Leather Accent Loony Braids | Cute Braids

October 28, 2012

Since Halloween is only a few days away, we decided to show you what CGH#3 wants to be for Halloween! She did not want to be a fairy, or something scary… she wanted to be someone from history. The challenge is to come up with cute Halloween hairstyles!

We, of course, were going for Pocahontas, but are very careful not use the character name in the tutorial due to our contract with Disney, so we are calling this a “Native American Princess” hairstyle.

{* Note from Mindy: Please note, my daughter’s choice in dress this year is not in any way mocking an indigenous culture and is nothing more than an honor and celebration of it. She has been studying early American history in school this first semester, talks about Native American culture every day, and has been checking out books at the library and reading them on her own. She loves the stories of Pocahontas and Sacagawea. Not sure if any of our fans, know this, but our youngest daughter is 1/16th Native American {from her great-great grandmother}. We honor and celebrate all cultures in our home.}

Given all of our braided hairstyles to choose from, we simply could not settle for a 3-strand braid. We wanted something a little different, so decided to accent an idea from one of our old videos called Loony Braids.

We began by parting the hair down the middle of the head, and into two side ponytails. We then took a basic strand of crafting leather, doubled it over, and secured it around the ponytail.
The next step is to grab the whole ponytail and use it as one of the three braiding strands along with the two remaining strands of leather. {Yes, the hair actually becomes the 3rd strand!}
Once I braided to the end of the ponytail, I secured it with a clear hair elastic and cut of any excess leather. You could also simply take the remaining strands of leather and create a bow at the end.
Repeat the same steps as above on the other ponytail…

You can see that by braiding the two small strands of leather along with the ponytail acting as the 3rd strand, that the resulting braid has a very fun zig-zag look to it! You can pull out the elbows of the braid to make the braid look more “jagged”, but we left the braid as is for this style.

This can be an everyday braid, and you can substitute pretty much anything in place of the leather for a different accented look. You can use ribbon, colored yarn/string, strips of fabric, old necklace chains, etc.

Enjoy!

Items Needed: Brush, rat-tail comb, spray bottle, 2 small hair elastics, leather strands, hairspray {if desired}.

Time Requirement: 3-5 minutes

Skill Level: Medium

Happy Hairdoing!

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Loony Braids | Crazy Hairstyles

September 01, 2010

This is a fun braided hairstyle we have used for a few years now, a hairdo which my girls creatively call Loony Braids. This particular one uses a 3-strand technique, but there is also a 4-strand version which is very cute (posted on our Facebook Page by a fun mom name Julie about a month ago). I am hoping to post a video tutorial of that braid very soon…

This is one of those braided hairstyles that is perfect for a teenager as well because the style is unique enough not be seen as little Laura Ingalls-ish. The braid needs to be done fairly tight (although popular braid styles today are worn fairly loose) because if it is not, the smaller strands cannot grip the larger one… causing you to lose the creative bends throughout the day.