Braid to last through an active day

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Tämä viikonloppu on ollut melkoista tohinaa… Tänään keskimmäinen tyttäreni meni syntymäpäiväjuhlille peuhapaikkaan ja sen jälkeen olimme menossa luistelemaan. Lettien piti tietysti olla tarpeeksi juhlalliset synttäreille, mutta sellaiset, että kestävät touhuamisen ja lisäksi luistelua ajatellen kypäränkin piti mahtua päähän.

Tässä ratkaisu: puoliranskalaisia ja pikkuponinhäntiä. Kampaus on oikein juhlallinen, mutta samalla pitää kaikki hiukset pois kasvoilta ja synttäiherkuista. Tämä mahtui myös myöhemmin kypärän alle ja kaiken lisäksi säilyi muutamaa karannutta haituvaa lukuunottamatta hyvin koko päivän.

Kampaus on helpompi, kuin miltä näyttää, ja jos osaa tehdä puoliranskalaisen, niin tämäkin onnistuu, jos hetken miettii tuota kuvaa.

Tästä kampauksesta on näkynyt monta eri versiota Instagrammissa, mutta minun to-do-listalle se pääsi Brasilialaisen Carla Massarin IG-postauksen jälkeen. Käykääpä katsomassa hänen täydellisiä lettiluomuksia: @mimiamassari .

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A busy weekend. Today’s braiding challenge was that my daughter was going to a birthday party in a soft play area after which we were planning to go ice-skating. So, she needed a braid that would be fancy enough for the birthday party, but hold well while playing and also to fit under a helmet for ice-skating.

Our solution was this lace braided half-up-braid. This hairdo is so pretty, but also holds all the hair out of the face and out of party food. It also fit under a helmet, and lasted through all of these activities with only a few fly aways!

This braid is easier than what it appears at first. If you can do a lace braid, you need to just look at this picture for a while and you’ll figure it out without a tutorial.

I’ve seen this braid done by many Instagram braiders, but my Brazilian friend Carla Massari did such a beautiful version a while ago that I had to put it on my to-do-list. Go and check Carla’s perfect styles: @mimiamassari .

Braiding marathon – part 2: festival stall

So last Saturday’s story continues at Skidit Festival. After doing all the wedding hairstyles, I rushed to Kallio in Helsinki. Skidit Festarit is a really nice children’ festival with lots of kids’ activities, music, food etc.

I got the idea for a festival braiding stall last summer when I went to some music festivals and noticed all the boring ponytails… But as I am only a self-taught braider, whose main experience is doing kids’ hair, the kids’ festival was the perfect place to try out how it would work.

It was a hot day (+30 degrees), but luckily I had a tent, so I was in the shade. It took about 15 minutes for the first person to stop for a braid, but after that, it was a constant queue for 5 hours!

At first, I had a few little girls, with very thin hair, but I managed at least to do a little lace braid with a ribbon or a quick heart, which looks good on everyone, and is easy to make even when the model is moving a lot.

When the queue started to be quite long, only girls with a lot of hair thought it was worth waiting, so my job got a little bit easier 😉

Some little girls were very specific on what they wanted, many parents wanted something to keep the hair out of the face, some girls chose their favourite colour ribbon, and some gave me free hands… So it didn’t get boring!

A national news paper’s website had published an interview of me the day before, so some girls had already been on my Instagram or Facebook for ideas.

The most popular style, which I did 6 times, was the corset braid, followed closely by the star braid:

 

In the end, I did 31 braids in 5 hours. I didn’t even take a break! I remember queueing for face painting with my girls once, and when we got to the face painter, she said she’s going for a break… I couldn’t do that to the little girls (and parents) who had been waiting for their turn! So I just had some quick snacks and water between braids, and carried on!

I was exhausted in the end: my back was aching and I was hot and hungry, but I had really enjoyed it. I didn’t notice the time at all while I was braiding!

I thought it was such a fun experience, that I have already agreed for another event in a week’s time! So everyone, who is near Porvoo, Finland next Saturday, come to Bubbles-event at Taidetehdas! I will be braiding kids as well as adults this time!

PS. as you can see, I used stickers, stamps, crayons etc to keep the little ones occupied while I was braiding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Braiding marathon – part 1: wedding hair

I braided 35 heads on Saturday! Most of you have probably already heard about this, but I felt like I need to tell you the whole story!

So, I had promised to do 3 bridesmaids’ hair for a friend’s wedding, and one other wedding guest squeezed in the queue as well. We started at 7:30 am! Luckily we had done a trial earlier in the week, so it was a fairly easy job… But of course my hands were shaking a bit, as I’ve never done anything as important as bridesmaid’s styles!

First, my sister got one of my favourites: a double starburst bun. I’ve done this on my sister and my daughter many times, so it was fairly quick to do and we knew it would last well. (She returned from the wedding at 1:30 am, and her hair was still perfect.)

All of the bridesmaids wanted an up-do as it was a very hot day. So next was waterfall braids into french braids into a bun. I can’t normally do waterfall braids that well, so I was very happy with this one!

