Relaxed Curls & Bun on a New Model w/ a New Flower

Please welcome my lovely niece, The Princess! A beautiful child with enough attitude for 2-13 yr old girls. ;) She agreed to model for me and I was so excited to fix her curly locks!

The Princess has naturally curly hair, very curly! I relaxed the curls with a replenishing spray and a touch of silk'n'curl. I brushed through her hair gently with an air-cushion brush. And then it was time for the style...

I put the top half of her hair into a ponytail, leaving her "bangs" and a bit at the sides out. I parted the bangs far to one side. I added the bangs to the side hair and made a simple braid, adding the braid  to the ponytail.

The same for the other side...

Next I made a very loose bun by simply picking up the hair, giving it two twists and then wrapping it around the ponytail. I left the ends sticking out slightly and secured it with a clear elastic. One great thing about curly hair, you never have to "do something" with the ends. ;)

I let the princess pick her accessory. (and I loved her choice!) This is a flower clip that I don't think I've featured on my blog before. It is cotton candy pink & white with a touch of feathers in the center.

Our mini modeling session was a blast; she was super serious about it! ;)

She was so pretty and walked around like the princess she is, all afternoon! ;)

Product Review Time:

This spray is on my mind today, mostly because I ran out and can't find it anywhere, AGHH! ;) I searched Dove's website to find a retailer... KMart on the other side of town, that's it! ugh, I don't really shop at kmart... at least not in the last 7 or so years. Sheesh! Walgreens is willing to have it sent from another location and that will take 2 weeks as it travels by truck, nice... I "ordered" 4 bottles. Lol, does that tell you how awesome this stuff is?! Okay, here's the deal.

DOVE Daily Moisture, Damage Therapy, Daily Hydrating/Replenishing Mist. (It has had other names, but the formulas are almost identical. The most recent does not have glycerin, a good thing I promise!) This works wonderfully for girls with dry or damaged hair. I use it on myself and on Alex. I have also used it on other little girls. In fact, I prefer to use it rather than water when dampening the hair. It does exactly as it says, replenishes the hair. I like to test limits and I've been using this stuff for a long time. I have drenched Alex's hair with it and when it dried, it was as though I'd just washed and conditioned her hair. No joke, it's the best stuff ever! ;) I have used it for every hair type, including one little girl with slightly oily hair. It even seemed to freshen her hair up and leave it less oily! I highly recommend this to help keep yours and your daughter's hair healthy!

Winner of the Giveaway!

Sorry to post a fake this morning!!! I forgot that I had scheduled this one to start, but hadn't adding the pictures or selected a winner yet. Oooops!

Well, first of all, here are the winner's choices...

First a rocker zebra pair. These are great for scene hair like this look,

http://tinydiva.blogspot.com/search/label/Scene%20Hair

This is a brand new pair.

Here is a brown and cream set of mini clips. These are wonderful for babies and toddlers, but my teenage niece loves them too. ;)

Another pair of mini clips. Pink camo and black are great girly fun!

Purple and off-white frilly flower. This is about 2 inches wide and is a wonderful accent piece for buns or to pull back the sides of hair.

Fall forest bows. These are about 4 inches wide. The colors are chocolate brown, forest green, cream & burgandy. The green is really shiny; the colors together give these a very rich look.

Black with light pink satin... perfectly for Ballerinas! About 4.5 inches

And last are my new Pinkie Pie's Party bows. Alex is in love with the sweet "My Little Pony" and these bows were inspired by that love. ;) The dark and light pink solid ribbon is very shiny... Perhaps the wrong season, but these would be great for Valentine's day!

Well, I used random.org, but couldn't get the picture to paste properly, sorry folks... you'll just have to trust that it's random. ;)

And the winner is:

#10 Christy said: Absolutely the cutest bumblebees I've ever seen! :) Congratulations on 100 posts! :D :D

Thanks so much Christy!

And because I feel just happy today and I'd like to spread the cheer, I'm adding a second winner:

#14 Juliet said: I love the bee costumes! I also love your site with all your cute ideas!

That's sweet Juliet, thank you!

Congratulations winners, you get to choose one set of bows, clips, or the purple flower! Please send me an email (merynne@gmail.com) with your address and your choice and I'll get them right to you! Juliet, you'll get to choose after Christy! Thank you to everyone for commenting and following! ;)

Twist Me Up

I love love LOVE how this flower clip came out! ;) Naturally though, I only got one shot of her wearing it, and not really a great one either! Geez. ;) Anyway, this was a fun style and one I have done again since because I just like the feel...

I started by twisting her bangs to the side, while keeping the front a little poofy. The easiest way I can describe this is that you want to roll the hair down rather than pulling it to the side and twisting. Make sense?

Well, I did this twice and pinned them down for a moment. Then I used these two twists to start a french twist in the top of this side of her hair.

After finishing the french twist, I did a simple twist with the rest of the hair. I have done this a lot, but I'll give a quick over view of the idea. You just take a piece near the front and then grab the next piece and wrap it around. Grab another piece, working your way back and twist the pieces around each other. You should have just two pieces at any given time and continue to add and wrap them around each other. This is not the same as the french twist which is much harder. ;)

I did this same twist/roll on the other side with all the hair.

