V's Ever After Style

Sorry I didn't post V's Christmas Hair do before Christmas.  But I didn't put it in until Thursday and then I decided to spend Christmas Eve day playing with my kids (and wrapping presents!)

I titled this one "The Ever After" style because I was inspired a few weeks ago when watching the movie by the same name.  You know, that grown up version of Cinderella with Drew Barrymore???  Well, there are a lot of braids in that movie.  I love movies set in that time, the clothes and hair are SO cool!  Anyway, I tried to take some step by step pics while putting in the style so that I could share it with you, but I am not sure if I took enough pics of the different steps.  I will try to explain:

Step 1:
Put in a Ear to Ear part.  I didn't do mine very far back because I knew I was going to be doing that braided headband.

Step 2:
Put the hair in the back of the head into a braid to keep it out of the way.  Then part out a section of the front middle.  Then put in approximately 6 cornrows going from the forehead to the part line.  I made mine curve a bit in the front for extra visual effect, but this is not necessary.

Step 3:
Part off hair on either side of this middle so that you will be adding a cornrow of the same size to BOTH sides of what you have already done.  (When I did this I realized that I had not actually gotten my middle section very centered.  So I first ended up having to add another row to the right side to even things up a bit.  You can see I know have 7 cornrows for my middle.)  THIS PICTURE SHOWS THE ROW I HAD TO ADD  - NOT THE HAIR I PARTED OFF ON EITHER SIDE

Step 4:
Starting on the right - begin your cornrow at the PART LINE (instead of the forehead) and row all the way to the forehead.  Then keep braiding all the way to the end of the hair.  You will now have one cornrow going the opposite direction of the others with a braid hanging down the side of her face.
Step 5:
Take the tail end of that braid and loop it across the forehead.  Now take the hair that you sectioned off on the left side of the middle and begin to cornrow it normally from the forehead going back to the part line.  EXCEPT that when you begin this row, use the tail end of the braid that you looped across the forehead as the 3rd strand of the braid.  On V, the hair was just long enough to reach, so that tail end was only part of the very beginning of this cornrow.  (GOSH, that sounds confusing!  Hope you get it!)

Step 6:
Add 2 or 3 more cornrows on either side with the hair that is still left above the ears.

Step 7:
Make another ear to ear part about an inch or less behind the first one.  Divide this into a row of box braids. You will need these to make the braided headband.

Step 8:
Starting on the left use the braids from the cornrows AND the second row of braids and make a cornrow from the ear to the MIDDLE of the head.  (Just like how I braid together the braids for The Braided Crown.)  When you get to the middle of the head, stop adding more braids and just braid the hair that you have all the way to the ends.
Step 9:
Repeat on the right side.
Step 10:
Now cross one of the braids over the other and lay both of the ends of the braids down behind the first ones.
Step 11:
Take the tail of the braid on either side and weave it under and around the braids in front of it to keep them in place.

Step 12:
Put box twists in the back section.

Step 13:
Weave a ribbon around the braided headband.  If I had cut my ribbon longer I would have taken the two tails and tied them together around the back of her neck.  But I didn't cut it long enough so I wrapped them around the braids behind each ear and tied them.

WHEW!  That's it!  I am not sure that I am cut out for this photo/written description stuff!  That is why I started making videos years ago.  So much easier!  Anyway, if you like this style, I hope that you can decipher this.  Feel free to ask questions!  Here are a few more pics of the finished style:

Lastly, a family pic from yesterday.  I hope you all had as lovely of a Christmas day as we did!  

Katie

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Steph, Katie and the kids would like to wish you ALL a
VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!


We also want to say thank you to all of our loyal readers and faithful fans.  You have made the launch and running of this blog for the last 6 months so much fun!  We have enjoyed getting to know you, we have loved the ideas you have shared, and we have been blessed by your kind comments.

Our prayer is that this Christmas you will be surrounded by the love of your family and have plenty of time to stop and enjoy some special moments with your precious children.

Lastly, the kids themselves wanted to get in on sending you some Christmas love, so here they are:

Katie & Steph

Tidbit Tuesday

DID YOU KNOW???

We have a new advertiser on Keep Me Curly, over there in the sidebar. We thought we would let her talk about her business....it's a darling site called "Nandikids.ca" and it's owned by Lydia.
___________________________

Hi!  It’s Lydia from Nandikids.    Steph asked me to share a little bit of our story for this week’s issue of Tidbit Tuesday. 

Our adoption story started in January 2007.  After much heartache and waiting, we met our daughter for the first time in August 2009.  She was a little over 4 years old at the time and was very nervous to meet Mom, Dad and big brother for the first time.  We were also nervous, not knowing what to expect or how to interact with this complete stranger who was now my daughter.  We’ve taught each other a lot over the last year and have all been blessed in countless ways. 