The third bridesmaid had a picture of three dutch braids she liked, so we did the dutch braids and then made it into an up-do with a braided bun.

I was happy with all three. Unfortunately, I was in a rush, so didn’t get a picture of the fourth wedding hairdo that I did!

Next, I had to pack my combs, brushes, hairspray and pins and rush to Skidit – kids’ festival, where my husband was setting up my braiding stall… And that’s where the real challenge of the day was: 5 hours of braiding to follow in the next blog-post…

 

Memories of the Carribbean

We are finally settling in our new home in Finland. I didn’t have a chance to blog while we were travelling, as I only had my mobile… My Instagram followers have seen more than enough of my “travel braids” as I posted at least one braid from each country we went to. So now for those, who are not on Instagram: I’ll show you a few favourites from our Carribean trip.

First, we went to Jamaica. It was amazing. We all agree that out of all the countries we went to, Jamaica was our favourite. The people we super nice, food was good, atmosphere, music, weather, the sea… everything.

There were braiders everywhere! And so many amazing braids! When we first got out the plane, my 5-year old said “mummy, everyone here has much nicer braids than what you make!”… So, I took it as a challenge, and this was the first morning in Jamaica:

 

I got so many compliments for this and other braids throughout the 2 weeks in Jamaica, I even got job offers from the local braid-salons! Really felt that my work was appreciated in Jamaica 🙂

Next, we went on a Caribbean cruise visiting six of the Eastern Caribbean Islands. On each island we did a little trip to a beach, did some snorkeling or just relaxed and went swimming. The braids were always destroyed in the end of the day from all the seawater, so perfect excuse to do new braids every day. Here are some of my favourites (snake braid in St. Kitts, rope braid in Antigua and fishtail-french braid in St. Lucia):
  

After the cruise we went to Mexico, where I’ve always wanted to visit. It was really interesting with all the history, Mayan ruins etc. and of course Mexican food, one of my favourite cuisines!

Again, we swam a lot, so needed to re-do the braids all the time. I was trying to decide which photo to put here, and then found this:

This braid was done by my husband. He was complaining he never gets any braiding practice anymore, as I always do the hair! So he came up with this braid, which I thought was beautiful!!

But that’s enough from our holiday (I might do another post with a bit more, but if I add it here it will be too long!)… I hope I’m better at blogging regularly now that we finally have a home again!

 

 

Valentine’s day braids

I thought I’d show you some of my heart braids for Valentine’s day. These are impressive to the normal people, we always get lots of comments when we do something like this… but in the braiding world they are just average!

First, a couple that I did a year and a half ago, when I was first starting to get into creative braiding – a dutch lace braid heart, and some Cutegirlshairstyles heart-pigtails.

  

In the last couple of weeks I have made some new heart designs: a french braid with 3 hearts on it on my oldest daughter, a double heart braid on my 5-year-old, and a ribbon heart braid on my smallest one.

 

The girls absolutely love these heart braids. My favorite is probably the double heart, as it stayed in shape, and held all the hair in place the longest.

I need to come up with one more tomorrow, as my middle daughter has a Valentine’s day party to go to!

 

More frozen hairstyles

A few days after the Elsa hairdos on my oldest daughter, the little sisters wanted braids from Disney’s Frozen as well. So here are the two hairstyles of Anna and also a young Elsa:

 The Anna hairdos were difficult as my middle daughter has very thin, fine and slippery hair, lots of baby hair, and the colour is completely different from Anna’s hair. But she was very happy with the hairdos herself, which is the main thing.

I found quite a few tutorials on You Tube for the one on the right, but did it a little bit differently myself. I thought the braided headband needed to be as thick as possible, so I did partly a 3-strand braid, but on the top of her forehead I did some stitches of dutch lace braid to add hair to the braid and make it long enough.

Here is a link to a tutorial done by Hair 4 My Princess: Anna’s Coronation bun

 My youngest daughter got a braid inspired by the young Elsa in the film.

For this one, I put a sparkly elastic headband on her, leaving some hair in front, then made a loose french braid partly over the headband.

After we took the picture, she wanted to take the headband off, so we had to undo the braid to get it out!

And for those, who aren’t familiar with these Disney Princesses, here are pictures of Anna and young Elsa:

 

 

Second day hairdos

When you’ve made some lovely braids, it’s nice to keep them for a couple of days to make it worth the effort. You can often get a whole new hairdo in minutes (in case you think, having the same braid for many days is boring), by changing the hairstyle a little bit or by adding to it.

Here is what we did with yesterday’s half-up-hairdos. Two lace braids into a french braid (on the left), and lots of mini lace braids into a french braid (on the right):

 

See yesterday’s braids here.

All I’ve done, is to french braid the hair hanging at the back of yesterday’s half-up-dos, also adding the little lace braids into the french braid. This gave a whole new look with two minutes of braiding, and makes the hairdo last longer, as the hair at the back doesn’t tangle. It’s also an excellent trick to make any half-up hairdo into a sports-hairdo.