Technique---Curling with a flat-iron

Finally! A new post, and a tutorial to boot! I have had many, many, many requests for this. My apologies. I have been waiting for my husband to be home long enough to take pictures. That hasn't happened...he has been a little busy with a work project, so I pulled out my handy dandy tri-pod and my old camera with a remote. Unfortunately, the remote wasn't working. You really need both hands to do this so I hope explain it well.

I put in some Garnier Curl Sculpting Creme and went to work. When I curl their hair with a flat iron, I usually curl the ends under first. I can't always get the ends the way I want and this eliminates that frustration. So start at the base of the hair and slide the iron down and when you get almost to the bottom, twist the flat-iron just ever so slightly to get a nice bent under shape, more if you want more curls.

Like so.

Take a section of hair and separate it from the rest of the hair. Clamp your flat iron on the base of the hair. I take the end of the hair and wrap it around the flat iron, if only to give it direction and keep it going in the same movement. This is where the bevel on your flat-iron comes into play. You are basically using the bevel to curl the hair. So after I clamp onto the hair, I pull the hair on the bevel in the direction I am curling. Now, keeping the iron clamped, slowly slide it away from the base of the hair towards you. As you are sliding it out, you slowly twist the flat iron like you would when wrapping hair in a curling iron


See how I have my hand holding onto her hair and it is wrapped around the iron? That is not a necessary step...HOWEVER...it makes for more control AND it keeps the hair together to make more of a ringlet. If you don't do that, the curl ends up being unpredictable.


Here is where I am twisting and sliding at the same time.


Follow this same fluid movement to the end of the hair.





And let go.

This second one shows more detail than the first.


Clamp

Twist

Twisting and sliding

Now I find as I get towards the end that sometimes the hair gets tight, so I loosen my grip on my flat iron.

Like so

Then pull your flat-iron out of the hair towards the ground.

Finish the hair

All this took me two minutes, tops.

But I didn't want to leave ringlets, so I ran my fingers through the curls.

And separated them by pulling the top from the bottom.

Then sprayed

And scrunched

Tada!

I hope this helps for those who have questions. When my husband gets home...a video as well.

I don't know what to title this

I must apologize to all of you. My creative juices haven't been flowing lately. I have some personal issues that have taken some precedence in my life. Issues that have made me sad lately. I know as women we go through times like these and I know that I will pull out of it...that things will get better...that my creative juices will start flowing again.

I have a giveaway to do...a darling giveaway. I just haven't had the energy to come up with hairstyles to go with it. I am sad about that.

I had a friend say to me that it seems like I have a perfect little life. Here is my testament that I am flawed...and sometimes my life is as well. So please, have a bit of patience with me. Things will right themselves again...they always do.

My opinion on school pictures

I have had several people ask me what they should do for their school pictures. We all know I love fancy schmancy hair and that I pull my girls hair back on a regular basis, however, this is the ONE occasion where I think that simple is best.

I learned that from experience. I tried to be fancy with my oldest dd's hair when she was in first grade. The result of that was that in her picture, half of her hair had fallen, the bows had twisted and it just looked ridiculous. I would scan and post a picture, but my computer has had a nasty virus for the last two weeks and my husband had to do some digging and in the process, my scanner/printer isn't working. Sigh.

Pictures should be timeless. The less extreme the hair, the better. I just took my dd's to have their pictures taken. Just before we left, I sat them on the front porch and snapped a picture.

See, nothing too crazy about their hair. The most "extreme" thing was the curls in Tess's hair. I do like to keep their hair modern, so we did some corkscrew curls. That was it.

So please learn from my mistake...fancy is NOT always better.

Triangles

We did this on triangle day for preschool.


Start by parting the hair from one ear to the other.



From the front to the line in the back, make a triangle. Like so.

When I originally did this, it was a lot more polished, but you get the basic idea. You now part from that first triangle, another triangle. Like so.

Repeat until you reach the ears.

Now, here is where it is up to you. I parted my middle triangle into two and pulled the ponytails from each side into one ponytail. You could do two ponytails with all of the hair...whatever.

Now, after I did that, I realized that the ponytails were a little droopy and that made me sad.

I don't like droopy.

So I pulled the two ponytails into one ponytail. And I made my triangles into a square.

Basics...Inside Out French Braids/Dutch Braids

AKA, the only hairstyle seen 'round these parts lately. Life has not slowed down much. This third kid thing has really cramped my hair style. My girls have been sporting these mucho lately because it is fast and easy. Either both braids will stop at the base of the neck, go all the way down, be pulled together into one ponytail and finished with bows.

Yeah, I suck.