Friday, January 25, 2013

Zigzag part, sideways French braid pigtails

This was a really simple hairstyle and looked so sweet.



I gave Meg a zigzag part all the way from forehead to neck. I French braided both sides of the part, but I only pulled new strands into the braid from the center of her head, never on the outside strands by the ears. (So for the braid pictured above, I only pulled new strands of hair in when I was crossing a strand on the left, not when I was crossing a strand on the right.) This made the braid turn on its side.



Bonus super-messy playroom for your viewing pleasure!


*I don't like to pull Meg's hair too tightly, both for her comfort and to avoid damaging her hair. I only heat treat (blowdry or use the curling iron) and use product on rare special occasions. You'll get a more polished look if you do these things, but I'd rather she be comfy and protect her hair while she's so young. I think she still looks darling even with things a bit looser.*


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Thursday, January 24, 2013

Brand Spanking New Playroom!

On New Years Day, I was struck with the wild urge to rearrange a few rooms in our house. We started with a large family room that held a couple couches, the TV, the grownups' bookshelves, and a few toys, and a small playroom that held the rest of the toys and had a few designated play centers set up in it (felt board, light table, dress-up wardrobe, etc.). We don't watch much TV, and we do a heck of a lot of playing, so it seemed silly that the largest room in the house was dedicated to the former and the smallest room in the house the latter. I also decided I wanted to move Meg's indoor art supplies downstairs. They were formerly in the kitchen, which worked well, but I wanted to use the bookshelf they were living on to house toys both kids can play with while dinner is being prepared. I figured the now-obsolete TV stand would be the perfect place for Meg to work on art projects when it's too cold to use our garage art studio.

The family room before (I neglected to take a picture of the TV before we started moving things around.):


The playroom before:


Now, because this was New Years Day, all the Christmas decorations were still scattered around the house, the kitchen was a mess from holiday baking and entertaining, and I was home alone with the kids. Perfect time to try moving large pieces of furniture, no?

During:


So I, uh, managed to get the couch wedged into the hallway and couldn't get it any further. When my husband got home, it actually took the two of us lifting and shoving as hard as we could, and also temporarily removing a doorknob, to get it into the right room. It only took a few days to get everything in place after that.

Playroom after:


There are still a few aesthetic changes I'd like to make. I want to hang two more matching clocks under the black one pictured and set them to different time zones (probably pacific and central where our extended families live). I have a wire and clips to hang above the art table for Meg to display her work. We need to install a chair rail around the perimeter of the room. I've found some cool maps of Middle Earth, Jurassic Park, Neverland, and Narnia that I think would be fun additions to our US and world maps. But for now everything functions. The kids love all the space to spread out, and my husband and I love that the TV is no longer the main focus of the room.

Details:
The old Ikea TV stand is the perfect height for Meg to kneel or sit at and create. Her art supplies are handy.


Homemade light table and transparent materials in jars and drawers.


This whole area can easily be sectioned off with the Superyard so Meg can play with tiny-pieced toys without fear of the baby swallowing any.


Record/CD player and our favorite CDs.


Easel and buckets of chalk, dry erase markers, and colored pencils.




Doll houses (the giant one was a pristine handmedown from a family friend) and dress-up wardrobe.


Homemade felt board.




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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Double puffy braid "headband," fishtail braids

I wish the lighting had been better and my girl more cooperative for photos, because this turned out to be a really cute hairstyle. Meg is insisting that every hair style have two braids right now, so I've been trying to get creative on top to keep things interesting.







I made a row of puffy braids going horizontally along the front of her head in a faux headband. Then I made a second row behind and parallel to the first. I took the tail from the first row and pulled it into the last pony, then I took that final tail and pulled it down into one of two fishtail braids.

*I don't like to pull Meg's hair too tightly, both for her comfort and to avoid damaging her hair. I only heat treat (blowdry or use the curling iron) and use product on rare special occasions. You'll get a more polished look if you do these things, but I'd rather she be comfy and protect her hair while she's so young. I think she still looks darling even with things a bit looser.*


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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Uneven strand braids, triple ponies with split center





This was our first fancy hairstyle on a preschool day, and you can see that we didn't manage a straight part. The rest turned out nicely, though. I pulled back the front of the hair into three small ponies. I split the center one and joined each half of it to one of the small side ponies. Then they each joined pigtail braids made with three uneven strands. Finished it off with a couple of our flower clips, and we managed to make it out the door in time for school!

