HOLIDAY SALE at SNAPAHOLICS!

In case you didn't already know from being my fan on Facebook, I wanted to tell you that Snapaholics has some holiday colored beads including the much-loved "snowflake" beads...this is how great they look with holiday colored beads:

....and EVERYTHING on the site is 30% off through Dec. 18!

Use the coupon code "holidayhair" and you will be on your way to some bling....for yourself or to give as gifts....if you know anyone with little girls, what's an easier gift than some new beads for hair?

Check it out!

Steph

Product Review - Lillibands and LilliWear

The lovely ladies over at Lillibands have sent Steph and I some GREAT stuff to try out and review for you all!  Their signature Lillibands are headbands that are made from bold beautiful fabrics with an elastic that holds them in place all day long!  The LilliWear line are unique dresses and skirts that you won't find on stores or see on any other girls around town!

These headbands are SO pretty and they would make GREAT stocking stuffers!  Here are the girls and I modeling the ones we received!

Here is Miss V wearing a Girls size Lilliband

Little E is wearing a Baby size.  

I am wearing a Teen/Women's size.

Miss B is also in a Teen/Women's size

We have all enjoyed trying out the Lillibands!  The "baby" size is marketed for children under 2, but Little E has a tiny head and although she is 4, it fits her really well.  The fabric part of the Lilliband increases slightly in width the larger the size you purchase.

Miss V and Miss B both have kind of big heads and I have a kind of small head, but the headbands we used all seemed to fit us well.  The girls reported NO slippage throughout the day while wearing them to school!  

I have never been a huge headband person.  The old plastic kind gives me a headache and usually cloth ones just slip around too much.  When I wore the Lilliband I experienced no headache or discomfort.  I also have to say there was considerably less slippage than I normally experience with headbands but I still kind of felt like it was moving backward over time.  When I would check the mirror everything still looked great, but it just felt like it was wrong!  My husband really thought I looked cute in it though, so that is a plus!  

Lucky Little E also got to try out the "Messy Girl Dress."  I know I wouldn't want her getting messy in it, though, it is WAY to cute for that!  Although with the bright colors and busy patterns of the dresses, I am sure they would hide stains very well!  Actually, I'll tell you why it's called the Messy Girl Dress.....because since it's fully REVERSIBLE, when your girl gets a bit messy (as we know they can during a day of play) they can flip the dress inside out and VOILA! Clean again! The material you see on the front pocket is what the other side of the dress looks like.  That is like having two dresses in one! What a great idea!

There was a misunderstanding about Little E's age so they sent her a dress meant for a two year old.  Fortunately Little E is still quite Little!  The GREAT thing about this dress is that once your girl has grown a bit, it can easily become a tunic top worn with jeans and leggings as you can see E doing here! I was really impressed with the sturdy quality of this dress.  It is super durable.  

Check out the rest of the LilliWear too.  I love, love, LOVE the pocket skirts with matching tops. TOO CUTE!  

Steph here! G was sent an aqua-colored (fave color!) Lilliband, as luck would have it, with OWLS on it.....her classroom theme this year happens to be owls...so she L.O.V.E.D. getting this Lilliband!

By the way, the reason this looks raised at the back and rolled/miscreased at the front is because on her first day wearing it at school the colors matched her outfit and apparently she wanted to gather her loose tunic top into a "tail" behind her and so of course thought her new headband would work fabulously for that purpose. So I just need to roll it back to the normal crease a tad and steam it for a few seconds....just haven't done it yet :)

G usually removes headbands, like the ballerina ones, by the time I pick her up from daycare it has been stuffed into her backpack. Not so with the Lillibands. They are so comfortable to her that she usually forgets to remove it at night (she's asleep in hers right now, actually). She is really wanting me to curl her hair into spirals with the Soft Spikes and wear it like that with the Lilliband, but we haven't found time yet to do that style.

I was sent a black and white teen/adult size Lilliband. I was told that they are typically worn at the front of the head, as you can see in the photos of the ladies on their website. My hair is straight and fine but I have a lot of it. I will tell you that this headband stayed in place more so than any fabric headband I have tried. I would say that during a normal day it may have slipped backwards from where I initially put it maybe a half an inch or so. That is AMAZING for a fabric headband on straight hair! And I like the fact that the elastic that goes under the hair at the back of your head is thin and so doesn't feel like a bunched up annoyance back there.