One of our first challenges was how to handle her hair and skin.  I had done some research and thought I knew what I was getting into.  Boy was I wrong.  I washed her hair too much, didn’t moisturize her skin enough…..   It didn’t take long to figure out that I had absolutely no idea how to take care of her skin and her hair.  Upon our return to Canada, I found it really difficult to find the rights products.   After speaking to many other adoptive parents, I knew I wasn’t alone.  We’d all spent exorbitant amounts of money importing different products that were only available over the internet.  Unfortunately we found out that the majority of them didn’t work for our particular child’s hair.  Who knew Black hair could be so varied!  

That’s when the concept for Nandi Kids Boutique was born.  I wanted to offer a variety of choices for parents, at a reasonable cost without crazy shipping costs. 

During our adoption journey, I would take time out to do a little retail therapy.  I went to all the usual places looking for dolls that would resemble my daughter.  Why shouldn’t she be able to have a doll that was just like her?  My mom bought me dolls that were just like me!  I was shocked at the poor selection.  I had to have the dolls special ordered.   I’ll never forget the look on my little girl’s face when she walked into her room for the first time and saw 4 Black dolls sitting on her bed.  I believe her words were “ah, looks at that”.  It made all the hassle worthwhile!  

My mission with Nandi Kids Boutique is to make sure every child knows that they are special; Black, White, Brown, adopted or biological.  They shouldn’t have to fit into someone else’s mould.  They are special, beautiful and deserve to have products designed just for them.

Check us out at www.nandikids.ca  

Hope you are all having a great Tuesday!!

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!

Borrowed from Babes in Hairland

Have I mentioned the Babes in Hairland blog yet?  If I haven't, my apologies.  This lady does some seriously B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L hair style on her 3 girls.  It's another white girl hair blog, so not a whole lot of it transfers over to my styles for B and V, but I have gotten some ideas to try on Little E.

Unfortunately though, (for me) her girls have LONG and THICK hair!  Man you can do so much more with that crazy amount of hair!  I really loved this post she had the other day about tween braids.  Obviously Little E is not a tween, but I wanted to try the partial version of this style on her.  It was pretty hard to execute on E's head, it turned out looking pretty much like piggy-back braids.  And then because they were hanging funny, I swept it all up into a ponytail.  But the end result was still CUTE!

My favorite thing about the teen braids was the interesting braid pattern that emerged as you continue to make new braids with one strand coming from the braid before.  I just found it visually interesting.  Didn't really work out that way on E though.

Someday she is going to have more hair, right?

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know???????

What position we sit in to braid cornrows up the back of V's head?  Well, I am sure many of you have figured out good ways to do this, maybe you even have a better technique than I do!  But I have been asked this question many times, so I finally made a video to demonstrate!



V actually HATES it when I braid up the back.  Mostly because she doesn't want to peel her eyes away from the TV but also because it can be slightly uncomfortable.  Even so, she is used to it and with a slight grumble here and there she puts up with it pretty well.  This is probably because I generally don't put up with much complaining when it comes to hair time.  (here comes some un-asked-for parenting advice - oooOOOooo, it's like a double tidbit!)

Whenever my girls get whiny about hair time my standard response is.  "I am sorry that you are getting bored (uncomfortable, whatever the complaint may be) but please don't whine about it.  I am also ready to be done with hair time, but we still have a ways to go and I really don't want to listen to complaining the whole rest of the time.  My arms and back are starting to hurt too, but we just have to remember that you are going to look SO GREAT when this is done!  So just hang in there, we can do it!"

That might sound a little harsh, but it's honest.  I try to keep hair time as positive as possible so that they don't have negative feelings toward their hair, but I am not going to sugar coat the truth.  Yes, every few weeks we have to put some long hard hours into hair time.  No, that is not always fun.  But you are always super happy with the results, so the hard work is worth it.  And after we are done you will get to go at least 3 weeks without having to worry about it!  And they get enough positive reinforcement about how amazing their hair is that I think they can handle being honest about the sort of negative parts as well.

Well, that is your double tidbit for today!  Thanks for stopping by!

Katie

Update on the Braided Crown

Sorry it has taken me so long to post these pics.  It probably is partly because they aren't very exciting.  I think I could have done something much more creative and visually interesting if I had had the time, but I just didn't!  I needed to get that puff into some cornrows QUICK!

Wow - that's a pretty blurry picture huh?  I really need some help on my photography skills!  V was also in a hurry to go play in the snow when I stopped her and made her take these pics, so we were rushing!  But you can see that I just cornrowed into a ponytail the same way I would if I was doing her whole head.  I divided the area into 4 quarters and then split each of those quarters in half for a total of 8 cornrows.  I finished them in twists to give them a bit more fullness.

It might even look better if I had put some kind of hair decorations in it to spice it up.  She now has a pink flower ballie around the ponytail....maybe I should add some pink barrettes to the ends of the twists.  That would spice it up a bit!  

So there it is folks!  Really inspiring, I know.  Maybe I will come up with something more exciting for Christmas!  I have about a week and a half to think about it.  

What are you planning for Christmas hair?????

Katie

Special Purse Kits for Christmas at Snapaholics!