*I don't like to pull Meg's hair too tightly, both for her comfort and to avoid damaging her hair. I only heat treat (blowdry or use the curling iron) and use product on rare special occasions. You'll get a more polished look if you do these things, but I'd rather she be comfy and protect her hair while she's so young. I think she still looks darling even with things a bit looser.*


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Monday, January 21, 2013

Crossover twists, fishtail braids



For this style, I parted the hair all the way from forehead to neck. I took two front sections and twisted them back, crossed them over each other, and continued twisting down to meet the rest of the hair in pigtails. I added a small clip where they intersection to define the crossover a bit more. I finished the pigtails in two fishtail braids. Fishtail braids are the very simplest braids to do. There are a million great tutorials for them on YouTube. Take a moment to have a peek, and you won't regret it.



Aren't these tulle pom pom bows cute? I found them for just a few dollars on Target's website.



*I don't like to pull Meg's hair too tightly, both for her comfort and to avoid damaging her hair. I only heat treat (blowdry or use the curling iron) and use product on rare special occasions. You'll get a more polished look if you do these things, but I'd rather she be comfy and protect her hair while she's so young. I think she still looks darling even with things a bit looser.*


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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Puffy braids, crossover, messy buns, and twists

The first day that Meg (3) asked me for "fancy hair," this is what I came up with. I've seen these called "puffy braids" on hair blogs. I did two parallel rows of them on top, crossed their tails over in back, and finished with messy bun pigtails. For the messy buns, you just secure the hair into a regular looped bun with an elastic, then scrunch the hair up in your hand and wrap another elastic around it to hold the scrunching in place. Very technical stuff, this is. ;) Meg has a partially grown out stacked bob, so she has a shorter layer of hair underneath. This hair was too short to catch into the pigtails, so I divided it in two pieces and twisted them up the head and secured with clips under the buns.





*I don't like to pull Meg's hair too tightly, both for her comfort and to avoid damaging her hair. I only heat treat (blowdry or use the curling iron) and use product on rare special occasions. You'll get a more polished look if you do these things, but I'd rather she be comfy and protect her hair while she's so young. I think she still looks darling even with things a bit looser.*


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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Tea Time

The witching hour hits our house hard nearly every day. From about an hour before my husband gets home from work until dinner is set on the table, the kids tend to be cranky, clingy, and bored. I've tried giving them snacks and setting up crafts with limited success, but it's still an unpleasant time of day. It always seems such a shame that, no matter how nice a day we've had, it has to end in tears.

Late one afternoon I was speaking with a friend from England who said she'd have to be going soon because it was almost time for her tea, and it got me thinking. The kids were playing blocks downstairs, so I sneaked up to the kitchen, prepared a couple cups of herbal tea, set out some bread I'd made with Meg earlier that day and a small pot of honey butter, put some instrumental music on the record player, turned off the lights, lit a candle, and invited the kids upstairs.

Excuse the chalk dust gracing our chalkboard tablecloth.


And it worked! Meg was thrilled to have her own china cup of real tea, and they both gobbled up the buttered bread with relish. We've made tea time a daily ritual for weeks now, and it's still met with pleasure by both kids every time. We sit in companionable quiet and are able to meet Dad with smiles when he walks in the door from work.





Sometimes I switch up the type of tea I offer or the snacks. Sometimes I do a stove simmer instead of the candle. Sometimes I read aloud from our nursery rhyme book instead of turning on the music. I always try to keep the mood quiet, pleasant, and calm.

Baking quick bread earlier that day.




Tea time has become a lovely ritual for us.


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Friday, January 18, 2013

February's Bookshelf

I love February. The weather may be rather grim here, but the month is packed full of interesting holidays and observances: Groundhog Day (2), Chinese New Year sometimes (10 this year), National Inventors Day (11), Valentine's Day (14), Presidents Day (18 this year), Leap Day sometimes (29 - not this year).

Some great birthdays: Rosa Parks (4), Babe Ruth (6), Laura Ingalls Wilder and Charles Dickens (7), Abraham Lincoln (12), Susan B. Anthony (15), George Washington (22).

The board game Monopoly first hit stores in February (6), Hershey's chocolate was founded (9), and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood first aired (19). February is also Black History Month.

In honor of all these special days, I did our monthly bookshelf rotation today. I like to do it a couple of weeks in advance, so we can begin to talk about these days before they're upon us.



Our shelf consists of books of love, My First Little House books, and books pertaining to Black History in different times and places.

Valentine's Reading
How Do I Love You - A simple rhyming board book with sweet, colorful illustrations.

I Love You the Purplest - A story of a mother's love for her two boys. Addresses the concept of a parent loving all their children equally in individual ways.