These would be fabulous Christmas gifts, as would any of the LilliWear (here is the link to the Pocket Skirts with matching Tees). The prices of Lillibands and LilliWear reflect their fine handmade quality. These are moms creating quality clothing and accessories, inspired by their very own little girls!

Thanks so much ladies, for sending these to us! Please go check out the Lillibands website and let us know how you like their products!

Woven Cornrows and The Braided Crown

Do you remember this style?

I named it the Braided Crown.  I love it!  It was gorgeous with this puff.

But after a few days with the puff (you know I never keep a puff for long!) I needed something else to do with the center of her hair.

So I did this.

And I thought it was boring.
















Well a few months ago, a friend of mine posted a pic of her daughter with the cutest style!
This is little V!  Cute girl, cute style! (my friend got this idea from the blog: chocolate hair vanilla care)

This style is different than my braided crown because it is only braided from the middle of the head out and than the crown is made with the ends of the braids.  For my crown, the hair is braided from the hairline going in. (opposite)  BUT this gave me a great idea!  IF I did this in the center of my braided crown than I could braid together the braids going from the hairline IN along with these braids that are going from the inside OUT!  

It was a fab idea!  I never did it though.  

Why?  

Because I got a different idea on the fabulous Tweeny hair blog!  WOVEN CORNROWS!!!!  So cool!  And beautifully done.  I have to admit my first attempt isn't as pretty as Rae's.  And of course, I made a demo video on my first attempt.  Plus my hubby was out of town so Miss B and I were doing the filming.  All together, it probably makes one of the worst videos I have ever done.  But, I think if you are an experienced hair braider you will get the idea :)  

And if you don't.  Well, just go read Rae's instructions!

As is typical with me, I didn't like the style as much once I did it as I did when I was imagining it.  Oh well.  It did work really well with her angel costume for Halloween!

And a few days after that I changed it up a bit by braiding the crown starting at the front, left side of her head.  One braid went around the front, the other around the back, and they met up at the bottom, right side.  We made a little bun there.  I liked this look better.

And here is the video....

Katie

How to do a Twist-Out

I have another video for you all!

After I posted a pic on facebook of V's Twist-Out I had a few questions from people about how to do a Twist-Out....so this is for you!

In the video I do not really talk about the longevity of a Twist-Out, so let me address that here.

In our experience we have never had V wear a Twist-Out for more than a day. Often we will take out a hairstyle the day before we plan to wash her hair and restyle it, so the Twist-Out is just sort of the first step in that process - her hair looks cute and we are getting a jump start on hair day!

V's Twist Out at the end of a long day.  Much less defined than when we first took them out as you can see in the video.

Because we don't use a lot of gel in our styles and I don't use any kind of setting or curling cream her Twist-Out's loose definition by the end of the first day. Each of the little sections start to puff out and expand. We also don't take any special care to preserve the style over night, other than the sleep cap she always wears. BUT if you wanted to try to preserve a Twist-Out you could either loosely band the hair in sections of maybe very loosely braid the hair in big sections over night, and don't forget a sleep cap or scarf! The next day you can than either lightly spritz and scrunch the hair, or put a bit of oil on your fingers and run it over the curls.

As the Twist-Out looses definition it will start to look more like a chunky afro which is also a really cute look and fun style! So I would say you could go with a Twist-Out for several days to a week, just realize it is going to loose definition and change it's look as time goes by.

Unfortunately, when Miss V wears styles like this she tends to get a lot of attention that she seems uncomfortable with. She is used to people commenting and raving over her beautiful hair, and when she wears big puffs she gets a lot of attention too, all of which she enjoys. But for some reason the Twist-Out (which is usually pretty big and fluffy) seems to elicit stupid comments like, "wow, look at your crazy hair" or "wild hair" "or something similarly negative in feeling no matter how nicely a person seems to say it. So I think if we ever do a Twist-Out for more than one day, we would pull it back into pigtails or something.

This is V's hair after a Braid-Out.  I guess it is big and wild, but Adorable!

Have a LOVELY day!

Katie

Fun idea - Headbands from Hair Things!!!

Hello friends!

I was sitting on the couch the other night, not even playing with hair things, and suddenly this image popped into my head!  What if I looped hair elastics together to form a headband?  So I went and tried it...and it worked!

I went to bed that night, and my mind started turning and I started thinking of other hair accessories I could use to decorate my little headbands.

