Friday's Film: Braid Embellishment

My princess had a choir performance today where she was required to wear a winter hat so we decided to come up with a cute hairstyle that would work with her hat.  We came up with this Braid Embellishment:

It's a simple way to add some flair to any braid or ponytail.  

 You can see how it makes these simple braids look adorable!

These embellishments will look different every time you do them so don't worry about having them look exact.  There's beauty in variety.  :)

Triple Braid Bun

Here's another fun Pinterest one that has been floating around.  It's really simple and has a beautiful look:

 I have to admit that I LOVE this with the blonde highlights in this girl's hair!

Start the style by sectioning the hair out into 3 horizontal sections and secure each section with an elastic.  *You can choose to leave some hair out like in the example which you can curl for a more formal look.

Now take each of your three ponytails and create a 3-Strand Braid out of them - securing each of your braids with an elastic at the bottom. Starting with your top braid, wrap it around it's elastic so that you form a bun and then secure the ends of your braid with bobby pins by tucking them underneath he bun.

The length of your princess's hair will determine the size of your bun.  If she has shorter hair, you can keep your braids looser  to give the bun a more full look.  Add a flower to the side as an accent if you like and the hairstyle is complete!

Friday's Film: Double Fancy French Wraps

After our post on Wednesday we had a lot of feedback and everyone said the same thing, "We need a video!"  :)  (You can find that original post here.) We decided to create a bit of a new hairstyle out of the same thing so we created two wraps to switch it up a little but the concept is the exact same. 

I tried to avoid the spotlight because it causes so many shadows but it still seems dark.  I'm working to fix this problem in the future!  Hopefully you can still get the general idea.

Here is what the finished Double Fancy French Wrap looks like.

Here's a view of the "French" part where the hair has been added in.

This is what the top of the style looks like.

Here's a closer view of the wraps and they look nice but I have to say that I prefer the look of the wraps when the style is done in single form as opposed to double.  A thicker ponytail looks a bit better.  This is still nice though.  :)  

Fancy French Wrap

This style looks amazing and the best part is that it's SO SIMPLE!  Start with wet hair for the best results.

Begin by sectioning out the top half of the hair from ear to ear and pulling it into a ponytail.  (You should literally have half of the hair in this ponytail.)  Make sure your ponytail is nice and smooth.

Now section out two small areas on each side of the ponytail - underneath that secured top half.  Cross the two sides over the top of your ponytail and then around and underneath it.  Continue wrapping those strands around the ponytail until you get down to the bottom where you will secure it with one small elastic.  Now Grab two more small areas on each side of the ponytail, just below your previous ones and repeat the wrapping steps. 

 Be careful in your placement of the wraps.  You want your new warps to lie directly above your previous wraps to get the desired look at the end.  Once you have wrapped those two new strands all the way down to the bottom of the ponytail,  Secure it in place with another small elastic.  (Or you can just reuse your previous elastic.)  

 Now grab your remaining loose hair on each side of the ponytail and create one final layer of wraps going down the ponytail.  Secure that at the bottom with one final elastic.  We added a small ribbon on our first elastic but you can decorate the hair with any accessories you like.  :) 

Friday's Film: Milk Maid Braids

This darling pin has been floating around Pinterest and we just love the idea!

You can find the direct link to that pin here.

We've done a video on this hairstyle and we had a bit of a variation at the end because my princess has VERY long hair.

You can see that it's really easy and super fast for such a cute style!

We chose not to have our ribbon show as much as in the original instructions but that's totally up to you when you do the style.

This shows how we just bobby pinned our side up.

My princess was very excited about this hairstyle because we saw it on Pinterest and I think it turned out pretty cute!

Friday's Film: Uneven 5-Strand

This is not a new hairstyle for us but we have never posted a video on it.
  

This is our original Uneven 5-Strand Braid and you can find the link for that post here.

We also have a "pulled" version of the braid and you can find a link to that post here.

This video should help give you the idea of how we divided our strands and created the braid.

Here is the finished braid from this video.  Try it out!  It's a fun braid and really quite easy with a bit of practice!  

Super Chunky Knot Braid

Here is a very fast and simple hairstyle that is great when you're short on time.  It's called the Knot Braid because it's just a series of knots.

This style works best with long hair because it takes up a lot for each knot.  (My princess has hair a couple inches from her waist and you can see how much shorter it is once the braid is done.)

Begin by pulling the hair back into a ponytail.  Divide that ponytail into two equal sections and cross them over each other and pull the top section up and through the back and then pull to tighten.  *Basically you are doing the first step of tying your shoe - a half knot.  Now just repeat the step of creating a half knot over and over again until you run out of hair. 

 Secure your braid at the bottom with an elastic.  It has a very full and chunky look and it pretty cool! 

Friday's Film: 7-Strand Sennit Braid

I was on Pinterest and  cam across this cool tutorial for rope braiding and this one is called a Sennit Braid.  you can find that original pin here.   I pinned it thinking it would be awesome to make a hair accessory or jewelry but then got to thinking that it could probably be used for a hairstyle as well.  

