Fan Feature: Miss Ava!

Tell us a little about yourself and your daughter: 

My name is Tanya, I’m 27 years old and have a wonderful little girl named Ava, who is almost 4 years old. I served in the Army for 4 years, and Ava currently goes to Pre-School. I am married to my husband Tavares and we live in the Bahamas, Ava has a little brother named Carson! 

What is your daughters current hair routine like? 

Wash and Condition, and let air dry. 

What are your favorite products to use? 

Leave in conditioner/ detangler. 

Have you ever used chemicals or heat in your daughters hair? 

I’ve Tried blow drying it, but it makes it really dry and frizzy. 

How did you learn to care for your daughters hair? 

Watching A LOT of YouTube. 

Was there anything you really struggled with learning about caring  for or styling your daughters hair? Anything you’re looking forward to mastering? 

I still can’t figure out how to do the 4 strand braid… but I know someday I will get it!

Any tips for our readers? 

Just listen to your baby, if she says she’s tired of sitting then let her rest for a while and finish up later that day.

Show us some pics!

 Peep the image on the laptop ;)

Tanya has been a friend of ours on Facebook for a while now and I always enjoy seeing the cute new styles she comes up with for Ava. Thanks so much for sharing!

Valentines Style: Braided Heart Ponytails

So.. it’s not quite Valentines day yet, but we did this style a little early to give you all another idea for the holiday. We actually started out planning to do a different heart style by Goldilocks*N*Me but the mood struck me to braid so we switched it up and came up with this style. Braided hearts are Keyanna’s favorite so she was definitely pleased when we finished, and has received tons of compliments by all her friends and teachers. 

For this style all I did was basically “draw” out the hearts using the end of a rat tail comb, tie them off using a rubber band, and then make an outline around each heart for the braids. I started at the top of the heart and braided down each side. After the 3 hearts were done I just did random small ponytails all over her head with the remaining hair and then braided them and added beads. 

You can check out last years Valentines day style that we did HERE 

How are your kids wearing their hair for Valentines day? Feel free to post pics to our Facebook Page

Box Braids With Floating Beads

Since I haven’t been doing much with Keyanna’s hair lately I’m going to be posting some of our older styles that we have done. This one we did in the summer of 2010. Pretty simple.. Just 2 front pigtails with hanging braids, and then box braids in the back. I used some really cheap rubber bands that I had bought at Walmart, and with the product we used in her hair + a day in the water at the splash pad.. The style only lasted a few hours before all the bands started breaking and beads were falling out. 

So on the way home that day I stopped by Sally’s Beauty and picked up some new bands, Proclaim brand. These are by far the best rubber bands that we have found and the only ones we use now. 

The next day when I was fixing up her hair I decided to add some extra beads towards the top of the braids. I did this by braiding her hair down an inch or 2, then using my beader I added the beads to 2 of the 3 strands of the hair I used for the braid. I then just continued braiding down. I did this style way before I started the blog so I really don’t have any tutorials but I tried to do an illustration to give you all a visual of how I did it (try not to laugh, I’m no artist) Lol. 

You can do it this way with all of the beads or just the bottom bead to keep the rest from slipping down

Style Quickie: Braided Pony With Beads

Pretty simple. I did 2 cornrows across the front of her head to give her some "bangs", pulled the rest of the hair into a ponytail, braided it all and added some beads.

Halloween Style: Cornrowed Spider/Web Design

So a lot of you have probably seen these pics on Beads Braids & Beyond  already, I was so honored when she asked to share our style as photo of the day! 

I did this style on Keyanna at the beginning of October, I though it was fitting since it had a Halloween feel to it, This was my first time doing spider/web braids and I think it was the most intricate style I have ever done. We got tons of compliments and Keyanna insists it’s her new favorite style. 

I’m hoping anyone who plans on trying to copy this style can do it by just looking at our pics and kind of following what we did through them because honestly this style is just too complicated for me to explain and I would probably just confuse you all more if I tried lol. I wil say that I started the style by parting her hair down the middle (from her forehead to the nape of her neck) and braided the left side first, and then did the right side making it as symmetrical as I could.. It is a little off though. I started with the top legs and did the rest of the spider, and then went on to do the web.  For the spiders bodyI actually tied her hair in a knot. I wanted to give it a 3D effect. 

In the first pics I just put the loose hair in 2 side braid pigtails and threw in some ballies, We switched it up a few days later and added some beads. 

Chocolate Hair/Vanilla Care also did a take on our style doing flat rope twists instead of cornrows and it came out gorgeous. She goes into a little more detail on how she did the style so definitely check that out if your having difficulty recreating our style or if you prefer flat rope twists over cornrows.

