Ballet Hair with corkscrews.

Sorry sorry I took a mini blogging break - needed to take a breath or two and recover from the week of birthday madness!!!!! But to make up for all that - I have LOTS to report. First up Ballet Hair. This is a little variaton on Hettie's birthday hair - I don't have step by step instructions but i think you an probably work it out okay.


Start with size ponies - three on each side of head. I mixed things up a bit and did the lowest ponies the biggest, and decreased the size as they went forward so the front ponies were quite small as you can see from the corkscrew size. The middle ponies are where the buns are going to be.

Start by corkscrewing the front and back ponies so you will have the front two ponies with corkscrews and the bottom two in corkscrews and then the middle ones just loose. A quick recap on the corkscrew - work with damp hair, divide the pony in hald and twist each half in the same direction. Once you have two twisted halves, keeping hold of the bottom the pony, start twisting these two strands around each other in the opposite direction.

Once you've done that criss cross the front ponies and secure them into your middle pony and repeat with the back ponies so you ahve a nice diamond in the middle of the head - finish with two ballet buns. You can find more instructions on them here.

With the kids back at school, I've been hard at it at the machine AND one the bow front. I have these yummy bows listed as part of the Glamsquad Hot from the Oven Launch. Glamsquad is the accessory group I belong to on ebay - and if you are an accessory girl - look no further - bows, clips, totes, funky hats - you name it! You can see my bows here. And the rest of the fabuolous Bowznstuff Deconstructed set made from quite possibly THE yummiest fabric IN the world here
And for all you lucky bloggers - a sneak preview of som s VERY CUTE piece of Bowznstuff - premiering on ebay - veeeerrrry soon. Each year I like to do a funky Christmas themed set.
Here was 2006


And 2007


And for 2008......more to follow :)

Fairy Twinkletoes - the party!

What a day!!! Hettie's party has come and been and what fabulous time we had! I love to decorate, I love all the planning but I get a bit nervous about parties and the actual event - how to entertain the kids etc etc. Hettie has said for almost a year that for her party - which is the first she has had - she wanted a fairy to come to her house. And so it came that Fairy Twinkletoes arrived today in a dress that even made me gasp! It has been quite the build up, with Fairy Twinkletoes sending a personlized note to Hettie some weeks before the party and even speaking to her on the phone a few days ago. It really was the most perfect party I could have imagined - Fairy Twinkletoes had the kids shrieking with delight - absolute pure joy! But the best part, Hettie really believed that a real live fairy who could do real magic had come to visit her and that she (Hettie) did some magic too. It really was priceless! For all you Melbournite Aussies, if are are looking for the ultimate Fairy - Twinkletoes is the one! The whole party was enchanting.
Here is the birthday girl
The Fairy Circle was a BIG hit!
I asked some of Loughie's friends to help me out - they fitted the little fairies out with tiara's, dangle earings, marabou scarves, sparkle nailpolish and sparkle hairspray - I don't know who enjoyed it more...the little girls or the big ones!
Here is Hettie receiving her winds, wand and tiara - Hettie was enchanted.

The captivated audience
Hettie helping out with some magic
The happy customers!
And of course I'm sure you are all dying to see a close up of the party do! I knew Hettie woudl be receiving her tiara from Twinkletoes so I wanted something that would work well with that.
So we went with the criss cross corkscrews from the other day and some extra criss cross twists at the back.
Start with 6 piggies - two small ones at the front, two small ones at the nape of the neck, and bigger ones in the middle. Do you corkscrews at the front and attach them into the big middle piggies with elastics. Then take the tiny piggies at the back and twist one and cross it over to the opposite big piggie and repeat - you end up with a nice diamond in the middle of the head. Alternatively you could do the two little piggies at the back as corkscrews. Finish with messy piggies and you have a hairdo fit for a fairy!

Curl Chronicals, fun on the farm and some corkscrews.

So today is the last of the curl chronicals while I take a little break and wait for some new tools to try out to arrive. The methods I've covered so far are
1. Rag curls - which produce just fabulous spirals - really really great. And the best part they are super cheap - they ain't called 'rag' curls for nothing. On the topic of the rag curl, check out these little curly tops here.
2. My 80's hair devices - produce fabulous curls but unfortunately have not been seen since cira 1986.
3. The foam curler - produce a nice soft bouncy curl, not so spiral like but with lots of bounce.
4. The traditional foam roller, again a nice soft curl.
5. The twirlie.

Those of you who are fond of making little worms in hair will know the twistie well. WARNING - these twisties can result in an almost out of control frizz if not approached with caution. I just did one in Hettie's hair - quite a think one - you could easily make it twice this amount of hair. you can see how it came out, almost like a dreadlock. But they are easy to do and all you require is an elastic - soft thick ones work best. Just grab your hair - damp hair as always works best - and start twisting and twisting until the hair doubles up on itself. Once it is well wound up, secure with your thick elastic. Keep doing these all over the head and in the morning - you WILL have curls!
This is what it looked like once it had just been taken out.

And here it is separated out a bit.

