Avainsana: dutch braid

15 elokuun, 2014

Pictorials, pictorials

While the older sisters have been in school this week, my 3-year-old has been my hair model, and we’ve done some pictorials for you!

I’ve been asked so many times for tutorials on hairstyles! I decided to do step-by-step instructions on the two most popular hairstyles from my festival braiding: the star braid and the corset braid. (These two pictures are my two older girls)

In both of my festival braiding gigs this summer (I did another one last Saturday), I’ve had lots of printouts of different braids, but these two always catch the eye of my little customers, so I could probably do these in my sleep now.

THE STAR BRAID

. Start by making a little ponytail on top of the head

2. Divide the ponytail into two sections, then make two basic 3-strand braids

3. Do another little ponytail on the left, divide it into two and make two 3-strand braids

4. Take one of the braids from the left and some hair from the right, and combine them into a small ponytail on the right

5. Make a 3-strand braid with the hair in the right-ponytail

6. Take half of the rest of the hair, left one of the braids from step 2 and the braid from the right

7. Secure with an elastic and remove all other elastics (the dark ones in the picture)

8. Tie all the rest of the hair and small braids into the right and remove extra elastics.

THE CORSET BRAID

. Divide the hair into two

2-3. Do a 3-strand dutch braid on the right.

4. Do a 3-strand dutch braid on the left.

5. Thread a ribbon through one of the top stitches of the dutch braid. The easiest way is to use a topsy-tail, but you can also use your fingers or a bobby pin or something else

6. Thread the ribbon through the other side and back to the same side, going through every other stitch of the braid

7. Keep going from side to side as threading a shoe lace

8. Tie the two braids together and finish by tying a bow.

These two hairstyles are perfect for any beginner, they look much harder than they are, and always get lots of compliments.

I will be braiding again at Lasten Festarit Festival in Töölönlahti, Helsinki on Sunday 17.8. at 10-15h.

1 elokuun, 2014

Braiding marathon – part 2: festival stall

So last Saturday’s story continues at Skidit Festival. After doing all the wedding hairstyles, I rushed to Kallio in Helsinki. Skidit Festarit is a really nice children’ festival with lots of kids’ activities, music, food etc.

I got the idea for a festival braiding stall last summer when I went to some music festivals and noticed all the boring ponytails… But as I am only a self-taught braider, whose main experience is doing kids’ hair, the kids’ festival was the perfect place to try out how it would work.

It was a hot day (+30 degrees), but luckily I had a tent, so I was in the shade. It took about 15 minutes for the first person to stop for a braid, but after that, it was a constant queue for 5 hours!

At first, I had a few little girls, with very thin hair, but I managed at least to do a little lace braid with a ribbon or a quick heart, which looks good on everyone, and is easy to make even when the model is moving a lot.

When the queue started to be quite long, only girls with a lot of hair thought it was worth waiting, so my job got a little bit easier 😉

Some little girls were very specific on what they wanted, many parents wanted something to keep the hair out of the face, some girls chose their favourite colour ribbon, and some gave me free hands… So it didn’t get boring!

A national news paper’s website had published an interview of me the day before, so some girls had already been on my Instagram or Facebook for ideas.

The most popular style, which I did 6 times, was the corset braid, followed closely by the star braid:

In the end, I did 31 braids in 5 hours. I didn’t even take a break! I remember queueing for face painting with my girls once, and when we got to the face painter, she said she’s going for a break… I couldn’t do that to the little girls (and parents) who had been waiting for their turn! So I just had some quick snacks and water between braids, and carried on!

I was exhausted in the end: my back was aching and I was hot and hungry, but I had really enjoyed it. I didn’t notice the time at all while I was braiding!

I thought it was such a fun experience, that I have already agreed for another event in a week’s time! So everyone, who is near Porvoo, Finland next Saturday, come to Bubbles-event at Taidetehdas! I will be braiding kids as well as adults this time!

PS. as you can see, I used stickers, stamps, crayons etc to keep the little ones occupied while I was braiding.

31 heinäkuun, 2014

Braiding marathon – part 1: wedding hair

I braided 35 heads on Saturday! Most of you have probably already heard about this, but I felt like I need to tell you the whole story!

So, I had promised to do 3 bridesmaids’ hair for a friend’s wedding, and one other wedding guest squeezed in the queue as well. We started at 7:30 am! Luckily we had done a trial earlier in the week, so it was a fairly easy job… But of course my hands were shaking a bit, as I’ve never done anything as important as bridesmaid’s styles!

