The Birthday Updo

The Princess loves an updo with the works! Usually we find ourselves doing a version of the flower bun and spiral ringlets. Getting a little bored, I like how the top of this do adds some fun.

We sectioned off the top and twisted them combining them into twist braids that we added to the ponytail we had already created. It's nice having a big collection of bands, we used a big one for the big ponytail and an elastic to secure the twist braids.

Then I only created the top of the flower bun, leaving the rest of the hair to hang long and then curl with the spiral curling iron. I like doing this occasionally so one can get a sense of how long her hair is. Someday she'll probably want to cut it, but hopefully that day is far, far away. Meanwhile, she loves having long hair!

This was the perfect 'do for a special outing to "Build-a-Bear" and then to the Melting Pot for a chocolate dessert! Yum!

School Dayz!

I'm really impressed with this morning! It was the first day of school and the Baby Bean was only 7 days old!

Little Bird wasn't very happy with her hair and I don't know if I'll be able to capture it again to show it better. It looked great though! She had two french bumpy braids each going across the top of her head. I gathered each french bumpy braid into a ponytail and then created a messy bun. I loved the symmetry of it. Little Bird prefers ONE french bumpy braid and ONE messy bun!


The Princess's bumpy braid is so tiny compared to her sisters. The girl's hair is so very different! It's much thinner. I braided it into the pony tail just on one side. Then I made twisty braids. Sometimes we turn this style into buns for swimming, but not today!

Baby Bean doesn't have enough hair . . . yet! For the time being, I'm trying to get her used to hats and headbands!

The Multi-Purpose/Swimming 'Do

My Princess has long hair. Not especially thick, but it grows like crazy. We cut almost 8 inches in February and now it's back to almost at her waist. Windy days and trip to the pool. . . and of course summer lake swimming demanded a cute 'do that would keep her hair under control!

We ended up with this style more often than not the whole summer and have used it for fall trips to the pool as well!

The night before do's

It's been a little while since I last posted - I've been having some health issues, but frankly I need to get something together because my children were looking like little rag dolls! Their daddy got them ready for school yesterday - they didn't even meet a hairbrush in the morning!

I've been extra tired but I had the girls take a bath last night and prepped their hair so I had VERY LITTLE to do this morning. After baths last night, I parted my little princesses hair into the hair headband, then I divided the rest with the zigzag part. I put the hair in pony tails and I wrapped them around my finger and made them each into a giant pin curl. It took a lot of bobby pins. I secured the hair headband with another set of bobby pins and put her to bed.
This morning, I wet down the hair headband and added gel. I smoothed it down and secured it behind her head. It looked like a little ponytail sticking out. Then I made some loose messy buns. They looked cute with the large curls in them. Then I tucked the little ponytail from the headband up into one of the messy buns.

Honestly, it wasn't perfect, but I'm talking 7 minutes tops here - and compared to yesterday, she looked like a million bucks!

Little Bird still hates having her hair done, but I needed her to look better than she has lately.

After her bath I put in five small french braids on a diagonal part and used clips to secure them. I knew they wouldn't be super neat the next morning, but it actually wasn't too bad.

I took the ends of each braid and bobby pinned them into pin curls. Then I sort of twisted the rest of her hair into two pony tail bun like things (I KNOW, so technical!) so that it would have a little wave in it.

I think Little Bird's hair looked fantastic from the back, but wasn't quite as neat as I'd like it in front . . . but then again, she looked SO much better than the poor waif she had been looking like!

A Cap full O' Braids

This is actually yet another recycle! My princess does NOT want me to take out her little braids on the top of her head. They've been in for 6 days now! The last few days I've put her hair in buns, braided it, added a hairpiece scrunchy, and this morning she was running around with her hair all wild and knotted. This picture at least shows her after I brushed the tangles out.

You can see she still has the hair headband going on so I left that when I parted her hair and put it in two low ponytails.
Then, just for fun I made three braids. Two of them are regular braids and one is a twist braid. My little princess was a little ancy so I didn't try to learn how to do the fishtail on her that I wanted to.

