Braid Flower

I came across a blog a couple of days ago where the woman made a comment in regards to my blog..."she probably thinks that she thought of these hairstyles herself."

So let me set the record straight on that. I don't think I thought of these myself. I watched my mom do my little sisters hair. She had AMAZING ringlets that her sweet daughter inherited. I had stick-straight hair and very little of it so I was always coveting those curls. I watched her braid it, fish-tail it, etc. I started doing little girls hair when I was about 9 years old and I started babysitting for a hairdresser. I was able to do her three daughters hair. She taught me a lot. I learned from her. I learn from watching movies, especially teeny-bopper shows. I see hairstyles in parks and libraries and my daughters schools and I emulate them. I learn from friends, neighbors and family members. Some times I will think I have thought of something myself and I see it being done already. It is hair. Saying I thought of it first is like saying there is only one great chocolate chip cookie recipe. It just isn't possible.

So today, I will show you one that I used from another blog. First I saw THIS post by Jenn, who has become a wonderful friend, and I loved how she did the loops. Then I saw THIS post and loved the braids. So I combined the all up into a ponytail and then did the braid flower. See...not original. But it fulfills the purpose of this blog...and what I assume is the purpose for all of the other hair blogs that are surfacing...to share ideas.

Basic Instructions:

Pull the hair into a tight ponytail

Using pomade, braid the hair into five equal sized braids...make sure to end the braids the same distance down

Pull the braid into a loop and push the ends of the braid through the elastic...as shown HERE

Repeat with each of the braids.

When I had them pulled through, I used my flat iron and curled the ends and then I used a pliable putty (by Garnier of course) and pieced them out.

3 Loopy Loops

We did this style, with three loops instead of 2. Ignore my messy parts, even us "pros" have off days. ;)

Corkscrew Bun

So today I was browsing all of the new hair blogs out there. Quite frankly, I am in a hair styling rut. So I was looking to all of my fellow cohorts to inspire me. Voila! I happened upon this post by Babes in Hairland...hence todays hairstyle.

Little Miss is going to the amusement park today and we needed to get her hair off her neck. So we did her style and then twisted the final braid into a bun. No sweating for the park.

Zig-zag puffy braid

Using the concepts in the lattice ponytails and the puffy braids we did this style.

Part the hair into a half ponytail at the crown and secure the ponytail with an elastic on either the right or the left side.

Part another ponytail beneath it and pull the ponytail to the opposite side of your original ponytail. Pull the first ponytail into the second.

Repeat until you have reached the bottom of the hair. Depending on how long your daughters hair is decides how many ponytails you can put in. Her hair is fairly short, so I did four.
Six would be absolutely darling!

Slanted Puffy Braid

This one is pretty easy.

Part the hair from her temple across her head to just behind her ear. Pull smooth and secure with an elastic on the side opposite the temple where you started.

Part down from the temple and pull it across her head to just next to the other side. Comb smooth and secure with an elastic only this time make the ponytail off a bit from your first ponytail.

Repeat until you get to the bottom and the last elastic.

At this point you can do what you want. You could do a flippy ponytail, you could tie a bow, you could curl it. This time we kept going until just before the end. I should have curled the end but I am lazy today and didn't want to go all the way back up the stairs.

By-the-way, today we used ouchless covered elastics. Her hair is getting too thick for the plastic elastics.

Swim Smocking

As I mentioned a week or so ago, we had swim lessons. As in my nature, I started out gung-ho pulling their hair back, as time progressed, I puttered out resulting in one single ponytail or two...depending on which daughter.

I was cleaning off my CF card and came across this. Just another smocking do, but done specifically with the idea of keeping her hair out of her eyes while swimming.