Tutorial: Pippi Longstocking Hairdo

Y'all know I'm a big nerd, right?

The whole lot of us recently went to a children's theater performance of Pippi Longstocking, and I could not pass up the opportunity to do a little cosplay with the kids. Here's how:

1. You need to score some bendable floral or jewelry wire. The 18-gauge jewelry wire that I had on hand was perfect for Syd's light, straight hair, but didn't hold Will's thick, curly mop quite as well.
2. Measure out a length of the bendable wire that's long enough to go over the top of the kid's head and down each side the length of their hair. Cut it from the spool with a pair of wire cutters.
3. Comb and divide the kid's hair in two down a center part. 
4. This is the big trick: center the wire at the top of the kid's head, and get another person or the kid to hold it there. Having both braids made from a single piece of wire anchors it, so that you can bend each of the braids into more drastic contortions.
5. Comb and divide the hair on one side into three sections above the ear; include the bendable wire with the center section.
6. Braid the hair as usual, braiding the wire with it as part of the kid's hair. Tie off the braid at the bottom, then use the wire cutters to cut off any excess wire below the tie (you may want to bend it back onto itself first, so that it won't have a sharp end that sticks out).
7. Adjust the wire as needed so that it's snug and lays flat over the top of the kid's head without biting into it, then braid the kid's hair on the other side the exact same way.
8. Use a couple of bobby pins or sturdy clips to anchor the wire on each side of the kid's head above the braids, so that it doesn't inch down the back of the kid's head.

Now you should be able to bend each braid into whatever silly contortions you desire. 

After I did this, basically none of us ever stopped laughing at how hilarious the kids looked with braids sticking out all crazy--Will's long, thick hair made every pose look especially improbable. 

At the play, many of the kids were invited to sit on cushions right in front of the stage, and as soon as mine had settled themselves far enough away from me and Matt that I could no longer intervene, I noticed that Pippi hair does NOT keep to itself! Fortunately, the kids on either side of mine were buddies of theirs, buddies good enough that their parents would probably inform me if they got head lice. I'd rather have bent the kids' braids up and over their heads before they walked away, though--I can go the rest of my life without dealing with head lice ever again.

Will liked her braids okay, especially at first, but by the time we were home from the play, she was ready to take them out and move on with her afternoon. Syd, however, was ready to move on to...

a photo shoot:

She's currently making noise about wanting lots and LOTS of bendy braids for her runway walk at the Trashion/Refashion Show later this month. 

Pro: I think we could get away with using pipe cleaners instead of wire in each braid. 

Con: There's no way I'd ask a Hair Arts Academy student volunteering his/her services to put a million pipe cleaner braids into my child's hair, so there goes my pre-show morning!

This post was shared with Teach beside Me.

I Let My Kids Wear Makeup

Despite my own hang-ups about the outward manifestations of gender, the girls both see makeup as another form of art play, and they enjoy it as much as they used to (and still sometimes do) color on themselves with markers, only, since I never bought washable markers, makeup is much easier to wash away at bedtime.

Because I don't want the kids to associate makeup with "looking pretty," it was really important to me to find makeup in full color palettes, not just what's trendy right now. Specifically, Sydney wanted blue lipstick, which I found on etsy, and blue eyeshadow, which in itself wasn't too hard to find, but I also wanted the girls to have green eyeshadow, and orange eyeshadow, and purple and pink and black eyeshadow.

I did finally find excellent color palettes for makeup for the kids. For the eyeshadow, I ended up buying a SHANY eyeshadow palette, which yes, does have blue and green and orange and purple and pink and black. It ended up in the girls' Easter baskets, and I actually used it for the fashion show, too, blending red into pink above the black and silver glitter line that Syd's makeup artist put just above her eyelashes. I also bought the girls a set of eyeliner pencils, which turned out to be really too delicate and fussy for children to use, but I don't use makeup myself, so what do I know? Add to that one blush and all the body glitter that a kid could care to make for herself, and you've got yourself a pretty thorough makeup exploration set!

Although the kids do love to do themselves up like clowns with their makeup, I was feeling at a loss for any technique or tips to provide when they asked, since not only do I not wear makeup currently, but I've also never worn it--I don't even have the tips of a twelve-year-old self to pass on! Fortunately, one of my friends who has a teenage daughter told me that her kiddo, who is great with makeup, spends tons of time watching makeup tutorial videos on Youtube.

