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!

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!

Thursday Day #4 - I did it!

First let me begin by sharing with you that #1 I am new to the hair obsessed club and still learning from my "Hair Heroes" and #2 I am a working mom (who by the way is NOT a morning person!!!)

My Goal for the Week - How many days can I reuse/recycle the hairstyle ?!?!

Day #4

I reached my goal. I actually like Day #4's style on Princess better than Day #3.

Category: 4th Day ‘Do
Time: 8-12 minutes in the morning
Needed: braids from the nights before, brush, comb, hairspray, little clips & flower bobby pins (optional)

Last night I cut out all of the elastics out of the twist braids but I didn't brush out her hair. This morning I brushed out her hair. It gave her hair a lot of body. Our Princess doesn't have her sister's hair. It is much thinner and doesn't have the body her sister has. It does, however, hold a curl or wave pretty good and it is very long.

I did a french twist. It was a bit loose - I was running really late this morning so I wasn't able to spend the time I wanted on it. I twisted in down to the bottom, about where a middle part would be and then continued to twist the hair. Then I wrapped the piece around her head and bobby pinned it just past the top.

I repeated the french twist on the other side and wrapped the end around as well.


I used a few clear clips near the top - like I said I was running late and I couldn't find my bobby pin stash - they were next to my computer instead of in my bathroom! I did add some bobby pins and then embellished with a few of Little Bird's flower topped bobby pins that I had made to go with her fairy costume. I thought it looked soft and cute. It was a little lopsided. Hopefully the next time I try it I have more time, but overall it was a very cute style.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get to finish what I wanted to add to this post as well as yesterday. Good night!

Wednesday Morning (Day #3)

First let me begin by sharing with you that #1 I am new to the hair obsessed club and still learning from my "Hair Heroes" and #2 I am a working mom (who by the way is NOT a morning person!!!)

My Goal for the Week - How many days can I reuse/recycle the hairstyle ?!?!
Day #3

With only a four day school week I'm trying to get a much bang for my buck with the girls' hair.

Category: 3rd Day ‘Do
Time: 5-7 minutes in the morning
Needed: pony weaves from the nights before, two elastics, brush, comb, hairspray, flower (optional)

I kept Little Bird's hair in from the last two days, see link here for yesterday and here for the Monday. This morning (at last night's request mind you) I brushed her hair and french braided it. I did not wet down all of her hair, I did wet the comb and just wet down any fly away wispies. Little Bird specifically asked for flowers in her hair – last night - and I held her to it!

I hairsprayed it and added the flowers and that was it. It still looked pretty good. Tonight I cut out all the elastics with a seam ripper. We'll see the state it is in tomorrow morning. She requested just two plain pony tails and flowers. We shall see.

- I will continue this post tomorrow by added Princess's hair from today. Sandman is calling. . .

Monday Morning

My Goal for the Week - How many days can I reuse/recycle the hairstyle ?!?!

First let me begin by sharing with you that #1 I am new to the hair obsessed club and still learning from my "Hair Heroes" and #2 I am a working mom (who by the way is NOT a morning person!!!)

The Princess

My 6 year old is happy to sit for me as long as I made her hair pretty. She loves all things pink and sparkly.

Category: Overnight Prep Hairstyle
Time: 20+ minutes night before, 5-7 minutes in the morning

I'll begin with Princess's hair today: I had a vague idea in my head and was pleasantly pleased with the end results!


I began after her bath last night:

I put gel in her hair and I sectioned off several small sections along the front and made twist braids on each.

She looks a little spider like here don'tchathink?



I loosely twisted all the hair and put it in a pony tail/bun for the night. It was pretty wet. The first picture was from last night and the next from this morning after she slept on it.




Princess's hair was still a little damp this morning when I took it out of the ponytail. So after I took it out I dried it some more using the diffuser. I didn't even brush the ends of her hair. The curls were quite nice after I dried them.

Then I pulled her hair - minus the twist braids - into a pony tail securing with a pony tail holder.

Then I added in the twist braids and added another pony tail. You can see the two different colors of pony tails I used. Then I attached a bow. I actually attached it to the pony tail holder so as not to show. Next time I'll use smaller or hair colored pony tail holders.



I'm thrilled with how it turned out. I'm especially happy with the overnight twist that resulted in curls. BONUS!I can't wait to see how I can recycle this style tomorrow morning. . .

Little Bird

This is my older daughter, age 9. She is a sport girl who occasionally tolerates me doing something with her hair.

Category: Overnight Prep Hairstyle
Time: 20+ minutes night before, 5-7 minutes in the morning

This is my version of a "It's A Girl Thing" post from September, 9. I made 4 little messy buns because Little Bird's hair is pretty short. I also would have liked to flat iron all of her hair but my grumpy girl was actually growling at me this morning so after I finished the messy buns I called it DONE!

I began last night after bath time. I put gel in Little Bird's hair. Then I did a diagonal part and made 6 pony tails on each side.

I made all the pony tails with red elastics and then used green to show where I attached the twisted pony to the next pony. It's hard to tell, but I twisted each pony to keep the short hairs under control.
The second picture shows the weaves a little better.


Last night I did some messy buns just to see what they'd look like.

They were very messy Messy Buns.

I did not do, perhaps, the best job explaining this style. Post any questions or visit "It's A Girl Thing" for great step by steps.


I'm looking forward to trying something next tomorrow with the back as I'm going to leave in the elastics as long as I can this week.