Miss Suzanne's pin curl bun and birthdays.

Pin curls, the essence of 1940's glamour and not suprisingly given the era, a popular choice for Tap dancing hairstyles - bet you can't guess where we've been the past few weeks - dancing comps. I've always admired the pin curl bun when little swarovski laden girls pass by me in the dancing world, and though I have always theoretically understood how it works, it wasn't until I observed Miss Suzanne (who really is much more of a hair guru than I) whipping up a little pin curl bun that I finally plucked up the courage to try it out. And guess what it really is quite easy, just like everyone always told me - now I feel a bit of a pin curl whiz, I might branch out into some more advanced pin curling techniques. The pin curl bun is just the cutest little updo, pop a hairnet over it and you've got a fab dancing style or a marvelous flower girl hairstyle and just a touch of fancy for the everyday. You start with a high pony - this particlar pony could have been even a tad higher - I always struggle to get curly tops' hair up when its been flying free.


Anyway once you've got your pony, take a small section of hair - you can experiment with how much you use depending on the length of hair - Hettie's hair is quite long now and this amount made nice big fat curls. Lots of little ones would also look fab.


Get yourself a bobby pin ready (I used these fab new pink ones I picked up so you could see them, but ordinarily you'd use ones that blend with the hair.

Wrap the hair around your finger until you have a nice curl.


Now here is the slightly tricky part. You need to pin the curl to the head. You can either remove your finger before or after you put the pin in. I find it easier to put the pin in whilst my finger is still in there - when you first slide the pin it it might feel like it won't go but just give it a good push you will have a nicely secured curl. Try not to wrap the hair too tightly around your finger or you will have trouble getting it out again.



Continue sectioning the hair and pinning it down - if you divide your hair effectively you should end up with curls spalyed out right round the pony in a bun.


Now doesn't that look nice!


You can decorate with bows or flower or little sparkly pins.


It looks nice too if you curl only part of the hair and leave the rest hanging down like this.


Plus as an added bonus, if you do it wet and leave the curls in over night or even for the day, you'll end up with big bouncy curls when you take them out - cool hey! Thanks Miss Suzanne!

Which brings me to the second part of the post - birthdays. Yesterday was Hettie's birthday! SIX! A big highlight of our day was opening the very big box of AG Girl dolls clothes which my friend Robin of Tallulahsophie made especially for Hettie - I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful they all are - Hettie, myself AND my mum had SO much fun! I can' t wait to share them all with you but for the time being here is a photo of Hettie wearing her requested Doggie suit cuddling Molly in some of HER new threads!

French Braid ballet bun hair how to

Okey dokey, time for a new hairstyle - actually I can't take credit for this one - Hettie's dance teacher's daughter turned upwith this fab creation and let me say I was impressed. Hettie was all too pleased to emulate her idol! So to start with you need to section off the front of the hair and do a French TOP braid across the head. It is a rare moment that I do French braids on Hettie's hair - curly hair can make French Braids hard work - but if her hair is all clean and shiny I am good to go. For the top style braid, rather than braiding under you just braid over. There are lots of French braid tutorials out there so I'll point you here if you need further instruction.



So after the French braid you already have a great hairstyle. But it was ballet day so we needed to keep going. I stopped the French braid about three quaters the way across her head. Then you take a thin piece of ribbon and thread it through a large needle. Start at the elastic end and criss cross the ribbon right along the braid and then back down again. How pretty does that look!




You then sweep the rest of the hair into a pony. Again pop the braid into the pony and a great hairstyle. But we weren't finished yet!


Next up you wind the pony hair into a bun and secure it with a pin - you can find further how to do a ballet bun instructions here.


Next you take the braid and wrap in around the bun.


After than you finish the bun using the how to do a ballet bun instructions - pop in any decorations and you are ready to impress your dance teacher and be the envy of all the other ballet mums!


And after ballet or if you don't want to do the whole bun thing you have just about the cutest hairstyle around!

Ballet Hair and Villains!

What's new at Bownstuff? Well quite a bit as it happens - in order new set and new hair. The latest from the Bowznstuff machine room (ha ha) is the very Villainous Set! You can see more here.


