Hair Raising

Miss Mini did not have hair until after she was one.  Don't believe me?  Check this out:

Bare as a cue ball.  (Her brother was the same way.)  
Then at 12 months:

HAIR!!
So when Zoe finally did acquire hair, of course I went a little crazy doing it.  From the moment it was even slightly possibly to gather some strands together, I was putting her hair up in pigtails.  Never mind that most of it wasn't long enough.
And although for the sake of ease and sanity her hair is kept somewhat short (yes.  I do take her to the salon for a pixie cut every couple of months.  Yes.  It IS because of me that her hair is not long and flowing.  Yes.  This means I don't have a pinboard full of amazing hairstyles to try since - have you seen my hair?  So sue me.) I still like putting it up in various ways.  Someone told me the other day at church that he didn't recognize her without her signature pigtails in.

But holy heck.  How I hate, hate, HATE keeping track of all the STUFF.  You know.  The stuff.  The combs, the water, the detangler, the hairspray, the mousse, clips, barrettes, elastics, bobby pins, ties, bows, etc...
I lose combs on a regular basis.  I would get all set to do her hair and realize the elastics were still in her room.  I would spend longer trying to hunt down our favorite bows than getting her entirely dressed and ready.  It was ridiculous.


I got a small, plastic craft organizer from Hobby Lobby to put all of the small things in.  And it kind of helped.  A little.  But the truth is, it just wasn't good enough.  

The compartments were too big for the elastics to be divided by color and too small to fit the combs or anything else.  Plus, I still needed specific things for Ezra's hair, too.  He has his own comb,  etc. (and truth be told the mousse is for him - since I have never experienced curly hair and have no idea what to do with it, we usually just rub some mousse in and mess it up.  Any tips?)  And what about traveling??  I still have to take all those other things some how and wouldn't it just be easier if every single thing I needed for HAIR in general was kept in the same spot? 

I had some requirements when I went searching for a solution.  
First, it had to be proportionally correct for travel.  Not too big in general, plus flat so it would fit in a suitcase. This requirement excluded pretty much everything that's actually made for hair accessories since they're more toolbox shaped.  
Second, it had to have several large compartments and many, many small compartments.  I like to separate things by color, call me OCD.
It couldn't be more then $10.  And even that was stretching it.


Well, folks, I am proud to announce that I did it!  I found/created the perfect solution using the following:

That's a small tackle box.  The kind you separate all your weights and small lures into and keep in your larger box.  I mean, not that I fish or anything.  I kind of just assumed.  And a pack of white elastic.  And some travel sized containers.

So, first you'll take your ugly stickers off of the tackle box.  Stretch out your elastic across the top of the box so it's stretched fairly tight but not so tight it's under a lot of pressure.  Cut three lengths of elastic that size.  Take your hot glue gun and glue the ends of the elastic strips to the lid of the tackle box.  Fold the ends under and then glue if you don't want the cut ends to show.  Just make the elastics equidistant across the top.

The coolest thing about this particular box BY FAR is these little plastic dividers, because you get to put them in the slots wherever you want them!  

I could make a bunch of tiny compartments for each elastic color, and larger compartments for the other stuff!

I used a small twisty jar from the travel section for the gel, a small spray bottle from the travel section for the detangler, and for the mousse I just bought a travel sized one to replace the large one.  I couldn't figure out a way to get the mousse from the big size into a small size and still have it work, so for now we're going with the small size.  We only comb Ezra's hair on Sunday, anyway.  Just kidding.  Or not.

See how all the product fits snugly inside?

And there's a spot for everything, even the combs.

I do need to go get a few more of those divider thingies so I can separate the bobby pins/clips/barrettes/headbands.  But it's obviously an improvement.

Oh, and what was the elastic on the top for?  Voila!  Now, obviously this isn't ALL of her clips and bows and hairpieces.  But these are the most frequently used.  

Tutorial for the rolled rosette here.
Tutorial for the felt Petite Amie Bow here.
Tutorial for the Yo-Yo Bow coming soon.


And now, your daughter can look like this all the time:

Because everything is within such easy reach.
(and yes, she did this on her own...)

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