Hello Kitty!

 

I just had to share this super cute curling iron that I got a little bit ago- The Mario Andriani Hello Kitty ceramic curling iron! The girls have loved it, and even Maia (who has developed a deathly fear of curling irons) will let me curl her hair with "the pink kitty one!"

I love that it has a temperature setting, so I've been letting Emma learn how to curl her own hair on a lower setting so she doesn't burn her little fingers. Plus, the little girls' hair curls on such a low heat compared to mine, so it's nice to have the adjustment.

I found that it curled really well, especially on Emma and Maia's hair, but even on my thicker hair. I was able to find it at Target.com, but if you love Hello Kitty products like my girls do, check out Sparklebee.com- super cute stuff! They even have a matching flat iron and blow dryer!



*This is a sponsored post. 

Fancy Maia...

Maia loves Fancy Nancy lately. She's been a bit impatient about fixing hair lately, which leaves me to ponytails most of the time, but today I asked if I could make her Fancy like Nancy. Of course she let me. :)

I started out with an anchor ponytail, then sectioned her hair and pulled it into that ponytail.

Maia's hair is super thin and fine- definitely different than Emma and Ruby's. For her I have to use gel or everything would fall out. One of my little tricks with gel is that I just squirt a blob into the sink and smudge my fingers in it when I need it. Much easier than trying to squeeze a tiny bit onto my fingers and hold the hair at the same time.

 I just did twists in the front, but knew that twists would fall out pretty easily in the back, so I did simple braids back there.

 When I'm curling the hair in a little bun like this, I always try to curl it in the direction that I want it to go. (So curl this section forward since it's supposed to stay forward, the sides I do sideways, etc.)

The only curl I secured was the back one with a tiny clip under the curl, only because I didn't want the braids to be covered.

If you enlarge this one you can see the front and back pretty well. I've said it before, but playing in the sink is one of my other tricks to getting little girls to sit still for a bit. Maia's all about washing hands, so it's a good distraction.

Easy Peasy (No-Sew!) Ribbon Bows...

Sometimes I don't have ribbons that work with a certain hairstyle, so in those cases, I need quick fixes. Here's a super cute and easy way to make a fun ribbon-

1. I usually use a thinner ribbon for these, and I cut about 2 feet per bow.

2. Wrap the ribbon around your fingers, leaving the ends sticking out. For this length, I can wrap it 3 times.

3. Place a bobby pin in the center of the ribbons, catching both sides of the "bow." With Maia, I usually use the mini bobby pins at Sally's, but I couldn't find them, so the big ones did just fine. 

4. Now, place the bobby pin where you want the center of the bow to be placed, and push into the hair. These types of bows work the best on buns or ponytails.

5. TA-DA!! Now it looks like a cute little bow in the hair. Repeat for each of the other buns, and there ya have it.

Easy Peasy ribbon bows! (And a super cute 4-messy-bun-hairstyle) I usually end up with little lengths of ribbon of all sorts of colors when I do this a few times. They are great for reusing at the ends of pigtails and such.

The problem with Bubble Gum...

The problem with bubble gum is that it is sticky. I don't mind the sugar, or the chewing, it's the stickiness that is the problem for me. While we were waiting for our tire to be fixed, Maia picked bubble gum from the quarter machine. I should have known better.

Maia did just fine with it, and I assumed that when I didn't see her chewing it anymore she had swallowed it like she has before. I was very very wrong. Apparently, as Michael told me, She was trying to "hide" it from him, and stuck it behind her head while we were driving in the car...I'm sure you can guess what I found later that evening...

Nice, huh? She did a great job getting it stuck really well. It was the best bubble gum job I've seen. So, I thought I'd look on the bright side of the ordeal and I thought, "Hm, this is a great hair-blog post!"

Here's how we save our hair from very short do's when gum gets stuck...

First, grab your oil. I use a cheap vegetable oil. No use wasting your good olive oil on this type of job. You need about 2 Tablespoons or so. (Also, some people use peanut butter, but I've found that it is just the oil in the PB that helps with the job.)

Rub the oil around the hair near the gum. Get it good and saturated- it will start breaking down the gum so you can pull out little sections of hair which will leave the gum with only one or two hairs really stuck.

Just keep on with this process, little by little. You'll end up with a gum-free, very oily head of hair.

Next step is washing. I use my shampoo (instead of the kid stuff) with a touch of dish soap just to cut the oil. Just a TINY amount though- it really will make the hair gross if you use too much. Rinse and Repeat (with just the shampoo) a few times and you'll have your little girl's hair back- gum, and cut, free. :)

Hope this is useful to someone out there who gives their little girl gum. :)