inside looks so rough!  I am thinking those wouldn't be good on the hair.

Second, these twists are TWO STRAND ROPE TWISTS.  I have only played around with three strand twists once or twice, and I didn't think you could really see the difference between two and three strands so I have stuck with two strands.  BUT I would be happy to play around with it and make a video some time on how to do three strand twists.  If you want a demonstration on how to do the rope looking twists in yesterday's style check this video.

Third, I have been using a mixture of coconut oil and shea butter when I put in twists that I only plan to leave in for a few days.  The butter does not really substitute well for a gel, so if I am putting in a style that I want to last I use Taliah Waajid gel.  But for these twists I just gave them a good dose of my homemade hair butter.

Fourth, about the ends getting damaged.  I do like to work extra amounts of hair butter into the ends of the hair, but that isn't really going to prevent damage that will be done by barrettes and rubber bands.  I don't think there is anyway to get around that.  I trim V's hair every 4 months or so myself.  I just cut off the bit of damage from the ends and then she has healthier and easier to manage hair for a while!  If you don't want to cause any damage to the ends, then I would avoid EVER putting any barrettes or bands on the ends.  We all do things that cause some amount of damage to our hair for the sake of styling, we just want to be sure to way the good with the bad.  I try to go back and forth between beaded and non beaded styles to give V's hair a break.  But I can handle a bit of damage done to the ends every now and then.  Even with the regular trims I give her, her hair is still getting longer all the time.

I think that answers all of your questions!  Thank you for all of the nice comments.  V said a lot of people told her that her hair was pretty yesterday!  Stay tuned for pics of the new yarn braids I will be getting started first thing tomorrow morning!!!!!

Katie