A Faux French Braid, For Those Of You Who Can't.....

I know there are some of you who haven't yet mastered the French Braid. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to do something that looks like a French Braid, but isn't. Here is my attempt. It's very easy, and I think turned out really cute. If you can put in an elastic and tie a knot with a ribbon, you can do it!!
Start with a small pony in front. Bring a piece of ribbon through the elastic until both ends are the same length.
Leave the ends of the ribbon hanging down. Scoop up a piece of hair from each side of her head and bring to the middle. Pull the pony up with the hair you just gathered. (Leaving the ribbon down.)Bring the three pieces of hair together with an elastic.....Tie the ribbon over the elastic into a knot. I actually only tied half a knot. The ribbon I was working with was quite stiff and held just fine only tying it once.Repeat the steps again for scooping up the sides and adding the hair to the pony, leaving the ribbon hanging.Again, add an elastic and tie another knot (not shown.)Repeat all the way to the bottom, until you run out of hair to add from the sides......I continued tying all the way to the bottom of her hair by crossing the ribbon in the back and bringing it around to the front to tie the knot.

If I do this again, I'm going to start with tying the ribbon into a knot on the top elastic, I think it would look better that way. If any of you have "Trash Tie" or "Knot Heads" hair accessories, they would work great with this style. You wouldn't even have to tie a knot or use an elastic on each section. You could just cross the trash tie over the section and start on the next one. I wish I had one to show you what I mean, but I don't.Anyway, I did another style similar to this, only with thinner ribbon to give you another perspective on it. I'm scheduling it to go out next week.For a video tutorial on this hairstyle, go here.

The Fountain Hairdo For Girls

Really, this is just a continuation of this hairstyle. So much for keeping it quick, I couldn't help myself!! Start out with three sections like this............

Do the 2 pull throughs on the sides first. Split them both in two and send one of the pieces on each side up to the top. Gather them in with the top section and do a pull through. (If you don't know how to do a pull through, look under my "quick search labels" for "videos." You'll find a video tutorial there!)
Do more pull throughs on each side. Split these in 2. Send one piece up to join the next middle section. Also add in the leftover strands from the previous pull throughs...........
Do your pull through in the middle section, and repeat in the last section. Just try to make your last section straight and not crooked like mine. Ha Ha Add a bow if you want........
I'm trying to decide if I really need a topsy tail. I'm thinking it would keep everything a little neater. Do any of you use one? Let me know if you do, and if you think it makes a difference.

A Heads Up.....

I'm not going to be around for a little bit. I have some personal issues to take care of. I'm basically setting this blog on auto-pilot.

I've got quite a few hairstyles sitting in drafts that I'm scheduling to go out once or twice a week. So, keep checking back. Feel free to comment too. I'll eventually get around to reading the comments. Just know that I won't be getting back to you right away if you have a question -k-.

Thanks!

Sewn Cornrows

Alright, don't mind "the frizzies" here. Just look at the basic idea, not the presentation. :)
You can do this in so many different ways. I did two inside out french braid cornrows on the side, then joined them with an elastic at the top. (If you don't know how to do an inside out french braid, look under my "quick search labels" for "videos." You'll find an instructional video there!)Tie the ribbon onto the elastic and pull it underneath to hide the knot.Start sewing down the first braid diagonally. (With a needle.) When you get to the end, turn right around and come back up the braid, sewing diagonally in the opposite direction to form the X's. Do the same thing with the other braid, then tie off the ribbon back onto the elastic when you're done.Add a bow, and that's it!

Trisha Haas - Bambina Ballerina

K- You have to go check out these cute hair bow holders! I don't know about you, but I have a major problem keeping track of all our bows. Lately they've been ending up in the toy box on our dolls heads! I'm thinking about ordering one for Christmas. How cute would one of these hairbow holders be hanging on the wall in my daughters room? This site also has some awesome links to hair bow instructions. Go take a look!

