Avainsana: Lace braid

24 lokakuun, 2014

Finnish hair – not so blond

(Scroll down for English version)

Olen vihdoin toipunut viime viikonlopun urakasta. Olin messukeskuksessa letittelemässä: yli 100 kampausta 3 päivän aikana! Teimme yhteistyötä Nordic Beauty Importin kanssa, eli minä letittelin Tangle Teezerin tai Invisibobblen ostajia ja samalla markkinoin vähän itseäni.

Oli ihana tehdä lettejä kaiken pituisiin, värisiin ja paksuisiin hiuksiin. Erilaisia hiuslaatuja todellakin riitti, stereotyyppisiä vaaleita ohuita suomalaispäitä oli paljon vähemmän kuin odotin!

I have finally recovered from last weekend. I did over 100 hairdos in 3 days at the I Love Me fair in Helsinki. I was working with Nordic Beauty Import: promoting my new business and also braiding all those who bought a Tangle Teezer or Invisibobbles.

I really enjoyed working with all types of hair: long, short, thin, thick, and all possible colours. There were loads of different types of hair, really challenging the thin blond Finnish stereotype!

19 kesäkuun, 2014

Memories of the Carribbean

We are finally settling in our new home in Finland. I didn’t have a chance to blog while we were travelling, as I only had my mobile… My Instagram followers have seen more than enough of my ”travel braids” as I posted at least one braid from each country we went to. So now for those, who are not on Instagram: I’ll show you a few favourites from our Carribean trip.

First, we went to Jamaica. It was amazing. We all agree that out of all the countries we went to, Jamaica was our favourite. The people we super nice, food was good, atmosphere, music, weather, the sea… everything.

There were braiders everywhere! And so many amazing braids! When we first got out the plane, my 5-year old said ”mummy, everyone here has much nicer braids than what you make!”… So, I took it as a challenge, and this was the first morning in Jamaica:

I got so many compliments for this and other braids throughout the 2 weeks in Jamaica, I even got job offers from the local braid-salons! Really felt that my work was appreciated in Jamaica 🙂

Next, we went on a Caribbean cruise visiting six of the Eastern Caribbean Islands. On each island we did a little trip to a beach, did some snorkeling or just relaxed and went swimming. The braids were always destroyed in the end of the day from all the seawater, so perfect excuse to do new braids every day. Here are some of my favourites (snake braid in St. Kitts, rope braid in Antigua and fishtail-french braid in St. Lucia):

After the cruise we went to Mexico, where I’ve always wanted to visit. It was really interesting with all the history, Mayan ruins etc. and of course Mexican food, one of my favourite cuisines!

Again, we swam a lot, so needed to re-do the braids all the time. I was trying to decide which photo to put here, and then found this:

This braid was done by my husband. He was complaining he never gets any braiding practice anymore, as I always do the hair! So he came up with this braid, which I thought was beautiful!!

But that’s enough from our holiday (I might do another post with a bit more, but if I add it here it will be too long!)… I hope I’m better at blogging regularly now that we finally have a home again!

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!

21 joulukuun, 2013

Braided tiara

I am so excited to have won my first ever braiding competition!!! Katie @abellasbraids on Instagram had a contest, so I entered a few of my braids. There were over 500 entries in the intermediate category, and all of the braids were amazing! I never thought I’d have a chance. Go and check out #abellasbraidsintermediate on Instagram to see all the incredible hairstyles in the competition. Here is my winning braided tiara, which I did on my daughter for her good friend’s birthday party:

In the last few hours I have been asked so many times about this braid, that I thought it is easiest to do a blog post to try to explain it.

Many thought that it is some kind of a feather braid, and I think a feather braid would have been a good idea if I knew what I was doing when I started. But I made up the braid as I braided…

I started by making 5 mini braids (just normal 3 strand braids) in a line in the middle of her head from ear to ear.

Next, I started a lace braid headband from the right ear, and every time when I got to a mini braid, I pulled it to the front (face side) and braided the lace braid over it. And when the mini braids made a nice size loop, I braided them into the lace braid.

Finally, I was not happy with how the back of the lace braid looked like, so I started another mini braid near the right ear. I pulled it through the main braid, braided a little bit and attached it to the back of the headband by doing a stitch of lace braiding, pulled it through the main braid again etc. And finished by attaching everything together.

Here are a few pictures to show different sides of the hairdo:

I am so honored to have won the competition. Abella’s Braids has been my biggest inspiration lately. Katie does amazing braids, and I’m a super fan, so it really means a lot to me! Go and check her out on Instagram, Youtube and her blog: http://www.abellasbraids.com/

And of course, if you haven’t already, go and check out @jennishairdays on Instagram!

20 joulukuun, 2013

Christmas parties

Been busy with all the December happenings… Here are a few hairstyles we’ve done for various Christmas parties.