I did a bit of re-configuring with the strand and came up with this 7-Strand Sennit Braid:

Hopefully the video was able to explain it well for you.  As always, practice makes perfect with this braid.  

Here is what it looks like totally complete.  You can see that it looks like 2 side-by-side braids.  We have a couple other versions of 7-Strand Braids as well and I've listed those below with links to their original posts.  Just click on the name and it will take you over.

7-Strand Braid

Lucky Number 7  

Friday's Film: French Knot

This is a style that we kind of came up with on the spot this morning and decided that it would be a great video to share because it's an easier way to create a French Braid type of style.  

I apologize for the messiness of some of the video, my princess has extremely long hair and sometimes it looks super tangled.

 The hairstyle itself is really beautiful and it's nice because it's one that you can do on yourself as well.  (Not too many strands to keep track of.)

This shows the top of the braid and what it looks like as it gets started.

The bottom side of the French Knot tucks under while the top side tucks over and inside.  

We did our braid on an angle so that it ended as a side ponytail but the orientation of your French Knot is totally up to you.  

We added a flower clip to conceal our elastic on the side and that finished it off nicely.   

Friday's Film: Knotted Ladder

We have had several requests for a tutorial on this hairstyle:

This picture was sent to me from one of our friends on Facebook and  absolutely love the style.  I wish I knew it's origin so I could give credit where credit is due. You'll notice how complete perfect this picture above looks.  Well, mine was not as great (this was my first attempt) but I'm sure it will get better with practice.  :) 

 Something very important that I wish I had been better with is making sure to hold the strand tightly so they don't loosen up.  You will see that ours loosened a bit and I was kicking myself that I wasn't more careful about that.  

I should have kept my add-in strands smaller like in the example picture and then I would have had more crossing hairs as well.  

I started our hairstyle a bit farther back on the head than in the example but you can do it however you like.

To finish it off I simply wrapped a small strand of hair over the elastic to conceal it and then poked a Topsy Tail through the elastic, threaded that strand through it, and pulled in in tightly so that it was secure.

It's a very beautiful hairstyle and hopefully this tutorial helps those of you that were looking for some instruction!

Kissy Lips & Bendy Braids

You will definitely need a Topsy Tail or tool like it for this hairstyle.  It's got two parts to it - the "Kissy Lips" and the "Bendy Braids" but they both derive from the same components, Inverted Pull-Throughs and regular Pull-Throughs. 

Here is what the Kissy Lips look like.  First you will gather a section of hair at the top of the head into an elastic.  Then create an Inverted Pull-Through by poking your Topsy Tail up from under the elastic and pulling the hair through.  Next you will gather another section of hair right before the first and secure it into an elastic - making sure to add in that hair from your Inverted Pull Through.  Have your new elastic lying fairly close to your previous one.  Now create a regular Pull-Through with that new section of hair by poking your Topsy Tail down through the hair behind the elastic.  These two Pull-Throughs create your Kissy Lips.

I've sectioned out the hair and done two sets of Kissy Lips on each side of the head. 

The lower set of Kissy Lips lies in the middle of the head on either side.

The hairstyle is finished off with Bendy Braids that are created simply by securing an elastic around the ponytail - about 1.5 inches below the previous elastic.  Now grab your Topsy Tail and create and Inverted Pull-Through with that section of your ponytail.  Add in another elastic (again 1.5 inches down) and create a regular Pull-Through.  Continue this pattern down through the ponytail and then follow the steps with the opposite ponytail as well.  The two different kind of Pull-Throughs will create a bent look in the ponytail.  The picture doesn't really do these justice but they are pretty cool. 

Friday's Film: Skinny French Braid

Here's a fun hairstyle that I originally saw on Pinterest and that direct link is here.   I was unable to find any directions for it so this is what I came up with and the end result seems to be the same. 

We already have a hairstyle called "The Overlay Braid" so we didn't go with that name but it would definitely apply here as well.

Here's a picture of what the finished braid looks like.  It looks awesome over the top of the other hair!

Here is the back with the braid wraps around the piggies.

The top was kind of hard to see in the video so here's a picture of what it looks like. 

Here's another view of the braid.  Fun huh! 

The Bow Braid

This hairstyle is one that I've been following on Pinterest but could never quite figure out and the AMAZING Mindy over at Cute Girls Hairstyles posted a great video that you can find here.  Full credit goes to her and her perfect instructions that make this braid very "do-able".  She also got some fabulous variations that show the versatility of this braid.  Here's our version:

First we separated the hair directly down the middle of the head and created The Bow Braid out of the left half of the hair.  (The link to the instructional video from Mindy is above.) 

I absolutely love the look of this braid and the idea to it is really quite simple.  It does take some time so plan appropriately.  This hairstyle was supposed to have a Bow Braid on each side but we ran low on time so we came up with this instead. 

We added in the hair from the right side to the bottom of our Bow Braid and swept it over below the right ear.  We did this by doing a Half-French Braid and only adding in hair to the top half. 

We finished it off with a Regular 3-Strand Braid and secured it with an elastic and a little flip at the bottom.  

Remember to check out Mindy's fun variations because she's got some great ideas!