3 Ribbon Braid Buns/ Communication Problems

Just a little side note: For those of you who have sent in questions or whatever. I promise I haven't been ignoring you! I sent an email to my hubby earlier today that he never got. Well, we checked his spam folder and there it was. So, apparently I'm a spammer. If you were waiting on a reply from me for something, go check your spam folder! If you still can't find it, send me whatever it was you needed again. Thanks!!

Pretty self explanatory............
Next, I pulled the ribbon through the elastics until both ends were the same length, then used the doubled up ribbon as one of the strands in the braids.
To make the buns, wrap the braid around itself, then use an elastic to go all the way around the bun several times, being sure to catch the ends on top to spike out. Sometimes I use bobby pins to secure the bun, but I have a hard time making these work with ribbon braids. They always get caught in the ribbon and won't go all the way through. The elastic seems to hold them better anyway.
This picture makes the buns look HUGE! They really didn't look this big and strange in real life. (I promise) After the buns were secure, I took some short lengths of ribbon and tied them around the buns into a square knot for the bows. (I trimmed the frayed ends, but of course this was after the pictures, so ignore them.)
See, the buns really aren't THAT big. ha ha

This was actually the style we did on her first day of Kindergarten several months ago. She was so excited to start school, she could hardly stand it! (Too bad the novelty of it all wore of fairly quickly :)

Double Ribbons Hairstyle

You've got to love the fingers in this picture. She really is a princess!!

Start with a part down the middle. Do your elastic braids on both sides of the part, adding in an extra elastic between the sections all the way down. If you wanted to, you could add in more sections, but it's much faster to just add the extra elastics and you get the same look.
I do the elastics with alternating colors to help with the confusion factor later, when I add the ribbons. Some of you smart ones won't need to do this, but it sure helped me! In this picture you can see there are only four sections on each side, but six elastics. That's what I mean by adding in extra elastics between the sections.Starting at the top, thread your first ribbon through the elastics. (Notice that I only threaded the pink elastics here.)
Now, thread another color of ribbon through the remaining elastics. you'll be left with one strand of each ribbon on each pony at the bottom. I just took them and tied a bow around each pony (with a double knot so they wouldn't come undone.)
This picture makes everything look really crooked. I didn't notice it looking off-centered the day we did this. Just don't worry about making it look perfect, most likely no one will notice but you!Did any of you have those shoes with all the laces....(I think they were called "LA Gear") when you were little? I wanted a pair of those SOOO bad when I was in middle school. My mom told me that shoes weren't worth twice as much just because they had an extra set of laces. She was probably right, but holy cow, I would have had so much fun with those!! I guess I'll just take it out on my daughter's head instead. P.S. I think this style would be so cute for certain holidays. You could use red and green for Christmas, orange and black for Halloween, red and blue for the 4th etc.

Split French Braid Headband & Pigtails

I got the bows for this one at Oh So Girly!
Start by parting out the headband and putting the rest in piggies. Do some Inside-out french braids on both sides in the headband and add to the pigs. I was just going to braid the pigs and flip them back up to the piggies. But, my part was crooked and I wanted to hide it. So, I added in a little "Heidi."

Braid your first pig and add to the other piggies elastic.

Do the same thing on the other side. (If your daughter's hair is shorter, stop right here, curl the ends and add some bows.)

This little girls hair is too long for that, so we continued braiding the ends on both sides......

Then, flipped the braids back up through the elastics, leaving some ends out to curl.

Curl the ends, and add your bows.







Be sure to go check out Oh So Girly for some of the cutest bows/best prices around!

Triple French Braids & Piggies

I didn't do step by step instructions for this one. It's really fairly straight forward. Here it is without the bows, if that helps.



Make some piggies, leaving out a square on top. Make a part diagonally from the front corner of the square to back corner on the other side. Then make a part from the middle of the diagonal part to the other back corner. French braid these three sections, continuing the braids down to add to the pigs. Braid the pigs themselves, leaving a few inches at the end. Pull the ends up to the top of the pigs and secure with elastics.