We are just coming to the end of a 2 week school break and we've been trying to get out and about a bit, enjoying the better weather - here in Australia we are coming into a beautiful Spring. On Wednesday we headed down to my Aunt's farm to feed the....ahem Alpacas!

Here is my Aunt with the kids

And enjoying some Farm Fun!

And finally a lovely simple but very effective do. I could have added this to my pigtail challenge. Start with 4 ponies - two bigger ones at the back and two smaller ones at the front. Wet the two front piggies with a water spray and start your corkscrew. Divide the hair in half and twist both halves in one direction. Then wind each of these twists around each other in the opposite direction. Secure with an elastic. Then criss cross your corksrews over and use elastics to secure them into your piggies. Or you can be like me and live on the edge and not secure your corkscrews before you put them into the piggie. Two messy piggies and you are done. I really really like the look of this - it fulfills all my requirements - looks special - ie not your everyday hairstyle. It has a lovely line. And it looks sort of Princessy.

Ballet Hair

Last day of ballet for the term so I thought I'd best pull out something super dooper - but what to do, what to do.....I have been somewhat obsessed with The Story of a Princess and her hair's heart do - you can see it here. So I thought I'd give that a whirl - not quite as heart like partly due to a lack of length and partly I think I needed to start the pony lower but not to mind- it was just the kind of style I was after :) I finished it with a Bowznstuff Korker right up there on top and a messy pony at the nape of the neck.

I did my heart with twists going into the pony but you can just leave it flat or you could so something else on top. So T-part with twists (instructions here) into a pony pretty far back on the head - if you dont' have alot of length to play with you need to get that pony as far back as you can - mine was a little high up. Leave some hair at the back looose. Then divide the pony in half and do two corkscrews. (instructions here). Just that alone would make a pretty cute do! But no in my quest for a great ballet do we were only a fraction of the way there.

Follwing along with the instructions from Princess Hair you then catch the two corkscrews into a low pony at the nape of the neck - this is what you make you heart out of.

Next you get a needle with a big eye and thread some thin riboon through. In order to form you heart and attach it to the head you need to literally sew the corkscrew on in place. Catch the end of the ribbon in the elastic at the bottom and then go round and under the corkscrew right the way round the head - shaping it as you go.
So you end up with a cool heart (well sorta in my case) shape on the back of the head.
I then finished off with a messy pony and popped a Bowznstuff Korker the top - result - mad cool ballet hair!

How to do Ballet Hair and Cindy Brady corkscrew twist pigtails

Lots to report on today! First up a new tutorial on another ballet style but on the way to it there are several cute possibilities for everyday styles.

Start off with a T-part at the front so that you have two sections left loose - these will form the twists. The centre part the back section of the hair and do two high piggies.

Now you are going to do twists with the front section. Brush the hair neatly off the face and then start twisting inwards. Once you get just past the elastic of the piggie, stop and secure it onto the pigtail with an additional elastic. Now you could stop there, twists with piggies - pretty cute hey!

Now this would work just as well with braids but today I am going to do what i call a rope but I think the other name is cooler - the corkscrew! To start your corkscrew divide the pigtail into two sections and one at a time twist each section IN THE SAME DIRECTION. It may take a little practice to hold onto one while you twist the other, but after a while its a cinch. Now the trick of the rope/corkscrew is to twist the two sections in the OPPOSITE direction to the one in which you twisted your two sections. So if you twited the two sections to the right then you must wind the two around each other to the left - otherwise you will unravel. I find a handy hint here is to keep a firm hold of the bottom of your two individual twists and just keep passing them over each other. At first it will look a bit messy but as you keep going it will start to twist up nicely. The temptation is to move your hand up to the top of the piggie in order to get a nice neat twist but when you do this the danger is that your individuals will unravel. Once you get to the bottom, keep on passing over so you really wind our corkscrew up. That way it has a bit of flexibility when it works it way out a bit when you put your elastic on the bottom.

So there you go, another cute style - twists into piggies with corkscrews!

However it was ballet today so time for a ballet style. Again this would work really well with braids. Take one piggie and place it on top of the head, winding it over the top and under the piggie on the other side. Depending on how long the hair is you might be able to go for a few wraps. Hettie's only just reaches round the other piggie. Repeat with the other piggie but this time go under and over the piggie on the other side. Secure with bun pins or bobby pins will work for this too.

Now as Hettie's hair isn't all that long, it looked a bit messy in the middle - this doesn't happen with longer hair as you have more hair to fill up the hole. However, as all good hair people will tell you, when faced with a little messy bit, the best solution is disguise! So I popped a bow right in the middle and it now only hid the messy middle but looked cute too - a win win!

Hettie wore her hair in with the piggie tails down today and I rediscovered on of my most coveted items as a child. Seeing that I make bows I don't buy very many store bought accessories for Hettie. However when I saw these I couldnt' resist - we called them bobbles when I was little and oh how I wanted some. A girl in my class had an entire colour range and every day I would look at them and wish wish wish I had bobbles too! I must say I am loving them with this twisty piggie hair style - takes me straight back to the 70's - very Cindy Brady esque!