The little princess wanted ringlets but didn't want her hair to take a long time so we compromised - I braided and then curled the bottom of the braids. We love our new spiral curing iron.

If we weren't planning on putting the hat on I would have made her hair at the top neater and wet it down, but since it was going to get covered up, I didn't spent that much time on it.

Cap on and all smiles. This only took about 7 minutes to do.
We love this beanie - we got it at a cute little boutique in downtown Lake Orion, Michigan. They have some wonderful new items as well as resale clothes. You can visit their facebook site here.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day 2 Day Fancy Do

Christmas Eve: Super Fancy Do!

I didn't take pictures of all the steps but I will explain as best I can:

After washing her hair I put mouse in it. Honestly, I am still learning all my hair products and in a process of experimentation, but the mouse seemed to work well.

I divided the front of the hair that I wanted to be the hair headband and I clipped it out of the way. After I did the upside down french braid I worked on these - I will explain in better detail farther down.


I then had my princess lay face down on the bed with her head hanging over the side. You can see step by step directions of this at Its a Girl Thing blog here. Her hair was damp and I french braided it from the neck up to the crown of her head. My first try of this actually turned out better than this day - come to think of it, the upside down french braid might have been overkill - but I had an idea in my head. . .

Then I put an elastic around the end of the french braid right at the head and left all the hair hanging down. I clipped it out of the way so I could work on the hair headband.

First I made the side part and another part about an inch away. This is where I made the three little braids. We did this a few weeks ago and the princess LOVED it. She wore those braids for 3 days!

I put in gel and made sure her hair was wet as I combed in smooth over the sides of her head and behind her ears. I attached both sides just under her right ear with a small elastic. The braids and their elastics were in that little pony but that looked fine.

Next I worked on a partial flower bun. I used half of the hair in the ponytail on the top of her head and began making loops. I used the flat iron to smooth out the hair. My loops were exaggerated and very large. I was going for an over the top hairdo for this day. I will say that the flower bun didn't make it all the way until midnight, but it lasted most of the evening. I secured the loops with bobby pins. My little one has extremely long hair although not especially thick, so I reused some of the hair to make more loops and I left some of it to curl down the side.

We got to try out our new spiral curling iron - it worked really well!

I finished everything off by bobby pinning in some fun silver glittered Christmas decorations that I picket out to go with my little one's dress and I made the ribbon with some scrap ribbon that came off a bouquet of flowers I bought last week and another decoration I hot glued on.

All in all I had one happy little princess who felt like the belle of the ball!
Day 2: Fancy Do

On Christmas we were all exhausted from our night before. We didn't get home until after 1:00 a.m. and the last thing I wanted to do this day was spend a long time on another fancy do - so we recycled!

This picture was taken after our little one had already been running around the house with cousins for over an hour.

The do:

I redid the hair headband, wetting it down, recombing and fastening it with an elastic near her ear again.

Then I took out the upside down french braid and brushed it out. I took the top section and flat ironed it, it was really bumpy from the night before. You can't see our little one's poof - she'd already been running around with cousins for an hour by this time, but I back combed her hair into a poof and smoothed the freshly flat ironed hair over it. It was also weighed down by the large bow from the night before.
I did slightly more haphazard ringlets in her hair this evening and called it terrific!

Day 1 & 2 - If you use enough hairspray it works for both;-)

The picture above is from Day 1 and the bottom picture is from Day 2 after an hour running through the house with cousins. I LOVE this style. Also, my little bird has shoulder length hair - this is a fabulous style for short hair!

I did this style for my oldest when she was in a play earlier this month. I got the style from a favorite hair blog of mine: Girly Do's by Jenn, and you can see the step by step directions here.

