Let’s try something new

This week I decided to try a different way of learning.  From the beginning of this project I have been finding a new “how to” video on youtube.  This week I found a website that had the option to follow along with the pictures and writing, but there was also a video option if you would like to watch.  I went with following along with the pictures this time, this was I could work along at my own pace and not feel like I was constantly rushing so that I could keep up with the video.

This first part of these instructions is to just do one solid braid first, I went back to the basics and worked on this, as they showed a different way to get the hair on the sides into the braid which is my downfall.  I did pretty good with this task this week, I still struggled to make the sides look clean and finished.  I think that I need to start using more water to keep the hair more damp, I try to avoid water as I wasn’t sure how my mannequin head would fair.

The next step was too split the hair into 2 sections-this is the way I need to make perfect as this is what I need to do for dance season.  I am getting the task of the under hand braid perfected, but I find I get mixed up as I start to add more hair to the braid in a smaller section.  I get the different sections mixed up and I find that I do a mixture of underhand braiding with some that are normal braiding so it looks clumpy and messy.  I also didn’t go good with adding the sides at all…another fail.

I did learn something new about myself though, I definitely learned better reading and following along with the pictures than I have with watching videos.  I am going to try and find some other resources that are laid out this way to see if it helps me finally figure out how to add more hair and for it to look clean and finished.  Maybe this week I will be able to use my daughters hair to see if that is easier to braid than the mannequin head.

Thanks for following along with my braiding journey.  I didn’t take any pictures this week of my progress, but I will bring them back next week.  Whose hair do you think I will braid my mannequin or my daughters, check back to see if your guess was correct.

Can I made my braid look pretty?

I decided to try a new video this week, I had used the same one the prior two weeks because I liked the guy in it.  This girl was good, she repeated herself which was awesome-that way I had a constant reminder of what I needed to do.

How To Dutch Braid Step by Step For Beginners – Full Talk Through – Dutch Braids For Beginners

My goal today was to work on adding hair from the sides and making it look tight and clean….you’ll have to check out the picture to see how this went.  I am really struggling to gather hair from the sides and add it into my braid.  My hands aren’t big enough to hold the three strands separate for that long.  I’m hoping if I practice more it will help. I’m finding that my mannequin head is getting quite knotty, I brushed it all out today before I started and it seemed to be better.  Next week I think I might try on my daughters head and see if I have better luck.  Her hair is also super long with natural curl/wave so it maybe tricky as well.

I started off good this week and ended in a bit of a disaster!  I found that the top was staying tighter, the problems seemed to get worse as I attempted to add hair.  The sides did not stay tight and they did not look pretty!  Thanks for checking in and hopefully I’ll have something beautiful to share with you next week.

 

 

Learning everything new, some a success, some a fail

This week I had a double challenge to take on.  One I had to try and move along on learning to braid and second I had to learn to make a video of some kind to showcase my learning (good thing for teenage children that can help their mom out).  I started off by returning to the same video I used last week as I didn’t go farther than the learning to braid underhand part.  The guy on this video talks a normal speed and doesn’t go super fast, so it’s easy for me to stop it or go back to the place I missed something.

My attempt this time turned out….horrible! I cannot figure out how to add more hair from the side so I gave in and did a smaller underhand braid on the left side instead of the right which is my usual preference.  It turned out to me a messy disaster, I think that my mannequin’s hair is too long and it tangles easy so I am struggling to make it look finished.  I am going to try and get it brushed out so that next week things will hopefully go smoother.

I decided that it might be easier to make an imovie on my phone-thought I might have better luck with this app.  I took a series of pictures during my learning time of different points.  Once I had these pictures, I uploaded them into the app and from there it makes the slideshow for you.  I pushed the + button and added in the song from what they had available, I didn’t download my own.  The biggest struggle of this process was getting it sent to myself properly so that I could add it into my post, for this step I enlisted the help of my daughter and she showed me how to send it to myself through icloud.  The next tricky step was trying to figure out how to upload the video onto my post.  I went into youtube and from there I created my own account and uploaded my video onto youtube, this gave me a link that I could then post onto my page.  Hope you enjoy my amateur video making skills-I’m also not a very good selfie taker, lol.

