Bantu Knots

This was a video request tutorial. I have a list of hairstyles that I need to shoot and a list of videos you've asked for me to make. I'm always willing to add more to that list. Feel free to let me know what you are wanting to see. Just be patient with me, it may take a little while.

For those new to the concept of Bantu knots let me give you a tad bit of a history lesson. Bantu knots originated in Africa they were used to control the very curly hair of the Bantu tribes women. They were later used to loosen and "reform" overly curly hair. When the hair is stretched with heavy product to help weigh the hair down (or stretch it) a looser curl is achieved after Bantu knots have dried. You can now see women of all races wearing Bantu Knots as a style of there own and then letting them out to achieve a "no heat" curl.

The most important part I think in using them as a means to create curl is to be mindful of your parting sections. And the size of the space you use for each knot. Think about it this way... all the hair that is next to the head will not be curled, so the farther that stretches the less hair that will be curled. You want to use smaller sections, but not too small of you will have REALLY curls hard to manage hair. Your partings need to be placed in a way that helps to not make them too definite. It becomes hard to hide them when you don't think about that before hand.
We made this into a video for you. Hopefully this helps. I do mention in the video that I don't like the consistency of the curl. What I mean by that is that it is not the same size curl throughout the strand of hair. And it does more of a wave and twist while curling because of the twisting action. Its still not my favorite, but that doesn't mean it can't or won't be your favorite. I did love how long the curls help up and lasted.



So I kind of relaxed ours a little too far. They still look great and we had a lot of curl to work with, but I found working with that much curl to be a real challenge. I should probably do this again just to get experience working with that much beautiful curl. The last photo in this post was how we styled her hair after the Bantu Knots were let down. The curl lasted well into the day, and the night and I had to have her take a bath to get it back under control before school on Monday, so this is really one of the best longest lasting no heat curls I have found.

Thanks for visiting and if you have suggestions of requests you'd like Beans and me to add to our list please feel free to leave a comment here or drop a line on our Facebook Page. Have a happy week.

Woody And Buzz Birthday Party

Every once in a while I share my other passions with you guys, mostly because I think I have a few good ideas to share and hope that someone else might be able to use my ideas. Actually it started after sharing Beans last birthday party. I've been told on more than one occasion that I should build a business planning parties, but I wouldn't know where to begin. And party's to me are like Halloween to me. I love to take the opportunity to really do something above and beyond for my kids.

This party was way back in September, but its been on my list of things I need to get posted for a while. This party was a HUGE HIT!!! I could do this party for every party here forward and everyone would be happy. And I have to be honest... I didn't put a lot of work into ANY OF IT!!!

First we have the invitations. And yes I did get this idea from someone else. I'd love to link them, but I didn't bookmark this idea originally. I saw it and stored it in the back of my mind and used it for this particular party. I wish I could link the original person. If it is you or if you know someone else who has done this please link them in the comment field. It really was/is a cute idea. We had fun with these invitations. I printed them at home, so it was cheap.

When kids (mostly just cousins) showed up we had a badge and a cowboy hat for each of them. They wrote and decorated there badge as they desired. And a few colored on there hats. We got lucky with the hats being at the dollar store. His birthday is so close to Halloween it just worked out nicely.

We picked up some balloons and had balloons all around the yard. And my oldest son decorated a poster for little mans party. I love getting the other kids involved in decorating or doing something fun for the party this year we worked on this poster. THEY DID GREAT!!! I'm a very proud mom.

Little man has a milk allergy so we make his cake each birthday. I lack big time in being creative when it comes to cakes. I did one for my oldest one year for a Bakugan party that was A-Maze-ING!!!!! But that was pretty much the last cool cake I've been able to make. This was simple and we found the characters at the dollar store or they would have all just been Alien guys.

But the real part that made the party a huge hit was the rockets. What better way to have a Woody and Buzz party than to build a rocket fit for Buzz Lightyear himself. So that is exactly what we did. I had my dad help me with the rocket launcher. He's great at building things! So I had him make the launcher and he brought over his air compressor for the party. We have a manual pump so the kids can play with this without a compressor too. That just made it nice and fast for everyone to launch a lot while the party was going.

How it worked was the kids made there rockets. We had some PVC pipe the same size as the rocket launcher so they could wrap paper around it and design there own rockets. We had markers, stickers, play-dough to add weight on the end and lots of paper and tape out so they could decorate and design as much as they wanted. The stickers were Woody and Buzz stickers to fit the theme of the party. Parents helped and got building there own rockets too. Once they saw that this launcher could send rockets clear over the house and down the road a competition started among everyone. It was a blast!

I put a video together hopefully you can see how well it launches. I think we made Buzz Lightyear proud with our rocket making skills.




Yes that last one was full of confetti. A little invention my sister came up with. Thanks for letting me take a hair break and share this idea with you. If you are interested in building a rocket launcher these are the instructions I used. You can find them at this link. I think with everything needed for the launcher I spent just over $20 and that included five extra pieces of PVC for the table to build rockets.

So again this wasn't a very costly party, but it was a lot of fun. If you use this idea I'd love to see pictures from your party. Either link them in the comment field or post to our facebook page. Thanks for stopping by.

Check Your Head

I was reading a great article the other day from Fitness magazine. In this article the writer quotes Mona Gohara, M.D., "Recruit your hairstylist to scope out your scalp each time you visit. Tell your hairdresser to look for any sores that are bleeding or crusting or don't seem to be healing."

You'd be surprised the things we learn about in school. We spend a lot of time studying disease and such of the scalp. We don't get any kind of degree in the field, but we know a thing or two (wink wink). Know that your stylist can not diagnose you with any illness/affliction, but we see moles and psoriasis and as we get to know you and see you often we can notice changes that may need medical attention.