I use four pony tails instead of the three shown in Jenn's blog and I section it off the night before and put it in curlers while it's still damp. This turned out much better than my first and second tries:

The ribbon is probably two yards long and I'm sure I used over 40 bobby pins. I didn't put the flowers in for Christmas. On Christmas I made the loops bigger - especially in the front, I liked how it looked much better.

See - practice makes perfect better!

Cute Braided Headband with Pigtails

Little Bird got to sleep in on this morning and was in a good mood when I did her hair. I loved how it turned out and even better – I managed a few shots of her with a natural smile – a real feat indeed!

Little Bird’s hair was inspired by Adopt a ‘Do’s Wrap Around French Braid video tutorial. I can’t remember where I stole/borrowed the double braids at the top, I’ll add a link if I find it. I love how these braids pop up because I only pulled hair into the French braid from one side.

And So It Begins. . .

Only about a month ago I was searching for a hairstyle for my oldest daughter. We were headed to the salon the next day to have her hair trimmed. I accidentally stumbled on The Story of a Princess and her Hair as well as another site or two. I thought - wow - incredible, wouldn't that be cool but seriously these moms have TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS!

Ok, so a week goes by and I lurk and view more of that blog. . .and find more such as Babes in Hairland and Adopt a 'Do. The next thing I know, I'm trying out a hairstyle or two - even making my own variation. Of course I start this on a Saturday, when I have plenty of time and don't have to wake up early. . .

Another two weeks go by and I'm thinking about what I need to accomplish these hairstyles, products, tools, decorations . . . elastics being my favorite new purchase, because without those I never could have successful accomplished: Of course if I spend time on Little Bird's hair, Princess wants hers done too. . . I also have to explain that Little Bird decided at the LAST minute to join the play and I had to make a quick run to JoAnn Fabrics to get stuff to make her costume. While I was there I decided to pick up a little ribbon to make some hair bows. . . well perhaps that's a story for another post.

Now I am having fun. It doesn't always take that much time. I'm learning I can recycle many hairstyles, get a couple of days out of them. . . the girls are getting perhaps the tiniest bit addicted to getting compliments on the hair. . .

I LOVED it! The Princess LOVED it! I've got to try this one again!!!! We got more attention for this one than ever - lots of high school girls. Ok, so now I'm hooked. Oh, I got the idea from It's A Girl Thing. She's got great step by steps.

As I'm finding more and more hair blogs I see more sites that have different hair. My Princess doesn't have really thick hair, although on further concideration, it's not really that bad. . . I find I can do some things on the weekend - including mini braids and curlers. . .

So this is actually a school morning and a day #2 style. I did the mini braids and hair headband Sunday night and put her hair in curlers then a poof (what DO you call that thing??) with her hair down in ringlets. It was inspired by (ok really copied from) "Tween Hairstyle, Princess Braids" from "The Story of a Princess and her Hair" website. It was lovely, we went on a field trip to the theatre that day. So this day two was just a smooth down of the headband, another poof with a side pony and curling with the flat iron. Thank you to Adopt a 'Do's how to curl with a flat iron video which you can see here.

I was so delighted that I was able to get a day #3. But I didn't take any pictures of day #4. If I remember right, it was a very messy version of the above!

Now for my real pièce de résistance - I found a terrific idea on Girly Do's By Jenn that I absolutely loved!

The top is the night before doing a dry run. I made 3 ponies like in Jenn's site. Little Bird's hair is too short for that so when I washed I sectioned her hair into 4 ponies. Next was my attempt to show in pictures what I did - the sectioning and curlers.

Gotta work on that.

I had Little Bird wear her hair in simple buns for school all day so as not to lose the curl.

Then I used probably 40 bobbie pins to get the look I wanted - my ribbon was probably a yard and a half long. I also added 10 flowers that I had hot glued to bobby pins. She looked very fairy-like!

And so as I learn more. . . I will post more. Meanwhile I need to organize my google bookmarks; my "hairstyles" folder is getting quite unruly! I'm looking forward to learning so much as I join all my new heros of the hairstyles. . .

Until tomorrow, Goodnight!