First, my sister got one of my favourites: a double starburst bun. I’ve done this on my sister and my daughter many times, so it was fairly quick to do and we knew it would last well. (She returned from the wedding at 1:30 am, and her hair was still perfect.)

All of the bridesmaids wanted an up-do as it was a very hot day. So next was waterfall braids into french braids into a bun. I can’t normally do waterfall braids that well, so I was very happy with this one!

The third bridesmaid had a picture of three dutch braids she liked, so we did the dutch braids and then made it into an up-do with a braided bun.

I was happy with all three. Unfortunately, I was in a rush, so didn’t get a picture of the fourth wedding hairdo that I did!

Next, I had to pack my combs, brushes, hairspray and pins and rush to Skidit – kids’ festival, where my husband was setting up my braiding stall… And that’s where the real challenge of the day was: 5 hours of braiding to follow in the next blog-post…

13 helmikuun, 2014

Valentine’s day braids

I thought I’d show you some of my heart braids for Valentine’s day. These are impressive to the normal people, we always get lots of comments when we do something like this… but in the braiding world they are just average!

First, a couple that I did a year and a half ago, when I was first starting to get into creative braiding – a dutch lace braid heart, and some Cutegirlshairstyles heart-pigtails.

In the last couple of weeks I have made some new heart designs: a french braid with 3 hearts on it on my oldest daughter, a double heart braid on my 5-year-old, and a ribbon heart braid on my smallest one.

The girls absolutely love these heart braids. My favorite is probably the double heart, as it stayed in shape, and held all the hair in place the longest.

I need to come up with one more tomorrow, as my middle daughter has a Valentine’s day party to go to!

19 tammikuun, 2014

Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons

We had a birthday party for my youngest girl today. All the girls were up early, had chosen their dresses and were waking me up to do fancy hairstyles for the party! (Girls!!!)

They wanted something fancy, with shiny new ribbons that we bought last week. So it was a great excuse to go over the top a bit:

The first one is my favorite of the three, probably because I got to choose the ribbon color! And it’s very easy. It’s a 4-strand french braid, but one strand is ribbon instead of hair.

The second one is a bit Christmasy, but my daughter has worn this dress pretty much all the time since Christmas (apart from school), so we did the same color ribbon… For this hairdo, I did two dutch braids and then threaded the ribbon through with a help of a bobby pin.

The last one is definitely over the top, but she absolutely loved this style, so what can I say! It was quite difficult to do the two up-side-down dutch braids and the bun, but the ribbon was quite easy to thread through the stitches of the braids.

These styles lasted well through the day, and the girls went to bed with them. We’ll have to wait and see how much fixing I need to do in the morning, but they want to have the ribbons for school and kindergarten tomorrow!

1 joulukuun, 2013

Braiding at the Christmas market

Today I was doing braids at the Finnish Christmas market. I only had 1 and a half hours to do as many as I could… I managed 10 heads!

I very rarely get to do braids on anyone else than my daughters, so it was quite an experience to do so many so different types of hair: thick, thin, curly, straight, layered, fringe etc… I really enjoyed it! And it was for a good cause: fund raising for the Finnish school.

I was a bit worried before hand, how to get the little ones to sit still without a TV or computer. I had brought a small sticker book, and I asked the girls to stick some stickers in it while I was braiding. It worked really well.

These all took about 5-10 minutes. The trickiest one was the little double lace braid headband on very fine and thin hair, and the one I enjoyed the most doing was the thick long Rapunzel braid.

14 marraskuun, 2013

5-minute braids

I have promised to be braiding at the Christmas market in a couple of week’s time to raise some money for the Finnish school. There will be limited time and loads of people, so I need to be able to do quick braids that are pretty enough for everyone to want! So that’s the reason I haven’t posted anything for almost a week: I’ve been practising quick braids. I’ve braided with a stop watch and here are a few that I am now able to do in 5 minutes:

If you want to be quick, you choose a hairstyle that doesn’t require parting the hair in any way. The first one is a dutch lace braid going around the head, so almost like a normal lace braid, but doing it inside out.

So I decided that dutch lace braids were quick and pretty, and did another one with three little braids on the side. The third is a dutch lace braid headband. Just like a lace braid headband, but inverted.

Two braids down the sides is also quite a quick hairdo, especially if you do the parting slightly to the side, so you don’t spend any time trying to get it perfectly in the middle. Two normal french braids are a bit too ordinary for me, so I made two lace braids down the sides.

My daughter loved this hairstyle and called it indian hair.

The last one is my first ever attempt at these little flowers. They are quick to make, but impossible to undo without pulling loads of hair out! Also, I didn’t quite like how they turned out, so I think I’ll need some more practice on this one.