What the what?!?

Well, let's check it out!

Seriously, how cute is that? The kiddos do seem to enjoy copying some of the simpler tutorials, and I feel like they have, without making them feel like they have to be conventional, gotten them to have just a little bit lighter of a hand with the application:

Just a little bit, mind you.

And yes, their father and I do patiently sit for makeovers:

Yes, that IS a paintbrush. Only recently have I figured out that you have to buy special makeup brushes separately.

Considering that the girls ALSO have a thing for nail polish in funky colors--

--they are quite the colorful crew these days.

Barbie Fashion Show

We are deep into fashion show season here! Syd is practicing her runway walk daily, and spending much of the rest of her days thinking, dreaming about, talking about, and playing fashion show.

On our free day from school last week, I was spending the afternoon completing some orders from my pumpkin+bear etsy shop, and trying really hard to ignore all screams, thumps, and crashes from the other room, but I could not ignore my kiddo when she came in to theatrically announce that it was time for the Barbie fashion show in the next room.

A Barbie fashion show?!? Count me IN!

So I turned off the heat gun, laid a cloth over the beeswax (I've learned through experience that a cat will lie on top of rolled beeswax, and that rolled beeswax that a cat has lain on top of will never again be suitable for sale), and followed Syd out to the living room, where my clever girl had spent HER afternoon creating garments for each of her hand-me-down Barbies, and using our colored masking tape to tape a fashion show runway onto the floor.

Syd asked me to find "thumpy music" for the show, so I turned on the Club/House radio station on Spotify, and off we went!


Before I go on, I just have to ask you: you're not sitting there snarking on my house, are you? It's fine if you are, because I am not the person who stages my shots, or even runs around cleaning like crazy when someone's about to come over. Okay, I WILL clean the bathroom sink and put out a fresh hand towel, but I probably won't vacuum or clear off the table. So yes, the room that you can see through the doorway is messy, and the games don't fit on those built-in shelves, and the hallway has a kid-painted rainbow right in the middle of it, and I didn't vacuum the carpet, and I never learned that trick of how to hide a cord so that it doesn't hang in the middle of everything, and man, do our hardwood floors look run-down!

Anyway, back to the story: I love Sydney's Barbie fashion show, because you can really see how much of the process she's learned from her years of experience as a Trashion/Refashion Show designer/model. She taped her models' marks, and she walks them and poses them and walks them again, and they take care to show the entire outfit to both sides of the audience, and they certainly look like they're having fun, don't they?

But of course, the most important aspect of the model's performance is the garment, and I really, REALLY love how Sydney created each model's outfit, some from our stash of vintage Barbie clothes, but most assembled from my scrap fabric bin:

And speaking of Ken, Sydney has a further video starring him. She produced, directed, and served as costume designer. I filmed exactly as she dictated:


Hopefully we won't have anything like THAT at the fashion show!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Guitar Picks and Body Glitter

a review of a punch for making DIY guitar picks

and a tutorial for making body glitter

Yes, the girls are deep into makeup play again. Syd and I are immersed in Trashion/Refashion Show design right now, which is probably what inspired it, but nonetheless, the weekend found us at the drugstore, picking out brand-new batches of eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick.

The girls still don't associate makeup with conventional gender norms (I don't wear makeup, and for the fashion show, both men and women applied it and wore it, and yesterday, on our way to our weekly volunteer gig, Willow's makeup application consisted of grey smudged all the way around her eyes like a raccoon and a stripe of red body glitter applied in a straight line between her eyes down to the tip of her nose), and my big assignment right now (along with, of course, the fashion show garment, a big bean bag order, revamping our homeschool group's membership application procedure, and other such nonsense) is to free them from conventional color norms, as well. The makeup at the drugstore all seemed to revolve around the same color palette, and we found neither the blue lipstick nor the red blush that Sydney specifically wanted. To keep the emphasis on makeup as a playful, expressive craft, it's really important to me to find a varied palette for all the basics, ideally including the rainbow colors. 

So off I go to browse the online supplies lists of cosmetology schools! With kids like these, there's no danger that I'm going to get locked into my comfort zone, that's for sure.

The 2012 Trashion/Refashion Show

She designed the perfect outfit.