A few days later we took out the 2 large braids and did some singles with beads instead. She wore her hair this way until we were ready to take it down.

I know a lot of you are probably wondering what that blue and black thing is in her hair so let me just tell you it's a hair wrap. We had put it in a week or so before doing this style so I just worked around it. Anyways, that's a post for another time.

HEART SHAPED CORNROWS

This was a style I did on Keyanna last valentines day, but I love it for anytime.. What little girl doesn’t love hearts? You may have seen this style already if you are on our facebook page, but i thought i would do an official post with instructions on how i did it.

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1. I started by parting her hair right down the center (front to back)
2. I then began parting a heart on the right side, after the heart was as close to perfect as I could make it I tied it off with I rubber band and did about 3-4 braids with the loose hair. (you may or may not have to do more depending on the thickness of your daughters hair).
3. Now that the shape of the heart was established I started parting around the heart  (sort or creating an outline) with this hair I started the cornrow at the top of the heart and came around to the bottom, I repeated for the other half of the heart. 
4. With the remaining hair at the top of her head I created bangs by doing 2 cornrows going towards her forehead.
5. With the remaining hair under the heart I did 1 cornrow going back towards her ear.
6. Repeat steps 3-6 for the left section.
7. After finishing the front I gathered the remaining loose hair in the back into a pony and did 8-10 hanging braids.
8. I then added beads to the ends of all her braids. 

STYLE SPOTLIGHT

Here's a style Jamie did on her 3 year old daughter Caliyah.

I'm loving the creativity <3 Thanks for sharing Jamie!

Have a style you would like to share? Send it HERE 

OR 

If you would like to participate in our Fan Feature Section of the blog, you can do that HERE

STYLE QUICKIE: 5 BRAIDED PONYS WITH BEADS

Okay, so we’ve all been in this position… 

You need to be somewhere, like.. NOW! And need to do your little girls hair in a hurry. I’ve been there many, many, many  times myself, unfortunately i’m one of those parents who is always running behind. So needless to say, I love a quick style. Here’s a one I did on Keyanna for a school event we were going to. 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Time: 25 min
Products used: Shea Moisture Coconut and Hibiscus Curl and Style Conditioning Milk

1. This style is pretty basic. I parted her hair diagonally, starting in front of the right ear and going behind the left ear, and banded off that section
2. With the remaining loose hair I made 4 sections and banded them off. 
3. I then did about 3 hanging braids per section, added beads and we were ready to go. 

VEIL STYLE WITH TWISTS

This is a style I did on Keyanna for Labor Day 2010, a lot of my FB fans have already seen this style but I thought I would share it with those of you who haven't. I don't do twists on Keyanna's hair very often because they don't last as long as braids, but we got a good 10 days or so out of this style.

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Time: 1.5 hrs


• Products Used: Cantu Shea Butter

1. I started out by parting the front of her hair ear to ear. I had planned on doing cornrows, but was short on time so I opted for a quicker “veil” style. I did this 


2. by parting her hair into rows of squares, after banding the first square I added that hair into the square behind it and banded that. I did this for each row of squares on the top of her head.


3. I then began working at the nape of her neck, parting a square, banding it off, twisting and then adding beads and a barrette. I continued this process until the back was finished. 


4. We switched up the style a few times while she had the twists.. ponytail, pigtails, etc...

Side Cornrows Into Box Braids

This is a style I did on Keyanna in summer 2010, I didn't have a style in mind when I started but this is what we ended up with. I loved it, she loved it, and we got tons of compliments. We got about 2 and a half weeks out of it before I took it down.

INSTRUCTIONS:

-I began by parting her hair down the middle and tying off the left side.
-Then I started braiding the cornrows diagonally, going towards the top of her head. I did about 7-8 braids, and ended right below her ear.
-After finishing the cornrows I untied the loose hair and began parting and doing box braids. And finally, ended the style by adding beads to the ends of all the braids.
-This style took about 1.5 hrs.

Kai-Lan Inspired Style

So, I was thinking.. What better way to kick off our FIRST blog post than  with one of the FIRST styles I ever did on Keyanna!
So here you have it.. Our Kai-Lan inspired style.
When Keyanna was younger she was obsessed with the show, so I thought I would try a style to resemble Kai-Lans hair in the show. It came out great and is my daughters all time favorite style! I love it too beacuse its something quick and simple that I can do if we are pressed for time. 

And heres a variation we did.. Hanging braids with beads in the back instead of the buns.