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.