Grandfather's Lovesong - A grandfather's love for his grandson expressed with poetic imagery.

One Zillion Valentines - Two boys decide to make valentines for everyone in their neighborhood.

I Like Me - One of my favorite books, featuring a little pig listing all the wonderful things she loves about herself.

Snuggle Puppy - We're Boynton fanatics. This book is a cheery rhyming "song" of a parent's love for their little "snuggle puppy."

Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading 
We're working on acquiring the whole "My First Little House" series. They're beautiful books and very faithful to the originals in plot, characters, writing style, and illustrations. They've got a soft, gentle feel, and my kids and I love to curl up and read about "Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary and baby Carrie and their good old bulldog Jack." Wonderful introduction to Wilder's books for the youngest audiences.
Summertime in the Big Woods
The Deer in the Wood
Dance at Grandpa's

Black History Reading
Uncle Jed's Barbershop - Set in the 1920s in the US.
Over the Green Hills - Set in rural South Africa.
Tell Me a Story, Mama - Set in the present day with memories of Mama's life.

These are books that have already existed in our home library for many years and are well-loved. This year, we've also added the new titles: The Story of Rosa Parks, The Valentine Bears, Abe Lincoln's Hat, Bringing in the New Year, and Substitute Groundhog. I'm eager to see how my children take to these new stories.

In the past, we've kept our seasonal reading, music, toys, and treasure baskets on the entry credenza, but we've recently done a bit of furniture rearranging and now have a shelf of toys in the kitchen to keep the kids entertained while meals are made. The seasonal books, as well as Meg's daily fun box activities are now stored here, too.




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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Perfect Hairbow Storage

Now that Meg's finally allowing me to style her hair, and she's rapidly acquiring a large collection of mama-made hair pretties, we needed to do something about the hairbow storage sitch. I've tried a number of things in the past, but nothing was quite right. I wanted to be able to display all the bows visually, by color, and have the flexibility to easily alter things as her collection changed. Oh, and I wanted it to be free, because I live in happy rainbow unicorn land. So this is what I ended up with:



I had an extra curtain rod and clip rings stored in a closet. Our previous house had a lot more windows than this one does. I simply grabbed a few ribbon scraps in a rainbow of colors, clipped them onto the rings, and hung them on the rod.

Excuse the blur. I was taking these pictures while holding Mr. Wiggles.




For the headbands, I clipped a narrow ribbon on top of a wider one and poked brads through them both at intervals. This formed loops that I could slide the headbands through.

*A note on ribbon choice for the hairbow-holding strands: I found grosgrain ribbon in 3/8"-3/4" to be the perfect ribbon for our clips. The grosgrain provides good grip. The thinner ribbons didn't have enough surface area to hold the alligator clips, and the wider ribbons were too wide to hold the pinchy clips.

We've been using this holder for a few weeks now, and I really love it! I think we've finally stumbled upon our perfect storage solution here.


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Friday, January 11, 2013

Simple Flower Clippies

My three year old has become very enamored with having "Fancy Nancy hair" lately. We've been going through hairstyle blogs and trying out tons of new styles. She's been a brush-and-go kinda girl for so long, I realized we have very few hair lovelies. A quick trip to Michael's and a nice, long nap from the baby remedied that.



I found some scrapbooking embellishment flowers in the bargain area of Michael's. $2/12 flowers. I'm not sure what they're made of. They're sturdier than typical paper flowers, but I don't think they're made of fabric. I gathered 1 3/4" single prong alligator clips (purchased in bulk years ago from an Etsy seller who is no longer in business, it appears), 3/8" grosgrain ribbon, scissors, and my hot glue gun.

Everyone seems to have their own manner of attaching the ribbon to the clips, but here's the way I've always liked to do it:



1. Cut a piece of ribbon about 1-1.5" longer than the top of your clip.
2. Put a dab of hot glue on the top prong that you pinch to open the clip and attach the ribbon, leaving 1/2 - 3/4" hanging off the end.
3. Wrap that excess underneath the prong and attach with another dab of hot glue.
4. Smooth the ribbon down the length of the clip. Pinch the clip open, wrap the ribbon underneath, and secure with a dab of hot glue. You can either hold the clip open while the glue dries or prop it open with a pencil.
5. Attach your decoration to the top of the clip. I put the flowers right near the open end of the clip on these ones.
Done!

My cooperative little buddy woke up just as I was finishing the last of 36 clips.



And where was my little miss during all this, you ask? Right by my side, working hard on some secret project of her own at her desk. She declined my invitation to make a few clips herself, insisting, "I just really need to get some work done, Sweetheart." :D




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