How to do a ballet bun revisted

For new visitors, here is a revisit of how to do a ballet bun.

I am often asked how to do a ballet bun. So that is what we are going to do today! This is us getting ready for ballet this morning. The twists are totally optional - I just like them and thought I'd throw them in there as they are cool just to wear with a pony too.So you start with the T- part, down the centre and across the head. Then you take the back bit of the hair and put it in a nice tight pony. Then take one of the front parts brush it back nice and smooth and then start twisting in towards the centre of the head - once you get to the pony you secure it in with a second elastic.
You repeat with the other side so that by the end you have a pony with three elastics. This is a great do just on its own.

Then we start with the bun. if you are a little light on in the hair department, it is a good idea to tease the hair a bit to give you some more volume. Start by twisting the hair around loosely - how tight your twist is will depend on how much hair you have and your personal preference. I just do a very light twist to keep everything in place. Wind the pony around the elastic, keeping it nice and loose for as many times as you need to and when you get to the end, pin the bun in place with a hair pin.

Now you will need a hair net - bun nets work best as opposed to full hair nets when you are starting out. Place the bun net over the hair and then start pinning.

These open hair pins as opposed to bobby pins are the only pin worth using in a bun. These above are the kind of hair pins you need but they they are a bit squished together, you can see the one in my hand below it is much wider apart. I'll try and take a better picture. The trick is to lean the pin in towards the bun, so that you sort of have it making a V-shape with the head. The bottom of the V would be where the two prongs of the pin sit at the edge of the bun. Stick it in and then pull it so that it is back parallel to the head and push it into the bun. This is how you really get security for your bun. Use as many pins as you feel you need to make it secure.And then look at that, you are all finished!.

Add some bows, flowers or if you never know whento stop like me..both! and your ballerina is all ready!

Miss Suzanne's pin curl bun and birthdays.

Pin curls, the essence of 1940's glamour and not suprisingly given the era, a popular choice for Tap dancing hairstyles - bet you can't guess where we've been the past few weeks - dancing comps. I've always admired the pin curl bun when little swarovski laden girls pass by me in the dancing world, and though I have always theoretically understood how it works, it wasn't until I observed Miss Suzanne (who really is much more of a hair guru than I) whipping up a little pin curl bun that I finally plucked up the courage to try it out. And guess what it really is quite easy, just like everyone always told me - now I feel a bit of a pin curl whiz, I might branch out into some more advanced pin curling techniques. The pin curl bun is just the cutest little updo, pop a hairnet over it and you've got a fab dancing style or a marvelous flower girl hairstyle and just a touch of fancy for the everyday. You start with a high pony - this particlar pony could have been even a tad higher - I always struggle to get curly tops' hair up when its been flying free.


Anyway once you've got your pony, take a small section of hair - you can experiment with how much you use depending on the length of hair - Hettie's hair is quite long now and this amount made nice big fat curls. Lots of little ones would also look fab.


Get yourself a bobby pin ready (I used these fab new pink ones I picked up so you could see them, but ordinarily you'd use ones that blend with the hair.

Wrap the hair around your finger until you have a nice curl.


Now here is the slightly tricky part. You need to pin the curl to the head. You can either remove your finger before or after you put the pin in. I find it easier to put the pin in whilst my finger is still in there - when you first slide the pin it it might feel like it won't go but just give it a good push you will have a nicely secured curl. Try not to wrap the hair too tightly around your finger or you will have trouble getting it out again.



Continue sectioning the hair and pinning it down - if you divide your hair effectively you should end up with curls spalyed out right round the pony in a bun.


Now doesn't that look nice!


You can decorate with bows or flower or little sparkly pins.


It looks nice too if you curl only part of the hair and leave the rest hanging down like this.


Plus as an added bonus, if you do it wet and leave the curls in over night or even for the day, you'll end up with big bouncy curls when you take them out - cool hey! Thanks Miss Suzanne!

Which brings me to the second part of the post - birthdays. Yesterday was Hettie's birthday! SIX! A big highlight of our day was opening the very big box of AG Girl dolls clothes which my friend Robin of Tallulahsophie made especially for Hettie - I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful they all are - Hettie, myself AND my mum had SO much fun! I can' t wait to share them all with you but for the time being here is a photo of Hettie wearing her requested Doggie suit cuddling Molly in some of HER new threads!

Crazy Hair Day and Charity Auction

Crazy Hair Day - would you believe I have next to no creative input - both kids have VERY firm ideas about what they want - ya know I could craft Hettie's hair into the craziest of styles but noooooooooo WILD - that was my brief. I tried to pop in a bow, an elastic a CLIP but no it had to be wild and free LOL! Well wild I know - remember way back in the curl chronicals I tested this style - not so good for curls but very good for wild. So Hettie went with wild (she won the prize for best hair!!!!!!) and Loughie went with a sort of Emo Punk.





Also I've just listed a charity auction for Bella. Bella Rose is only 2 and half years old and has been diagnosed with cancer (high risk stage neuroblastoma) that has spread to her abdomen, vertebrae, bone marrow and right leg. She will need some treatments after the chemo that are not covered by insurance with each treatment costing $18,000. If you aren't able to bid your prayers are very much appreciated. You can read all about Bella in the ForBella auctions which you can see here and the Bowznstuff ForBella auction is here.

French Braid ballet bun hair how to

Okey dokey, time for a new hairstyle - actually I can't take credit for this one - Hettie's dance teacher's daughter turned upwith this fab creation and let me say I was impressed. Hettie was all too pleased to emulate her idol! So to start with you need to section off the front of the hair and do a French TOP braid across the head. It is a rare moment that I do French braids on Hettie's hair - curly hair can make French Braids hard work - but if her hair is all clean and shiny I am good to go. For the top style braid, rather than braiding under you just braid over. There are lots of French braid tutorials out there so I'll point you here if you need further instruction.



