Knotted 1 Pony Updo w/Hair Coils - Day 4

I actually stumbled upon these by accident when I was searching for the Hair Fancy’s months back. They aren’t anything necessarily new, but I learned how to make them and I think they add a very nice touch to dress up a hair do – you know – add a bit of bling. So I thought I’d share what I did & the hairdo to go along with them!

I’m in love with the knots that I did in this old post and I’m also in love with the updo that uses the same knots that I did on Goose before we chopped her hair. But – Bug just doesn’t have the thick hair that her older sister does & to try put 3 ponytail’s in her hair and make it look as faboo as it did in Gooses’s hair is just not possible. So I figured, why not try doing it with one?!

So I made a ponytail in the middle of the back of her head. You could even make it lower if you like. Then I sectioned out little pieces of hair and proceeded to make the chains of knots like the above mentioned posts.

Tie each one off with a rubberband so the knots don’t come undone.

Continue making strands of knots with small sections of hair until the entire ponytail has been put in knots. I think we counted 11 different strands.

Then here is where the science is not exact (sorry.) I just carefully arrange each strand of knots around on her head and then fasten the ends with bobby pins. I pulled most of the strands towards the top and the sides & then just a few down around the bottom of the ponytail. Just to make sure the rubber band from the main ponytail is concealed.

Just carefully place them all over and bobby pin where needed. Like I said, it’s not an exact science and you really can’t go wrong here!

And now to dress it up a bit with today’s hair accessory:

Hair Coils

These things are great – and I made them all by myself! Yup, and I’ll pass on the know how to you in a sec! I love these because they are like “floating pretties” that you can stick anywhere and they really dress stuff up.

I wanted to put these smaller sequened ones in the updo itself but we were headed to a holiday shindig & I was running out of time. They would have looked great floating around in the knots I think.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these type of things they are pretty slick to use. Just hold onto the jeweled part and stick the other end into the hair and twist it in a circular fashion until the metal disappears into the hair – that’s it! They stay put pretty good.

The link to where I found how to make these is no longer working. But … let me tell you my variations. I first went and bought the 20 gauge wire like it instructs, and since I’m not an expert on wire & maybe those of you that make jewelry have more insight on this, but maybe I should have gotten 21 gauge. The 20 gauge bent easily enough but then didn’t hold it’s shape. That, and they didn’t get the nice smooth curvy look I was hoping for (like the ones shown in the DIY demo) When I tried to twist them into the girls hair they bent too easy and ended out getting snagged in their hair. But like I said I maybe should have used a tougher wire.

Anyway, a few days later, my friend happened to bring some papers over that were clipped together with a cute spiral paperclip like this (except hers were a little bigger):That got me to thinking …. hmmm … so I headed over to a local scrapbooking store & found a bunch of littler spiral paperclips. They do come in a small or big size. I bought some of both, but the small ones are easier to “uncoil.” So I went to town on my spiral paperclips and unwound them with some needle nose plyers. I bent them around a bit to get the shape I wanted & then used hot glue to secure my bling of choice to them. I tried using them then, but got complaints that they scratched the girls heads. I ended out putting beads of hot glue on the ends to protect their little heads & haven’t had a complaint since. In the DIY it recommends clear fingernail polish or solder, but I couldn’t get a big enough bead of polish to dry on the end to do any good and the solder didn’t work either when I tired it. I think the metals didn’t mesh right.

Anyway – there you have it – a 1 ponytail knotted updo with hair coils. Sorry, my flash went off on this and the other pictures w/o it looking straight on the do were blurred. She just wouldn’t hold still!