She chose all the fancy dresses in their rainbow colors, coming with me to two different thrift stores on their various sale days to make the selections.

I sewed it up, photographed it, and sent it in to be juried.

It was accepted into the fashion show.

She practiced and practiced and practiced her runway walk:


She even drew the sidewalk chalk runway herself this time!

Of COURSE there was some last-minute sewing to do:

And some last-minute...welding? Searing?

You will be pleased to know that, in the nick of time, I finally thought of the perfect way to attach giant, bulky, cumbersome wings to a child. I'll share later.

The official word this year was that, although the Hair Arts Academy was again donating their hair and make-up services, we needed to provide our own make-up supplies. This was doubly awkward for me because not only do I not wear make-up, but I also don't know anything about make-up, and thus didn't have the first idea of what I should buy (nor did I want to *buy* anything that I was only going to need once). This is why it's good to have friends, since my buddy Kimberly was kind enough to talk me through what I would want for the look that she thought I'd want. And honestly, I did my best at CVS, agonizing over neutral but shimmery eyeshadow, and blush and lipstick, and a stick of stuff to put around your eyelids, and mascara, and body glitter, and then actually spending 60 FREAKING dollars of my homeschool/crafts budget to buy it all, but when we got to Hair Arts Academy and met our stylist, Jordan, he listened to me so kindly and patiently as I described the neutral and shimmery look I was going for, but when I handed him a CVS bag clearly full of totally random make-up, told him (as if he didn't already know!) that I didn't know anything about that stuff, and mentioned that whatever he didn't use I'd return to the store, he very kindly and patiently, without even looking in the bag, handed it back to me and said, "Why don't we just use my make-up, and you can return all that?"

Thanks, Jordan!

Fortunately, Sydney knew EXACTLY what she wanted to do with her hair--two small braids with rainbow beads on each side of her head (inspired by a little playmate who often has all her hair done up in gorgeous beaded braids) and a ballet bun. My friend who does her daughter's hair in those enviable beaded braids told me how to do them, and I had them finished before we got to Hair Arts Academy, since they're so time-consuming that I didn't want her stylist to have to stand there and do them all while a million other models waited their turns. It was actually pretty great, since Sydney's beaded braids got loads of compliments from all the stylists--it's like in The Hunger Games novel, when everyone falls in love with the complicated braid that Katniss' mother puts in her hair the morning of the Reaping, and you know that, for all her flaws, her catatonic depression and how she would have just let her kids starve to death, at least she can do her daughter's hair real cute.

Jordan's ballet bun also seriously blew mine out of the water:

Yep, glittery eyelids:

Hair and make-up, a dress rehearsal, and a photo shoot (or twenty)--

--made for a LONG day, and by the time the main event FINALLY arrived, the kid had her game face on, ready to go: 

The Jefferson Street Marching Band was the opening act:

And then, my baby's big moment:

Then a TV interview:

And THEN she got to just sit back and relax!

It would be so easy to mess this kid up, this child who can never have enough attention, who loves clothes, who craves the approval of others. It would be so easy to dress her effeminately, to praise her for being so pretty. She would be easy to encourage into the most constricted stereotype of the girly-girl. She'd do toddler beauty pageants if I asked her to, dolled up in heavy make-up and fake hairpieces and inappropriate clothing, shaking her butt and winking on stage. She'd go with me to commercial auditions, and consent to be a child actor on a sit-com, or mouth pop tunes on a tour of all the shopping malls in America.

The hard thing about this kid is to parent her while respecting her passions, but without degrading them into the usual sort of stereotypical girly-girl pop culture fluff--to channel her love of acquiring fancy clothes into fashion design, and to allow her to take ownership of her passions, even if it means I get dragged into a major fashion show every year. To show her that make-up is a legitimate craft. To praise originality over conformity. To interest myself in what SHE loves. To tell her that yes, she is a lovely child, but that loveliness is a circumstance, not an accomplishment. To buy her those shoes that can only be described as stripper heels, since they're on sale and I can afford them, but to require her to wear her purple Keen's sandals on the runway instead since the stripper heels are slippery and the Keen's won't cause her to fall off the stage. To also buy her real make-up to play with, and to allow her to walk out in public with me even when she puts what seems like all of it on her face, but to also buy her real clown make-up, and to allow her to walk out in public with me when she paints her entire face like a baby jaguar, and then again the next day when she's a zebra.