So after the French braid you already have a great hairstyle. But it was ballet day so we needed to keep going. I stopped the French braid about three quaters the way across her head. Then you take a thin piece of ribbon and thread it through a large needle. Start at the elastic end and criss cross the ribbon right along the braid and then back down again. How pretty does that look!




You then sweep the rest of the hair into a pony. Again pop the braid into the pony and a great hairstyle. But we weren't finished yet!


Next up you wind the pony hair into a bun and secure it with a pin - you can find further how to do a ballet bun instructions here.


Next you take the braid and wrap in around the bun.


After than you finish the bun using the how to do a ballet bun instructions - pop in any decorations and you are ready to impress your dance teacher and be the envy of all the other ballet mums!


And after ballet or if you don't want to do the whole bun thing you have just about the cutest hairstyle around!

New hairstyle and some school holiday fun

So we are down to one more day of school holidays. A three and a half week mid-year winter break. As with all school holidays at first they seemed to stretch out before us in the most glorious manner. I LOVE school holidays - well I don't love the juggling my Bowznstuff duties with being all entertaining director of fun BUT I love just hanging out, having fun, NO LUNCHBOXES....BLISS! So what have we been up to the past few days.

Well first up, a new do! A nice little headband/low side Spanish pony. The first part of the hairstyle is a fun and easy way to keep the hair off the face and works just as well if you leave the back of the hair down as if you pop it up. So to start with you divide the front section of the hair off and then divide that small section into three. Pop the middle section into a pony.


Then take the side section and twist it upwards and towards the front of the head securing it with an elastic to your little pony.


Repeat on the other side


and there you go, a quick and cute headband.


Because we were hanging out and wanted to keep the hair from getting dipped into paint and whatever else the day had in store we then swept it back into my current FAV do. I losely gathered the hair into a low side pony.

You know I have a penchant for side pony tails but up until now I haven't used the low pony that much - I like it for its Spanish feel. So you simply gather the hair into a low side messy pony - meaning that on the last pull through you don't pull the hair all the way through but rather leave it half way through.

I added a rose to compliment the Spanishy feel and we were good to go!


In other news in my capacity as director of fun activities I pulled out a box of my old toys. Imagine our joy when we discovered my carefully preserved eraser collection. Check out that eraser incarnation of the early electronic games - move over Nintendo DS, the Nintendo Game and Watch is BACK!

Also in the box was my old Matilda furniture. I don't know if you guys had or remember Matilda dolls but I treasured mine. I have since found the dolls so I'll have to post a snap of them too.



Hettie was also kept busy this past weekend with some paper maiche projects with daddy, who is suprisingly or unsurprisingly depending on how well you know me much better at this kind of craft than me! Here is their unpainted castle- the painted version is coming!
Back soon with some new Bowznstuff :)

Spotted in Bowznstuff and some hairstyle rewinds

Just a quick Spottted in Bowznstuff and better yet not just a spotted in Bowznstuff BUT also available right now as a resell, just listed by the fabulous Ash1084 - a personal fav of mine the Bowznstuff Empire line dress with a sweet 3D washing line. You can see it here.

Here is Miss Audrey strutting her stuff.
Also as we are about to start school holidays and I'll have some more time for some new hairstyles, I have just beeen combin my blog to see what I have and haven't done and found a few handy instructions.
Remember the Bowznstuff Curl Chronicals :) See how to do Bowznstuff Rag curls here.

Or how to do a ballet bun here

Or a sock bun here.


How to do a French Roll here.


Or alternatively if you'd like to have a look through all the different how to hairstyles on the blog click here. Have fun!

Ballet Hair and Villains!

What's new at Bownstuff? Well quite a bit as it happens - in order new set and new hair. The latest from the Bowznstuff machine room (ha ha) is the very Villainous Set! You can see more here.


And time as well for some ballet hair. You know when I first started doing ballet hair, I thought to myself, how long can this last? How many ballet styles are there?? Well me of little faith there are MANY! To start this one, I divided the hair roughly in two with the majority of the hair in the top pony and about 1/4 hanging free at the back. I did this roughly as people with curly haired children will KNOW that a part if very seldom a straightforward affair. I often watch in wonderment as straight hair is parted with a swift yet deft flick of the comb - curly hair just 'usually' isn't this way - it sticks together in its curls - it doesn't want to be parted. Some days I am up to the challenge of forming the perfect straight part, others I am not - for this one I was not BUT the great thing about curly hair is it is VERY forgiving so oftentimes, even if you don't have a straight part - you can't tell. So to get back to business, a 3/4 to a 1/4 part with the 3/4 being on top of the head. You take the majority of your hair and tie in in a top pony, right up there on top of the head..ONLY you dont' pull the last round through. The last time you pull the hair through the elastic, you leave a little bunch on top. I am fond of leaving these little bunches and I do them LOTS. For a start Hettie's hair is getting longer and lots of times you will want shorter than the actual length showing, so these bunches are a great way to do that. Also they give height and a well.....cool sort of look. It's sort of like a messy piggie but not messy.


Next you take the part of the hair at the back and twist it up towards the pony on top. Twist a bit bast the bunch and then secure the whole thing with a second elastic.
Doesn't that look nice?

Later in the day when we moved from jazz and tap to ballet, I simply toook the hair that was hanging down and twisted it around the bunch - a GREAT way to do an easy ballet bun. I secured it with pins and a net and we were all set with a fancy shamancy ballet do
But before that I added a barrette of flowers and we were good to go for jazz and tap.




This would look equally fab with straight hair, or you might want to add some curls. A versatile do that works as an up and a down do and adds a touch of fancy to the everyday!