Special Occasion Hair...

In our religion, kids can choose to be baptized when they are 8 years old. It's a big deal for most kids! Emma had her birthday at the end of June, so her baptism is coming right up. We have a lot of out-of-town family that will not be able to come, so we decided to send out an email with some photos of her in her dress for those that can't make it, and the church info for those that will be able to make it.

This was a really fun and simple style- just a ponytail that was tightly curled and pinned into place. You can see from the pictures that I pushed almost all of the hair to the front of her head since it was only for photos.

Another super fun thing was the headband. I made it myself after seeing some around blogland that I loved, and was really proud of how it turned out. I was a little worried that it would be too much with the netting and the feathers, but it worked perfectly. I'm planning a tutorial on those soon, so make sure to check back for updates!

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.

Long Time, No Blog!

It's been a while! Between getting the kids back in school, and starting two courses myself, it's been a hectic week! (Which usually means lots of ponytails or basic braids!)

Our church moved times to 11 now, so we've got some good hair fixing time in the mornings that we didn't have last year. Here are a couple that are a little more fancy that I did of the girls this morning. (I'll do two different posts so they aren't too huge...)

I usually start these with a little circle of hair pulled into a ponytail. It's a great anchor for updos. You can add braids, twists, pretty much anything.

 Once you have that, just start sectioning and twisting the hair back. For the little girls I just use an additional rubberband for each twist. I will use bobby pins, but they don't look as nice for the little girls, and they don't hold their hair as well during crazy-acrobatics-before-church-time. (Never fails when I do a fancier do, they feel the need to wrestle or do a summersault.) :)

See how there's a good 5-6 rubberbands here? I sometimes try to take out the lower layer bands, but it hurts a bit, so I left it alone. :)

 Now with the ponytail, you can either curl it and leave it down, or you can pin it up. I like to pin it, so the twists are really visible. Not so fun to do all that work and not have it show...

When I pin it up, I will either do a fancier ballerina bun style, or I will just do a little messier- I will take a small section, twist it a few times, then grab it in the center, and twist it back on itself a bit. It makes sort of a figure-8 like this, then I just pin it in the intersection of the hair...

A few Fancy dos...

I got a call yesterday afternoon to ask if I would fix hair for a few girls in our church. They were making "prom time capsules" where they were going to try on dresses and take pictures for when the actually do go to prom in a few years. I thought it was a fun idea, and of course I jumped at the chance to do fancy dos. :)

So, here they are. No step by step photos, but maybe it will give you an idea for a starting point.

This one just wanted something up with pincurls. In my head, pincurls are nice and flat to the head, so I mixed them with just a few regular pinned curls. :)

M. just wanted something up and curly- nothing too specific, so I did twists going back into nice poofy buns.

E. was cute- she said she never really curls her hair because it takes so long (She's got a ton of thick hair- so pretty!) So I thought it would be nice for her to have it mostly down and curly. 

Short-Hair Cinderella

Here's my interpretation of Cinderella's hair when you don't have much to work with. I'll do one on Emma's head in a bit- I know we are all in crunch time for Halloween. :)

Section and rubber-band the hair as shown (If I were going to do it again, I would have made all three of those back ponytails right in a row instead of having the middle one further back. Also, near the end of the do, I ended up repositioning the two middle ones closer to the part.)

Next, pull up the back of the hair into rubber-bands- take this section and the front section and combine it with the middle ponytail.

Finally, curl the bits of hair, tease a bit and then hairspray into place. I did have a cute little blue ribbon/headband that would cover that first rubber-band and add to the Cindrella look, but Maia wouldn't keep it in because she believes that it is Ruby's. (Hopefully she's that nice about possessions when they are teenage girls.) :) This is also a great do for just everyday/fancy stuff.

Snow White...Sorry, no Dwarfs

So I know a lot of little girls dress up as Snow White, and some will have long hair, so I thought I'd show how to make long hair look short and curly. (This is one of Emma's favorite hairstyles because she would like to cut her hair SOOO badly. I don't do it often because she gets so much attention for "cutting" her hair.)

So, first, here's a picture of Emma's hair. You can see that it's pretty long, mid-back, and straight.

To start off with the do, just pull up most of the hair except for a 2-3" section at the base of the neck. Curl this nice and tight with either a curling iron or the flat iron. (I used my flat iron) Then, take each of the curls, wrap them up onto each other and pin them to her head. (these are essentially old-school pin curls.)

Now, let down the next layer, curl tight, and pin. This time though, let about 1/3 of the hair fall from the bottom of the curl before you pin it.

For the top layer, do the same thing, but now let more of the curl fall out of the wrap before pinning. Also, make sure on this section to hide the pins a little more than the bottom layers.

The final step is adding the signature red bow. Now you have a Rapunzel turned Snow White. :)

(As always, please leave me a comment if you have any suggestions! I get all excited when I get comments.) :)

Belle!

Okay, before reading any further, you must agree to excuse all crappy photographs and messy-bathroom-backgrounds. :)

Now that that's finished, I had a chance to steal my niece Abby this afternoon. I had my motives, and luckily Abby agreed to let me fix her hair like Belle. I actually did step-by-step photos on this one, just because I figure it is a really common costume, so it will hopefully be useful to someone. I'm sure you could adapt this for someone with short hair, but Abby's was perfect- brown and long, just like Belle. So here's the do!

First, start off with a half-part from ear to ear, then put the back section into two ponytails. I put the bottom one off center, because it seems like Belle always has that part over her shoulder. Next, take the very front and part it right in the middle. (Abby has bangs, so this will work for most haircuts.)


Now, with the front section, start with a small bit of hair right in the front, and twist adding small sections each twist. Once you have all the hair included, twist it right back to the upper pony and tie it off with a rubber band.



Curl both ponytails. (I use a straight iron for most curls- check this video if you don't know how to do it)

Now, put your fingers where you want the base of the "poof" to be. Flip the ponytail over, and pin where your fingers were.



Now, flip the pony back over, and pin the base below the ponytail- make sure to shape a little so it has the right curve.


Now, you just need to place the curls to cover the bobbypins, and extend some of the hair from the top ponytail to cover the top of the bottom- just to make it look like it's all one section of hair.


Last, take a piece of ribbon (this is a thick grosgrain- if I were doing it again, I'd probably find a satin, but this is what I had on hand) Using a safety pin, push the ribbon through the hair and place around the front base of the poof.

Now instead of tying it off in any kind of a bow (I don't think Belle had a bow) I just cut off the ends, and secured it with a bobbypin- making sure to hide the ends with a curl





So there ya have it. Comment if you have any questions. Thanks Abby!