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!

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

9/11 REMEMBRANCE: STAR PART + RIBBON BRAIDS WITH BEADS

I wanted to do a patriotic style on Key today in rememberance of 9/11 and this is what we came up with.. 

This style was pretty basic.. I started out by parting a star on the top of her head, I then banded that off and did about 3 or 4 braids adding beads at the end.

Then, from each point on the star I made a part going down, I banded off each of those sections and added a few braids with beads. 

For the ribbon braids I took a piece of ribbon 2x the length of the hair I was braiding, tied it around the top of the section and instead of braiding with 3 sections of hair I used 2 sections of hair and used the ribbon as the 3rd section.

This was our first time doing ribbon braids, and key and I both loved how they came out.. they are one of her new favorites!

HALF BACK CORNROWS INTO BRAIDED PIGTAILS

A few weeks ago we took a trip to the zoo, it was especially hot that day so I wanted her hair up off of her neck and back to help keep her cool. I decided to use the style she already had in (Alicia Keys Inspired) add a few more cornrows, attempt to do a spiral cornrow, and finish it off with some braided pigtails. 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Time: 1 hr. 

Products used: BeeMine Luscious Moisturizer, BeeMine Bee Hold Curly Butter 

1. I started by parting her hair ear to ear, then making a diagonal part to do the first cornrow. 


2. I rotated doing a straight back cornrow and a crisscross cornrow. Using the leftover hair at the top of her head, I did a triangle shaped spiral cornrow. 


3. I then parted her loose hair in the back straight down the middle and gathered it into 2 pigtails, I did about 15-20 hanging braids on each pigtail, added beads and barrettes, and I was done!

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.