Then when I pulled out all of our extensive collection of hair dodads (wow there is a lot of it!) I got this idea to use barrettes to secure the two ends of the headband and avoid the little "tail" I was getting.

Which then led me to this whole new idea for how to make a headband with hair elastics AND barrettes without needing to loop them together!

If you aren't quite sure how I did this by looking at the pics - have no fear!  I filmed a ridiculously long video to explain a very simple concept!  Check it out.  At least little E is in it, and she is fun to look at.

What do you think?  Fun?  Are you going to try it?  Can you add to my ideas?  Please post pics on our facebook page of what you come up with!

Katie

Oh where, oh where has Katie gone???

Enjoying some truly gorgeous fall weather in Michigan!

Oh man friends!  I seem to have disappeared again after a pretty good streak of regular posts.  Well, we are in the eye of the hurricane around here, otherwise known as fall soccer season!  

I am SO glad that Miss V is sporting those yarn braids right now, because we just have not had time for hair.  A few weekends ago I did change the piggyback braids in the front into more box braids, but it was a pretty quick process thankfully.

Here are a few pictures to show you what life has been like the last few weeks:

The Young Man on his club soccer team

The Young Man on his Middle School soccer team

Miss B on her club soccer team

Little E working on her soccer moves!

Let's throw in some hair pics.  I thought V's yarn braids looked great with this red headband, and Miss V (for reasons unknown) LOVES to wear headbands!

And here is a pic after we took out the piggy back braids.  The front is pulled back in a half pony, but you can kind of see the new braids.

We still have a week and a half until I take out the yarn braids and put in something new.  I have a bunch of cool ideas spinning in my head!  So if you can be a bit patient with me, I promise I will be back to posting when the hurricane has died down.

Katie

Katie Bradley Art Giveaway RE-DRAW!!!

Hello everyone! We are doing a re-drawing of the Labor Day giveaway of your choice of a 5x7 print! We never did hear back from the first winner, so some other lucky KMC reader is about to win! You can see all of Katie's work at Mossy Rock Designs on Etsy.

The fun part about this is that Katie Bradley has a BRAND NEW piece of art that you might choose. I have already ordered mine :) This is near and dear to me, having BOTH of my child's mothers honored in a piece of art.

Check out "Woven Together"

Isn't it lovely?

Well, without further ado, I have used the random number generator to choose our new winner, and it's comment #2!!! JANET! Congratulations Janet!

Janet said... [Reply to comment]

I am a fan of MossyRock designs on FB

August 28, 2011 5:21 AM 

Janet 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, and we will forward it on to Katie Bradley.

Congratulations!

We have more fun giveaways in the future so keep reading!

We LOVE locs!

B and I (and Camera Guy of course) made a quick little video about one of the reasons I am jealous of her locs!  This isn't novel stuff but maybe you just never thought of doing it before.  Check it out:



Katie

Shades of Us WINNERS!!!!!!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this giveaway!  We hope you have enjoyed seeing all of the many different styles of accessories at Shades of Us.  Keep checking back at their site because she is adding new things all of the time!  In fact, she just added 50 new items yesterday!!!

The THREE lucky winners of this weeks giveaway chosen by Random.org are:

Comment #48

Michelle G said... [Reply to comment]

As I have been entering all my entries I was trying to decide which thing was my favorite. I couldn't so I had to do "innie, minnie, miney, mo" to come up with 091. But I also really like 073, 087, 070 and 088, LOL.

September 30, 2011 12:30 PM 

Comment #36

Precious @ Precious-Curls.com said... [Reply to comment]

I'm a new follower!

September 30, 2011 11:10 AM 

Comment #13

Dalene said... [Reply to comment]

I love the black & white circle flower, #87. It would be so versatile!

September 30, 2011 4:27 AM 

Congratulations!  Please contact Laura at laurapk21@gmail.com and let her know your accessory choice as well as your mailing address.  Laura is going out of town in a few days, so email her ASAP if you want her to mail them out before she leaves!

For all of you who entered the giveaway and did not win - don't despair!  Laura would like to offer you a coupon for FREE shipping on your next order!  All you need to do is head over to her facebook page ("like" it if you haven't already done so!) and leave a comment saying you are a KMC reader and you are dropping in to get your coupon code!  Cool huh?

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?  

____________________________________________________________________

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!

________________________________________________________________________

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.***