Pull through braid

This has been my go to hair style as of late. There are so many different ways to dream up this braid. If you can even call it a braid ha! It’s a faux braid. Anyways I braided a couple of my friend’s hair the other night and each of them desired a different style. On one of my girlfriends I did a mohawk kind of look and that was really cute.  You just have to play with it a bit till you find what looks best on you. I made a video for you guys, but it’s subpar at best. I have no idea while all of my stuff seems grainy lately (blurry pics above) but you will get the gist, and if not there are a ton of way better quality videos out there. Just search “pull through braid”.

 

 

xo

Mandy

Top Knot

A lot of you have asked for it so finally finally finally I made a tutorial!! I’m also starting a youtube channel for some fun upcoming tutorials so stay tuned! Hope this video helps and let me know if you have any questions!!

** Sorry my topknot looks kind of lopsided in the video. It’s really tricky to watch yourself as you’re recording! Also I really wish I had a teleprompter, my mind kept wandering and I kept forgetting what I was trying to say (sorry for rambling). Anyways you get the point!! Thanks everyone for your patience and support!!

Halloween Bunting

It’s getting festive around here!! Brooks came home from work yesterday and said “gosh you’re loving Halloween this year”. My reply was simply, “I finally have a house to do this stuff in again”. So yes I am going a little over the top ( I think I’ve bought and decorated over 20 pumpkins :/) but why not right?! Maybe you like doing crafts, maybe you don’t. Either way you gotta jump on the Halloween bunting bandwagon! Follow my step by step tutorial for a very simple, inexpensive, and super cute piece of Halloween flair for your home.

First I went to Target and bought a Happy Halloween banner. Cheating I know, but I have yet to unpack and set up my printer. I can’t find the exact one online, but this one is pretty cute too! Mine was only $4.00 and totally does the trick. Then I headed over to Wally World and bought these plastic table covers for $.99 each. (I would of bought them from Target, but they were $2.99. Plus I needed some other things from Walmart.) After coming up with the final plan in my head I decided to use only the black one.

First lay the table cover out and keep it folded up. Simply make vertical cuts all along the folded cover and wah lah you have a fringey banner! Once I cut the vertical strips I cut all the bottoms to be different lengths for a jagged effect and also to make it easy to pull apart and have two banners. Don’t put too much thought into this. It really is the simplest thing. Remember the strips don’t have to be even!!

Now on to making pon-pom balls. I did this next job while relaxing in bed catching up on some netflix during naptime. Side note: Have you watched Orange is the New Black?? I’m totally into it, minus the weird graphic scenes. Anyways back to pon-poms. They are pretty easy once you know how to make them. Buy whatever color or texture of yarn you prefer (nicer quality yarn or wool makes for fluffier balls) and start by making long loops. Once you get your stack to the desired thickness cut it free.

Now take your yarn stack and fold it in half like so v v v

Then fold your stack once more. By making a longer stack and folding it you are just saving your self a little extra work :).

Now take the end of your yarn and wrap it around the middle of the whole bundle and make a knot. Make sure it is really tight otherwise your pon-pom won’t stay together well.

Next cut through the loops at the ends.

After I cut the loops off I go back and cut more of the yarn to shape the pon-pom.

Do this to both sides, fluff up your ball, and there you go!! You can make them all different sizes, or all more similar. The possibilities are endless with these little guys!! I added in some $.99 skeleton balls that I purchased in the dollar bin at target. And the best part about these skelly guys….

They light up!!!!!!

Then just take some string of choice ( I used some old twine that I had laying around) and fish it through the middles. This is where it’s important for your pon-poms to be tight so that they don’t move around too much, and so that they don’t fall apart on you.

And there you have it, a Halloween craft that will take you all of one netflix show to complete!! If you make one tag me on instagram @madeoverbymandy cause I’d love to see it!! I love that holidays give me an excuse to be EXTRA crafty!! This leads me to my next thought…How to celebrate Halloween as a Christian.

Just the other day Cohen asked me “mom if Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, and Thanksgiving is all about the pilgrims and giving thanks, what is Halloween?” I thought about it and then I was honest with him. I told him how Halloween can be more of an evil or scary holiday but just like we have Americanized Christmas we have Americanized Halloween. I told him we make it more about kids in cute costumes getting candy from our neighbors, but we need to remember that there are still some people that celebrate Halloween for a different reason and we need to pray for them. Ugh he caught me off guard. I always pray that in these types of situations I’ll say the right things for his little mind to comprehend. What have been your experiences? How do you bring Jesus into your Halloween celebrations?