Stay tuned to see what fun I can get into next week and if I actually conquer being able to add more hair into my braid…..

 

First step to learning something new

I took to you tube this week to find a video to help me get started.  I put “How to dutch braid for beginners” and I picked this video first.  This video is really awesome! The guy that is speaking/teaching talks slow and ensures that he explains the exact steps.  I decided to concentrate on the first part of the video before moving on too far.  The beginning is learning to do underhand braiding-this was tricky for me.  As a only one type of braiding girl, trying to train myself to do it backwards was hard.  I decided that I would stick with this step and perfect before moving on.  I did it multiple times, some turned out really good and some were a hot mess.  This week I am learning to have patience and perseverance, if things to don’t come to me easily I’m quick to bail usually.  But I kept going and I am hoping that when I move on to the next step this week I will be prepared to move on because I stuck it out.

My biggest struggle still is to get a tight ponytail to stay in so the front doesn’t look so lumpy and like its falling out, I may have to find different hair elastics.  This mannequin has super thick hair, which I wasn’t expecting, but it is also helpful as my daughter has thick, natural curly/wavy hair-so it is similar.  Now I’m gearing up for the next step on this journey.

Where to start?

This first week of my learning project has been tricky for me about knowing where to start so I admit, I have procrastinated it until I find myself under pressure.  I sometimes find it hard to carve out time to do tasks like these in my busy work, school, mom life, I will do better this week!

I decided the best place to start was to practice my skills where they are now and see how it goes.  My husband put my mannequin head together this week and mounted it for me at my height so that I could get started.  I did my classic single braid with a little bit of hair, the one I would give my girls when they were little and I felt bad I couldn’t do beautiful braids for them, I would do this single braid and then pull it back into a ponytail or a top knot/bun for them.  As my girls are now teenagers it is rare that I get the chance to braid their hair so this is how I did.

Next I decided to see if I could do one big braid as a whole ponytail.  I cannot do it from the top of the head and moving my way down because I struggle with gathering and adding more hair as I go.  I could not pull this type of braid off often as my girls hair is thick and I found that I often lost humph somewhere, and it all came back to me quickly as this braid was automatically loose, which would probably fall out on a normal moving persons head.  I also never know how to finish the end off when there is more hair on one strand then the next so I usually just scoop it into another loop.

I am gonna head and find some helpful videos for this week, hopefully.  Watch for what kind of braid I do next.

Let’s Learn to Braid

For my learning project I have decided to learn how to braid. My hair skills are lacking immensely and I have always imagined my girls having the cutest braids in their hair, so I learned how to do a pretty single basic braid, usually one that I could pull back and add it to a pony tail so that they had a fancy addition to their regular top knot or pony that I could pull off.

For this project I am going to start out with the basics and get into a more trickier style-double dutch braid.  My daughter dances competitively and the hair style that is required is a double dutch braid with a fancy crossover bottom, like pictured here:

My biggest fear of my daughter changing dance studios, was this braiding business.  For the last couple years I have been paying people through cash and gift cards to braid her hair for all the important events, recently a friend has joined us at the same studio and she is a braiding goddess and she has been pulling me through.  This is the last year my daughter is dancing as she graduates this year so I thought it would be fun to be challenged to see if I can pull it off.

I have purchased a long hair mannequin head to use so that I am not having to use her for every practice time, lol.  I am going to watch some online tutorials to help me, the dance studio has sent us one to use as parents, but I have never actually opened it and watched it because the thought of it overwhelms me.  But I got this and I am up for the challenge!

Follow along and maybe you too will learn some braiding tips! I am sure there will be some super frustrating moments through this journey, but I am also hoping to have a really awesome outcome!  My mannequin has arrived and I am hoping to get started this week. Stay tuned….