Yep, she can be a HARD kid to parent (aren't they all?). But oh, this journey with her is worth it.

Tutorial: DIY Deep Conditioner

Back in December, the girlies got head lice. I don't have any leads on the origin of the infestation, although I am pretty suspicious of these riding helmets.

Treating for head lice, while not super-fun, was actually not even remotely as bad as I'd feared it would be. We didn't even nit pick, and although I know that you're going to tell me that we did it all wrong if we didn't nit pick, we didn't.

We did use two doses of a CDC-recommended pesticide shampoo (because yes, I use poison on my babies), spaced nine days apart, to bomb the little bastards into the next century, and although that, combined with a dedicated focus on avoiding cross- or re-contamination, worked for us, man, did it do a number on my poor little kids' hair! Their hair was so dry afterwards, and Syd had the addition of an itchy, flaky scalp. I'd use it again if I had to, because it worked, but after a few weeks' time and the conclusive evidence that the head lice were all gone, the kiddos' hair definitely needed some rehabilitation.

Have you ever put olive oil on your hair? I still won't do it on my own kind-of dry hair, because I find the flashbacks to my junior high years, when my hair seemed to be greasy again a half-hour after I washed it (and I refuse to even recall the condition of my face), too painful, but I happily had Willow mix up the following recipe of one part olive oil, one part apple cider vinegar, and one part honey:

I was tempted to add a couple drops of a nice essential oil, lavender or tea tree or peppermint, but I'm too leery of putting essential oils directly on my children to actually do it, so instead I worked it through the kids' dry hair (it was REALLY messy, like crazy messy, and you know that I am not afraid of mess), let them read for a half-hour so that it could soak in--

--and then shampooed their hair.

Results: The treatment did work, although it wasn't ideal at the time. It took three separate shampoos to wash all of the oil out of their hair, and since I didn't want to wash their hair three times in a row, figuring that wouldn't be helpful to their dry skin and hair, I spaced the shampoos out over six days, just braiding their hair in between times and ignoring the fact that it was oily.

Now, however, their hair is perfectly glossy and smooth, doesn't feel dry to the touch, and Syd no longer has an itchy, flaky scalp. I'm trying to be more vigilant about putting leave-in conditioner into their hair after every bath to combat any more dryness before it begins.

I've heard that leave-in conditioner also has some prophylactic properties regarding head lice--the reasoning being that it's harder to get a grip on a hair strand with conditioner on it, I suppose? I'm also trying to insist that the girls shampoo their hair more frequently than they'd prefer, and to better supervise their hair brushing, because I think that I could have caught that head lice infestation earlier if I'd been more vigilant. I'm stopping short of treating their hair with essential oils, because those same oils are in all our cleaning supplies and our soap--they're getting a pretty good dose of tea tree oil every day even without me spraying it on their hair, I'm thinking, and I'm reluctant to add more directly onto their bodies. I'm insisting that each girl use her own hair brush, and not her sister's, but they still share towels--and a bed!--and half their clothes and all their playtime.

Eh, at least it's not pinworms again. Now THAT was gross!

The Ballerina, and Her Bun, and Thoughts on Organization

It's a new year of ballet, and the ballerina finds herself quite eager and prepared:

As the girls grow older, it's been such a relief to be able to gradually give up the exhausting chaos of their tiny years (they're 22 months apart, remember? I yawn just thinking about those days...) and, with their help, actually develop a system and an organization for some things that make our lives so much less stressful.

Take the pink ballet uniform, for instance:

The leotard and tights (the same as last year, thank goodness for stretchy fabrics!), get checked over when Syd gets home from class, hand-washed if they need it, and then put back in Sydney's ballet bag. The ballet shoes (brand-new from the dance store, leather shoes are NOT very forgiving) can go straight into the bag. Generally, Sydney isn't permitted to wear her ballet shoes outside--photos are a special occasion.

Sydney isn't permitted to wear her ballet uniform to play in--it was very expensive, and she has plenty of other leotards, some of them nearly identical, to fuel her at-home ballet daydreams--and so being permitted to run around outside in full uniform, near a fountain, no less(!), was pretty fun:

Being basically the butchest mom on the planet, the ballerina bun has been one of my biggest fears for a long time. I bit the bullet this year, however, and to my surprise...that damn bun is easier to make than a braid!