Then I put it all in a side pony. I made a messy bun out of this and added the flower clip!

It really looked pretty and she got a lot of compliments! Just wish I could give you a better picture of the finished look. ;)

Yummy Yellow Flower Clip

Alex chose the style today and the hair acc. She went with yellow to match her shoes and shirt. I liked the choice and it made for an extra happy girl! ;)

This is just a simple french braid... okay, I know for some french braids are not simple. ;) I wish I could give you a video, but my 8yr old son always gets wiggly and bored. Lol, go check out some of the other links under "Hair Blogs I Hear" to find a good video tutorial on it. (Girly Do's and Princess & Her Hair are great ones!)

We were heading to the Zoo that day, so I added a little hairspray to keep things in line.

Looks like I could have used a tad more hairspray! ... I was really pleased with the new flower. I loved the look so much, I made the same style in 5 different colors! ;) So it was a great day; Alex had a blast and was so proud of her hair, which made me perfectly happy!

Messy Bun with Braids and Flowers

This is a pretty simple style, but it looks really cute. It is just perfect for days when you're in a hurry.

She was super-cute yesterday, so I uploaded lots of pics! ;)
Okay, so this is how I started. Part the front however you want and put the elastics in the middle of each section. Then, do a pull-through knot with each one.

I like a side bun for this style. Just brush or comb the hair slightly to one side in the bottom section of hair and secure with an elastic.

Next, simply braid each section of hair from the top and add them to the side pony with additional elastics. Now, make a messy bun or finish however. ;)

Finish with flowers or a nice bow, etc.

And there's the sweet, relaxed look that is perfect for any day. If you want something dressy, just add curls to the ends...

And a happy girl is, of course, the best part! ;)

Lovely Updo ~ A Poof & 2 French Braids

Finally a new style! ;)

This was inspired by a style I saw on a tv show...

It was pretty easy to do, but I did adapt it a little for short hair.

I started with a simple little poof on top. I used just a touch of mousse and did a small amount of teasing/back-combing in the middle of the top section. Then brush the top smooth and add an elastic about an inch away from the head. Then pull on just the bottom part of the hair in the elastic to tighten it. This puffs up the hair a little better.

And really, you could stop there, it is cute enough. ;) Anyway, I did french braids in the remaining hair, one on each side. And I sort of braided toward the middle by taking more hair from the outside than the inside. Although I used all the hair, I put the elastic in above her hairline.

After both braids are finished, put use another elastic to hold the ends together. For short hair, this seems to be the best way to go. I twisted the pieces in and up before putting them together, but you could also do a pull-through knot. --- For longer hair, you have several options. You could just pull all the hair into a low ponytail, or do a bun. You could curl the ends or do a messy bun. It would also be cute to do the braids straight down, then split the top section in half and add it to the braids. Just a few ideas. ;) ---

Okay, so this step is difficult to explain, and obviously I'm not really that good at it anyway. ;) I took the hair in that top section and pulled it to the side turning the end up. I added the end to the ends from the braids and used an elastic to hold them together. Then just move the section back in front and mess with it 'til it looks right. Lol, yeah great instructions, huh? ;)

And to hide all those hairs I had sticking out... a flower clip! ;)

If you wanted to hide the top elastic, you could do a wrap around with the hair or use a smaller clip, I was pleased with the finished 'do and Alex loved it too. ;)

I actually think this style is kind of fancy and would look really pretty for a dance. ;)

Sunflower field. Not a new style... yet!

As I was going through last month's pictures to see if maybe I missed a hairstyle - I didn't, dang! - I found these. ;) This is out by the sunflower field behind our church. Okay, so just a ponytail, but she does have a new flower in her hair, which is going up in the etsy shop soon. ;)

This first picture made me laugh because she was scared of the bugs. She refused for quite a while to take her hands out of her pockets.
And then I just loved this last one... not sure why, I just really like it. ;)
Okay, thanks for visiting another off-topic post... actual hair posts coming soon!

I Heart Faces Before & After... and a new Flower Clip

So this iHeart Faces challenge for this week is before and after. It isn't about editing your photos, but about what you've learned on your journey. So, here goes.

These first two pics were at a time when I started really getting serious about photography. I was mostly doing point and click on auto focus. And there was absolutely zero post-editing.
Although I loved these pictures, I know I could do better now. I have been reading magazines and blogs. I've taken a few lessons/classes and enjoyed learning new things.
This picture I just took a few days ago and I just love how it came out;) I know I still have a long way to go! I have a better camera and have learned to go manual;)

I've also learned some basic editing and use Adobe Photoshop Elements. It has some wonderful features and is a great place to start. At least I think so;) I did very simple stuff here. I used the magic wand tool to select her skin, hair and the flower then created a new layer with them. I warmed up the tones a little, increasing the red and lightening the midtones. (I think I could have done this a little more). I set this layer at 65% opacity. I created a third layer with just her irises and used the burn tool on 21%(that was random, but worked great;) This layer I set at 85% opacity. I'm sure there is a simpler way to do these things, but this is what I ended up with;) And for this last pic, I cropped, simple as that;)
Beautiful!

And for you hair fanatics out there, this flower hat will be available during the upcoming holiday season;)