And time as well for some ballet hair. You know when I first started doing ballet hair, I thought to myself, how long can this last? How many ballet styles are there?? Well me of little faith there are MANY! To start this one, I divided the hair roughly in two with the majority of the hair in the top pony and about 1/4 hanging free at the back. I did this roughly as people with curly haired children will KNOW that a part if very seldom a straightforward affair. I often watch in wonderment as straight hair is parted with a swift yet deft flick of the comb - curly hair just 'usually' isn't this way - it sticks together in its curls - it doesn't want to be parted. Some days I am up to the challenge of forming the perfect straight part, others I am not - for this one I was not BUT the great thing about curly hair is it is VERY forgiving so oftentimes, even if you don't have a straight part - you can't tell. So to get back to business, a 3/4 to a 1/4 part with the 3/4 being on top of the head. You take the majority of your hair and tie in in a top pony, right up there on top of the head..ONLY you dont' pull the last round through. The last time you pull the hair through the elastic, you leave a little bunch on top. I am fond of leaving these little bunches and I do them LOTS. For a start Hettie's hair is getting longer and lots of times you will want shorter than the actual length showing, so these bunches are a great way to do that. Also they give height and a well.....cool sort of look. It's sort of like a messy piggie but not messy.


Next you take the part of the hair at the back and twist it up towards the pony on top. Twist a bit bast the bunch and then secure the whole thing with a second elastic.
Doesn't that look nice?

Later in the day when we moved from jazz and tap to ballet, I simply toook the hair that was hanging down and twisted it around the bunch - a GREAT way to do an easy ballet bun. I secured it with pins and a net and we were all set with a fancy shamancy ballet do
But before that I added a barrette of flowers and we were good to go for jazz and tap.




This would look equally fab with straight hair, or you might want to add some curls. A versatile do that works as an up and a down do and adds a touch of fancy to the everyday!

Fabrications and Ballet Hair

I had alot of fun this week, diving headlong into my fabric stash and coming up covered in more than a few threads, finding a few pieces of long lost fabric, marvelling at what on earth I could have been thinking when I bought some and ending up at the end of it all with a big smile in my face, clutching some real gems - collected from all over the world, some old, some new all fabricationally fabulous! You can see the strip work dress here , the knit set here, and the bows here


Also Ballet season is back and with that comes some more ballet hair. A simple take on side buns. I started with low piggies that sit just on top of the ear - I find these super cute for messy piggies and they also work well for buns.

Start with a middle part with a t-part at the front as shown. Make two low piggies.

And then take the two front sections and make a small braid and pop the piggies inot ballet buns. More detailed instructions for that can be found here.


Once they are all pinned up, criss cross the braids at the front, wind them around the bun and pin them into place.


Add some bows and fluff and voila - cute side buns with a twist!


This parting also works well for the everyday - shown here with messy piggies with the braids pulled straight back rather than crossed over. The braid looped in with the messy piggies is particularly cute.

How to do a sock ballet bun also great for Princess Hair

When I first started posting sytles for ballet I thought..mmm you know there aren't all THAT many - but I have surprised myself. So today we are going to talk about the sock bun - great for ballet buns and also fantabulous for Cinderella and any Princess style hair really. You can buy "donuts" for this style - they look like this

but can be kinda pricey sometimes and you can make them from a sock!
The size of the sock will determine the size of the bun - this is an especially handy style for little girls who need ballet buns and who don't have much hair - in that case you could just use a stocking and make a really small donut in a colour similar to the hair - that way you can still get a really nice ballet bun. Today I used a pink and white sock - as that is what I had lying around.

To start with you need to cut the foot out so that you just have a tube.


Start rolling the sock up.

Keep going until you get almost to the top.


Then turn the sock back down on itself to make a donut.


Once you've done that you can get to work on your style. A high pony works really well for Cinderella styles but otherwise you can pop the pony anywhere you like. I have chosen to do a T-part this time - so the bulk of the hair is up in a high pony and there are two loose bits at the front.


I took one side and twisted it and secured it into the pony but left the other side free for later. There are loads of possibilities for the front part. You can pull it all up into the pony - you can do a side part at the front for a true Cinderella look, just really anything you like.


So once you have your pony in place you place your sock donut over it like so.]



Then you take an elastic and smooth the hair out over the sock and secure it in place with the elastic - try to choose a colour that will blend in.



Now with the next part you can be very neat or a bit messy. Take the hair and wrap it round you bun, you can either try to hide it by pinning it firmly in place or leave it a bit looser and make a feature of it like I have. If you are doing this style for a ballet performance or exam, i would recommend using gel and pinning the hair in place round the sock very neatly. Otherwise, you can fluff it out a bit for a real Princess look.
Then I took the last front part and wrapped in under the bun, twisted it round and pinned it into place. You could easily do this with both sides.
This is what it looks like from the top. If you were going to ballet you could pop a hairnet over the whole thing.

Today I finished off with a velvet ribbon around the bun and a tiara!