First, there was a party where we were going to by car, and it was indoors, so we could do almost anything with the hair.

When I said I’d do any hairstyle they wanted, my middle daughter instantly requested the butterfly braid. For my oldest girl, I did a ladder braid, and my smallest had a braided headband with some curls from the previous braid.

The next party was a bit trickier. The girls were going to do a little song and dance performance with santa hats on. So the hairdo had to look nice even with a hat on… So these chinese ladder braids were quite good for that: they looked nice even when most of the head was under the hat, and were a bit more interesting than normal braids:

This morning was the last of the Christmas events: the Christmas Carols at the school. It was outside, and the girls were going to school first, so potential for messing up any hairdo before the event. It was also cold and wet, so hats on, and no curls… And an early morning, so no time for hair in the morning!

For my 1st grader, I just did some tight french braids last night. For the 4th grader, I found a nice hairdo from @abellasbraids on Instagram: two dutch braid headbands into pigtails and then making mini twists with the hair in the pigtails. This was easy, but a bit time consuming to make, and lasted really well.

The first picture below was taken last night, and the second one this morning after she slept with the braids.

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.

If anyone can think of any quick but impressive hairdos, please let me know, I think I need some more ideas!

4 marraskuun, 2013

Five beautiful hairdos

Couple of weeks ago I was staying at my sister’s and had the opportunity to try some of my favorite braids on her.

Adult hair can be challenging as well, my sister’s is quite slippery, and she is growing out her fringe, but at least she sits still when I do her hair.

The first one is a lace braid going around the head, and catching all the short hair at the front. After going around the whole head, I turned and french braided the rest of the hair from left to right.

The double starburst bun is probably my favorite braid at the moment. My sister and mum were taking my bigger girls to see the National Ballet, so she needed a beautiful hairstyle, and this seemed perfect:

Most of these (apart from the ballet hair) I made the night before, so that we didn’t need to get up too early in the morning to do hair. The braids lasted really well on her, much better than on a child!

Below left, is a kind of a ladder braid, which I’ve tried on my daughters before. I still think that it is very difficult on anyone else except my oldest daughter with super thick hair, but it worked out OK on my sister.

Below right is two spiral braids, which you can do on any hair (I have done this one successfully on thin and short hair). You start from the middle and lace braid around and around. On my sister’s hair do, I did two spirals and tied them back, so from the top it was a heart-shape.

By the time my sister had walked around with nice hairdos for a week, people started suggesting hairdos for us to try… This was supposed to be two french braids from the top down and from the bottom up, tied together into a (non-braided) bow. Her hair was not long enough to make a simple non-braided bow, so I did two bow-shaped lace braids and twisted the ends of the braids around. It ended up looking quite a lot like a butterfly:

10 lokakuun, 2013

Birthday butterfly

I was flicking through braids on Instagram to find something quick and pretty for my daughter’s birthday party, and she spotted the butterfly braid on @abellasbraids. I realized that’s not quick, and on the first attempt, probably not pretty either, but she asked nicely, and it was her birthday… So I decided to try it, and thought, if it takes the whole morning and I don’t have time to clean the house before the party, at least the butterfly on her head will divert the attention.

It took me about 15-20 minutes and I was going back and forth a bit to get the wings to look right… but it turned out alright.

Here is a link to Abellas Braids tutorial. On the first attempt, it’s not as easy as it seems on the video!!

My daughter loved it! After I finished, my youngest daughter sat on the chair in front of me and said she also wanted a butterfly! I put her hair on a ponytail and put a butterfly hairclip on it, took me 1 minute!

10 lokakuun, 2013

The secret is in the planning

When braiding hair, thin hair isn’t necessarily a problem…

A while ago I did this amazing double starburst bun on my 7-year-old daughter, and thought it would only work on her as she has thick hair and can sit still for ages.

But one morning I decided I’d try it on my 2-year-old, who has thin, uneven baby hair, and it turned out alright:

The secret to success is in the planning. I put the telly on and did the brushing and parting and made two little ponytails at the back to braid around (here is a link to the tutorial I found on youtube), then came the serious part where I really needed her to sit still. For this part, I put her favorite TV program (Littlest Petshop) on, the episode lasts 20 minutes, so I knew I had plenty of time to finnish the hairdo. Sometimes I accidentally pull the hair too hard and she screams and decides she doesn’t want me to do the braid after all, but if I have Littlest Petshop on, I can easily divert her attention from the hair back to the TV by asking questions about the program (”where did that blue dog go?” etc), and carry on braiding.

Here the trickiest part was to know how much hair to add at a time, so I did need to undo the braid a bit at times and redo to get it even. But even with all the braiding, undoing it and redoing it, I managed to finish before the TV program.