Hi everyone! I hope you are getting ready for Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever you may be celebrating this month! I have something special at Snapaholics....just a limited number of them. They are adorable little purses and totes, child sized, chock full of bling and a body glitter or lip gloss! Here are some photos - these are the totes, there are three flip flop styles and four peace sign tote colors:

Then there are the little purses...two styles, pink camouflage and brown with awesome butterflies. They have zippered pockets inside and out, and are lined. The strap is adjustable, designed to be worn on the shoulder or across the body.

In the kit you get a pack of butterfly barrettes, transparent mix mini ballies or pink & white mini ballies, 350 princess mix hearts, a ballerina headband, a body glitter or flavored lip gloss, and a SURPRISE BGP item!

Two of the items enclosed in the kit are not yet available on the site....the pearl/white butterfly barrettes, and the princess mix sheen hearts (you can see them next to the mini ballies).

Here are all the styles of totes:

Here is a Redbox DVD on top of the totes to show you the size.

I also put up some new items that are featured on the home page along with the kits. Come to Snapaholics and get your holiday bling!

Tidbit Tuesday

Did You Know??????


That Katie's family just celebrated their 5th Family Birthday!

I can hardly believe how much time has passed since that day in December 2005 when we first met our C, B and V!  They have grown and changed and blossomed so much!  On the other hand, it seems like far more than 5 years has passed.  Like we have been a family for as long as I can remember.  I certainly couldn't imagine my life without them!

That's us in Liberia 5 years ago.  Getting ready to fly home and celebrate our 1st Christmas together!  Now we are about to celebrate our 6th Christmas.

I LOVE Family Birthday!  I never did like the term "Gotcha Day."  It just rubs me the wrong way.  For us, the day we met our kids was truly the birth of our family.  That was the day that a young couple went from being a "just the two of us," to a family of 5!  As the first anniversary of bringing our children home approached Camera Guy and I knew that we wanted to make it a BIG CELEBRATION!  We always want our kids to know what a blessing they are to us.  We want them to know that they day we met them was one of the most important days of our whole lives and that we love them, love our family, and love the way that God has brought us together!

So every year we do it up big!  And this year we had a blast as usual.  We went to the Kalahari resort in Sandusky, Ohio to the biggest indoor water park in the country!  Here are a few pics of us enjoying our getaway together...

How do you celebrate your adoption day?

Katie

The Braided Crown

Hey everyone!  After 7ish weeks it was time to take down V's yarn braids.  They held up wonderfully and we were a little sad to see them go, although excited for a new style too!  I had been holding on to this idea for months and I LOVE the way it turned out!

I am calling this "The Braided Crown" because I am not at all creative about naming hairstyles!  The video should tell you all you need to know about how to do it yourself:



Her Gorgeous Puff has held up fantastically for the last 6 days, but tonight I am going to braid it up somehow (still a bit undecided) and I'll post pictures of the style conversion in a few days.  I am getting a lot better at letting parts of her hair be free for longer lengths of time, but I think a week is about the max.  I plan on keeping the rest of the style in for another 3 weeks - until it is time for her Christmas do - so we need to put that puff into braids.

Any ideas for a Christmas style?????  I haven't really thought about it yet.  Hmmmm.........

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

DID YOU KNOW???

Today I let G handle Tidbit Tuesday. It only took us about 6 takes to get it...plus it was way past her bedtime...hence the tangents and eye-rubbing.

She wants to talk to you all about STYLE for just a minute :) And some random comment about me warning against using hot oil on the head. I don't remember saying that, but....ok...DON'T use hot oil on the head. Unless it's not-so-hot. :)



It's true! Life got MUCH easier during our adjustment time when I stopped trying to control the clothing. When she was 4+ we would have battles in the morning about her not wanting to wear what I picked out, and one day I thought "why am I doing this?" The child has clothes on either way. She is happy with her choices. Let's call it good and go from there!

Do you have a headstrong child who wants to choose his or her own fashion, even at a young age? Do you let him or her? Even if the end result makes you slap your forehead?

Something like a basket weave....

Remember how I said I wanted to do a basket weave on V's yarn braids a few weeks ago?  Well, I almost forgot!  But I was reading an old post and was reminded by myself that I was going to try that out!

So I did, and the result was pretty, although maybe not looking exactly like a basket weave:

One of the most fun things about yarn braids is that I didn't need to use any kind of pony holder.  I just took a few braids from each side and tied a knot around the braids coming from either side of her head!

What do you think?  It sounds like a lot of you have been trying out the yarn braids.  Have you done anything interesting to style them?  We LOVE to see your pics!

Katie

Tidbit Tuesday

Here is the oft-requested instructional video on how to make the Fleece Comfort Dolls that we made for Social Service Sunday at our church, which we will be sending down to the Haiti Rescue Center, where they are helping the starving and the sick transform from this:

to this:

Many apologies for the crummy video. It was midnight and I had no one to help me hold the camera. So you get some nice shots of my sweatshirt and my lap as I try to hold the camera under my chin...not to mention my cluttered living room! Hey, now....some of that stuff you see there is waiting to be donated! LOL







Hope that was clear! If you are interested in sending these dolls to the Haiti Rescue Center as well, please let me know!