Simple Adjustments...

One of the fun things about hair is that just by adjusting the placement of ponytails, it can totally change the look of the do. This one was simple messy buns placed right on the top of Abby's head...A little Kai Lan mixed with some Japanese Anime. :)

Update...and some twisty buns...

So many of you gave me your opinion about the paint color for my dining room.  In true Rachel form, I obsessed about the color for a long time, then went to the store to buy the 3 gallons I needed, and bought a completely new (untested) color! I went with one by Martha Stewart called Slipstream. It was still in the gray family, but had a lot more blue in it than any of the other choices that I had picked up. Here's the before and after of the painting. Thanks so much to all of you who gave me your opinion on the color- I was heading over to get the Porpoise, which I think was the majority winner. :)

 Now back to the hair. This is one that I did for Emma really fast last week. Just simple braided twists (similar to a french braid, but you're just twisting the two sections instead of braiding three.) back into low twisted buns. I've heard these called worm twists- where you take smaller sections and twist them up until they twist up on themselves...Whatever they're called, they're cute, and perfect for wet hair days. :)

(There's actually twist braids on both sides of her head, I just didn't get a picture of the other side.)

Funky Friday Momma Style...

I thought the 3 bun style was super cute on Emma on Friday, so yesterday I tried it out for me. I know I couldn't have such defined buns or it would just look silly, but I think by making them pretty messy, it turned out really cute and fun. Super fast too, which is always nice for the busy days getting kids out of the house.

The "Where's my hairbrush??" Momma Do...

Whenever I am searching for my brush, I hear Larry the Cucumber* singing loudly, "Oh where is my hairbrush? Oh where is my hairbrush??" (If you're not familiar with the Veggie Tales, you're missing out on some very catchy songs.) :)

Anyway, It happens. Some days I just can't find it and I have to fix my hair without a brush. A pain for sure. So here's a good one for those kinds of days...

See, no hairbrush- straight out of the shower.

Start taking messy sections of hair and twisting them. I usually do three twising down on one side, and then three twisting down on the opposite side. Also, I try to not have the part right in the center of my head. For some reason I think it looks funny.

Just in case you wonder how I can hold and twist 6 sections of hair. My mouth is often my third hand when I'm fixing my hair. Add taking photos to that and it was a challenge.

Anyway, once the twists are finished, gather the rest of your hair into a ponytail (twists are still in your mouth at this point) and then pull the twists one at a time into the ponytail and then tie off.

This is a terrible photo, but it shows my hair better than the other one. I take half of my hair, kind of fold it up onto itself and then pin it. I then take the bottom section and fold it down and pin it. It makes a nicer messy bun. The no-brushing actually helps on this part- the hair strands are still sticking together pretty well from being tangled up in the shower.

There ya go. A nice easy do that takes about 5 minutes. I made this little twisty. I thought it would be fore Emma, but it's to big for her tiny little noggin. Lucky for me. :) (Super easy and no sewing! I'll post a tutorial on these soon.

Just for fun, this is what Ruby looked like when she woke up this morning. It was a good day for sure.

*Thanks Julie for the correction! Larry is a cucumber! :)

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.

Side Pony and a Braid...

Maia was watching Dora yesterday before church, which is now my new secret weapon for hair fixing time. (She's recently OBSESSED with Dora...) Anyway, that gave me some time to do a little more fancy of a do on her.

1. French braid (or you could even just simple braid) the front section.

2. Start at the opposite side and rubberband small sections, adding the previous hair to each new band.

3. At the final rubberband, add the braided section.

4. Leave this as a ponytail, or make a cute little messy bun.

Two twists and a bun...

This was a super simple one on Emma for church yesterday. I just sectioned off the front portion of the hair, pulling back the rest into a ponytail. Then I split it again, doing twists on each section. (Similar to a french braid, just twisting two sections instead of braiding three.) Pull those back into the ponytail and add a little messy bun! This one takes me about 15 minutes because of Emma's little wiggly head, and my bit of OCD about nice looking twistys. :)

A little Knotty...

Hehe. That title made me laugh a little bit because Emma is a little naughty this morning. :)

I started by sectioning off the hair in 4 sections. I purposely did it a little angled, so do it however you want.  Once they were all temporarily tied back, I pulled out that small bit of hair in the front, got it nice and wet, and tied a square knot. (at least I think it was a square knot...) :)

Pull everything together in nice little pigtails, curl away, and either leave down (I was tempted to do this- it looked really cute) or just pull up in messy buns like I did. Cute and easy. Not super fast though- it took about 15 minutes.

Dutch Braid into a Side Bun...

Easy one today. The more I practice dutch braids (or inside out braids) the easier they are. It seems like they are easier to make look nice and smooth vs. regular french braids. Is that just me?

A couple pull-through ideas...

I did the girls hair pretty quick today, but on both I used pull-throughs. I haven't used them much on Maia's hair yet, but they turned out really cute.

Emma's had the three on top, going into cute little messy buns...

For Maia, I did a ziz-zag part, put each side into three sections, then did the pullthroughs on the front and back section, and put them all together to make a little pigtail in the middle section.

**I had a couple of emails asking where I bought my topsy-tail from. I got mine off of ebay- it was actually shipped from China or Taiwan in just a plain envelope, and it was under $5 shipped. I've also seen them at Claire's. Here they're on the very bottom rack on the wall of the hair section.