I had a sweet 24 year old gal in my chair last night and I asked her about a scar she had on her head. She told me about HOW she got the scar and then asked how big it was. I told her it was about a quarter in length and the thickness of the back of my comb. She was surprised. She said that was bigger than she thought (and that is still very small). But because it was hidden in her hair she had never seen the scar. She was often asked about it when having her hair cut. It made me think of this article and I wanted to share my thoughts with you all. We (your stylists) see things you don't get the opportunity to see. I thought the article gave good advise in asking your stylist to inform you of those things if seen. Most stylists WON'T tell you unless you ask. So... just ask.

Waterfall Braid VIDEO/Tutorial

Yeah for video help!!! One of the videos you've asked for is on our waterfall braid. So with a little help from the honey this weekend we were able to get you a video for this hairstyle.

Hair is slightly damp when you start this braid. I say that in the video, but I didn't actually spray the hair. You are mostly using the water to help with fly away hairs and in smoothing this hairstyle out.



I started my last semester of school this last week. Hence why I didn't post until Friday. This is going to be a very intense semester at school as I am preparing for state boards and preparing to get out into the real word. Be patient with me on the weeks I fall behind or slow to post. I will have new ideas and posts for you at least once a week.

Have a great week and don't forget we like to know what you think, so leave us some comment love. Let us know if this video was useful. And let us know of any other videos you'd like to see from Beans and myself.

Hearts

I'm betting this one has been done elsewhere before. And probably even better than mine, but with Valentines just around the corner I wanted to throw a few more fun heart hairstyles together for shorter hair. This one I thought up last night and when I realized how simple it was I (kind of) think its probably been done before.

Step 1: Start with three loose ponytails on top.

Step 2: Pull the hair through the ponytail towards her face.

Step 3: Divide the hair in half and secure together towards the face using one half of the middle ponytail and one half of the side ponytail. You will repeat this for both sides of the center ponytail and you will have one free ponytail left on each of the sides.

Step 4: Secure the ponytail behind the first steps ponytail to be loose and look like a heart shape.

The sides will be the only part you have trouble (if any) with getting them to lay flat looking like a heart. Super easy and super cute! Hope you wear this one for your Valentines hair celebrations. Have a great weekend!

Lovely Ladies

Over my winter break from school I was very fortunate to spend time with so many people that get neglected when I am in school. I don't think it is a secret that my best friend is Becky from Babes in Hairland. I think no one gets more neglected than she does while I am in school. This was a great break. I think she and I hung out three different times. This is HUGE, because we don't live near each other at all. This break was VERY special because I got to meet a long time internet friend for the first time ever. I got to meet Jen from All Things Ribbon.

We have kind of a fun unique friendship (the three of us). Jen is really good friends with Becky's sister and Becky got to meet Jen a while back while traveling through her neck of the woods. But this was the first time I ever got to meet this sweet woman!!!

Sadly I got a tooth infection the same time she was around and my face was swollen at the time. I was also on medication that made me feel loopy and tired. I spent a lot of the night just hoping I didn't say anything stupid or throw up on any one's shoes! Despite not being at 100% it was one of the best things ever. Meeting other bloggers out there and especially after the VERY long relationship over the internet.

I've been pretty loyal to Jen and her talent of bow making over the years. I honestly can't even tell you of a bow I've seen that comes close to her bows quality! We've done a few things charitable together and I LOVE how generous Jen is. She has a HUGE HEART!!! When I called for help with my Auction for Ash, she was one of the people who answered the call. Lets not even get into cry-fest conversations we've had back and forth working out details for caring for other little girls who needed a pick-me-up in my life. Jen is amazing, talented and hilarious! I had no idea of how hilarious until we went out to dessert last week.

Let me just share that we got roped into playing Bingo at this restaurant we were at. Jen won BIG! She won a rainbow colored bath loofah. We laughed into the night and challenged her to make a bow out of it. I'd love to see what her creative mind could come up with. As we sat at the table eating dessert I am pretty sure she "envisioned" a half a dozen different bow ideas or color combinations (not with the loofah, but with EVERYTHING). This gal sees everything as a possibility for a bow.

I can't wait to hang out again with these lovely ladies! Thank you for getting me out all medicated and swollen. I just hope I represented myself as well and didn't make a fool of myself.

Knot Head Tutorial

I'm not sure I can keep calling these hair tutorials for short hair too much longer. Beans hair grows so fast! It is still pretty short, but we are getting closer every day to being able to pull her hair back into a ponytail.

FIRST TUTORIAL of 2012!!! I am so excited. I am not sure if this tutorial has been done before. I know it is a new one for us. I've seen this one used for some fancy updo hairstyles. But most people add hair on both sides. I am adding hair only on the knot end of this style. Its more simple that way and it just makes for a pretty embellishment on the side of her style.

This is actually a very grown up hairstyle. ANY age could pull this look off and love it. Super cute! We made a video for you on this one. That is one of my new goals for this year. To have more videos accessible for you all. I will still have photo picture step-by-step tutorials as well, but I know the videos help, so we will be doing more videos. ((Hopefully.))

This is a closer look at how the knots look in her hair. Remember that you can control where the finished braid hangs by control over the hair you add in. Its really easy to let this look saggy if you don't make sure and have the tension on the added in hair right. Just practice it if it gives you problems. You can do it!


Hope you like this one. The video took forever to upload, but it was worth the changes to look smooth like this. Hopefully we will have a lot more videos to come. The hair style itself is easy enough to do as a fast hairstyle and cute enough for all ages. Have a great week and a great New Year.