I've since decided to skip the netting, since I don't bother to slick the rest of Sydney's hair back with gel and spray, but even so the bun is sturdy and simple and attractive, and I've even begun using it to pull the girls' hair up when I want it out of their faces during the week. Who knew?

It's only since I've seen how easy even getting ready for ballet can be with a child who is organized, capable, and responsible for her own gear that I've begun to feel less bad about sending the girls to Montessori when they were littler with tangled hair, dirty faces, no socks, and lunch eaten in the car on the way there. How on earth did those other parents send neat and tidy small children out into the world every single day, on time and with a hot, healthy lunch in their tummies?

Really, however, my greatest revelations ought to concern how to apply this study in organization to all the other remaining areas of overwhelming chaos in our lives. A gymnastics bag, for instance--we'd know where the gymnastics leotards were even before it was time to get ready to go, and Willow might actually be able to find her gymnastics shorts for a change! And if each girl only wore her gymnastics leotard for gymnastics, then perhaps we'd be spared the desperate search among the play leotards each week to find one that fit for class...

And surely there is some sort of simple way to fix a child's hair so that the dratted ponytail doesn't dig into her skull during forward rolls?

Make-up Just for Them

Ugh, I know--it's nothing but down the rabbit hole for me these days, but Willow, who was the most AWESOME big sister/stage manager/perfect daughter during every single part of Sydney's fashion show experience, declared that she was jealous of exactly two things having to do with the event:

1) The mom of Sydney's little runway walk buddy gave Sydney treats (in particular, a piece of yellow gum and an M&M cookie, and did not give treats to Willow
2) glitter make-up

As for the treats, I explained to Willow that little children who want to be given something that their sister is being given should leave their books when treats are being handed out and stand next to said sister, smiling expectantly. And also, she didn't even play with that kid! If you don't play with a kid, you don't just automatically get some of that kid's treats. It's a fact, and everyone knows it.

As for the glitter make-up, however...it's a valid point. I could tell when Syd was having her make-up done that Willow wanted some, too, and oooh, it was sparkly. And that's why I spent $50 of the grocery budget (I fixed beans, rice, and baked corn tortillas for dinner THREE TIMES this week! And another day I fixed oatmeal!) on glittery make-up at the drug store, and gave it to the girlies, telling them that, with supervision, they were welcome to play make-up artist anytime they wanted.

Willow, of course, was granted first place in the make-up chair:

Sydney, channeling the make-up artist at the Hair Arts Academy, said to Willow, "Make a kissy-kissy face!"

I bought glitter lip gloss, glitter fingernail art brushes, blush, eye shadow--

--glitter eye shadow, and then just some extra glitter to throw on top of everything.

Part of the fun, for me, was watching each girl eagerly, trustingly, and happily put herself into the hands of her sister for her makeover:

You can't tell from the photograph, but Sydney is looking straight into Willow's eyes here, just as adoringly as she used to do when she was a baby:

Willow's make-up ended up looking pretty sedate, actually, but she, herself, has always had a flair for the dramatic, and Syd ended up ready for the stage lights once again:

You can see the glitter this time, can't you?

Make-up is something that, for me, makes me really uncomfortable. It takes me straight back to junior high, when on the first day of seventh grade I noticed (because some bitch teased me about it) that all the other girls had apparently spent the summer between sixth and seventh grades buying clothes from the mall and learning how to feather their hair and put on too much make-up. I'd spent my summer dealing with my mother's suicide attempt and being taken to visit her at the psychiatric hospital, thank you very much. I never felt in step with my peer group again, and I never put on make-up, and I never feathered my hair (although my Aunt Pam did once, and then she took a photograph, and it's still one of my favorite photographs from my childhood, because damn it, I look so NORMAL on the outside!).

Needless to say, that's not what I want for my own children's childhood. So far, hair and make-up have no gender stereotyped connotations for them--they don't watch Disney princess movies, or commercial TV, and they don't go to public school. The only time that they've seen hair and make-up being done is for the fashion runway, and it was wild, and imaginative, and playful, and, dare I say, immensely empowering.

Funnily enough, that's exactly how I would describe my kids, too, my kids who play with make-up.