Tomorrow I head back to Canada – but not without having made a shopping trip today. One of the interesting things about Pittsburgh (sorry, I just didn’t think this when imaging Pennsylvania) is the number of black people who live here. At least in the downtown where I am staying, it’s been an eye candy festival of hair. (Yes, I know, Kelowna is way too white and I am way to excited about this.)

The coolest thing is that there are four different storefront schools on my walk to the conference each day, so I’ve seen countless preschool and elementary age kids – and their hairstyles. I’ve got  few new ideas… and its also nice to affirm that even if I am not a curly-whirley haired mama, I keep up with the Jones. In a totally vulnerable self-image way, it makes me feel like a good Ethio-Canadian mama when I know I’m taking good care of the girls’ hair.

I got to visit a few haircare stores within a few blocks of my hotel – but honestly most of those stores are focused on straightening and treating and chemicalizing. So I didn’t buy anything.

BUT I also went to Target – and got some cute Barbies for the girls. I probably won’t give them to them until Christmas or even next year (I don’t know – 5 is still to young for Barbies, isn’t it?) but it’s just nice to have them in the closet when they get to be a bit older. Especially since there is no way to find Barbies of colour in my home city. Now, they don’t have super curly hair, but they aren’t blond and do have darker skin – so it’s a start, anyway.

Meanwhile back at home – Jrock told me it took 3 hours to take out the girls braids and wash their hair last night. tee hee.  I thank him! first and foremost, since this is not his forte. Then I have to laugh… it takes me like 1/2 hour.

THANK YOU also to J&G for taking the girls for two nights, and for my dear friend T, who is driving to my house early tomorrow to put the girls’ hair into nice puffs for their school pictures. We couldn’t figure out how we were going to handle those school pictures (even if I did the braids before I left they would have been fuzzy 5 days later) and she totally is saving the day!

We just got a big shipment of small kid-sized sleep caps in! If you haven’t checked out my sleep caps store, AfricaSleeps.com, now is the time!

The store is our way of fundraising for our adoption from Lesotho – it’s the travel fund! So your patronage is appreciated. Besides, we have one of the most useful haircare products for African children out there. I say that sleep caps save me time, because I get an extra week out of braids becuase the girls wear them to bed. Well, there’s my plug – thanks for taking a look!

Can you guess which is Sugar and which is Spice?

It’s amazing how big my little girls are getting. It blows me away, actually.

I’ve got in the habit of doing the girls’ hair one of the evenings that Jrock works a night shift. So hw hadn’t seen their hair free in a while and wasn’t sure how long it was. I told him I would take a picture next time I washed their hair – and here you go too!

Those are some lovely locks.

I tried having Sugar’s hair free for a day while I worked on Spice’s braids. I looked SO lovely – but my goodness, when it came time to pick it out the next day, we were all reminded why we keep their hair in braids. Poor girl. Poor mama, too, actually! I think when the girls are teens, they might wear their hair free sometimes, because it does look lovely, and then they’ll be picking and managing it themselves. But for now – back into braids.

BTW, people often ask me how long it takes to do my girls’ hair. I can say that their hair has grown enough now that I’ve actually slowed down. A year ago, I was between 45min to 1.5 hour each… but now it’s almost alway 1 hour and 15 minutes up to 2 hours. And that’s just for normal styles, not extensions or anything. Spice is a lot gentler on her hair than Sugar – but both of them manage threeish weeks in most styles. The summer is hard because of all the swimming – you just have to let it go and accept that they will have fuzzy heads. But the fall, we’re back to a few weeks again and some tighter braids.

We got a new order of sleep caps at AfricaSleeps.com! including many fabulous sleep cap styles – check them out!

We have them in small kid (1-4 and big kid/adult sizes, and in an amazing aray of colours and patterns.

Thanks so much to our blog readers who have supported us in this microenterprise – we really appreciate it!

95% of proceeds support our Lesotho adoption, and 5% of proceeds are donated to Vulnerable Children Society.

Thank you to the customer sent me an email tonight asking when I would be getting more sleep caps in… There was a software glitch that showed most of the sleep caps were sold out. They’re actually not sold out! We have lots in stock. Sorry for any mix-up or disapointments.. please come back!!! www.africasleeps.com

Thanks everybody so much for your awesome patronage. I think you were all missing the sleep caps as much as we were!

I’ve posted more sleep cap styles on AfricaSleeps.com and have also ordered a bunch of big kid sleep hats from my suppliers, since there were so many requests.

Thanks again! And please feel free to recommend us to your friends!

We’d be so pleased if you would check out our new on-line store full of styling sleep caps: africasleeps.com If you have a daughter or son of African heritage – good quality sleep caps are a must. They keep your kid’s braids crisp and fuzz-free while they sleep at night, travel in the car and wear hats or helmets.

I used to get wonderful sleep caps made of swimsuit material from this great lady in Edmonton. When she stopped selling the sleep caps, we were totally bummed. When you’ve used these tight and smooth-fitting sleep caps on your kids, you just can’t go back to those horrible meshy things. I wrangled my mother into making two more of the swimsuit material caps, but she told me pointedly that she was enjoying her retirement and didn’t really want to be making them all the time for my girls and our friends. Fair enough. So off I went looking for another solution, and realized that the best bet was for me to start selling the sleep caps myself.

We are using the proceeds as a fundraiser for our Lesotho adoption (and donating 5% of sales to Vulnerable Children Society.) I took a whole bunch of the sleep caps to Harambe, and they were a huge hit with the little people and their parents. What I didn’t anticipate was how popular they would be with the big kids, and how many request I would get for larger sleep caps. So I put in another order to my supplier and hope to have big kids hats available online by August, in addition to all the awesome small kids caps available now.

An interesting note: our sleep caps area actually a waste product, since they are made out of fabric reminants from the swimsuit textile indsustries in Italy and China.

Expect new product available throughout the summer – but, there is no time like the present! Whatcha waitin’ for? Africasleeps.com

Today is the scheduled guest appearance of my post with summer hair ideas (First seen here on this blog.)

Check it out! Adoption Magazine

Today is the scheduled guest appearance of my magical hair elixer recipe on Sharla’s magazine. (First seen here on this blog.)

Check it out! Adoption Magazine

My one qualification for braids this time was that the girls had to have every morsel of their hair braided – no combing for Granny while we were gone!

They actually gave her the scoop the first night she was here: “Granny, you do not brush our hair. Only spraying with con-di-di-ter. No brushing – ok?”

You should have seen the look of relief on her face. lol

So here are the results – I really like how Sugar’s hair turned out in the front with the little swoop! And the three cascading ponies at the back were a first as well. I really dig it!

For Christmas, my mom gave the girls a few tubs full of ponybeads, along with some of that plastic thread stuff. She’s retiring from teaching and getting rid of some of the gear she has stockpiled over a 30+ year career.

Anyway, those beads have been put to good use. The girls have made several bracelets, as well as Maggie’s necklaces, which you can see she wears all the time now.

And now we have an almost infinate supply of hair beads!

So last week, we decided to do Spice’s hair with green beads. It’s really cute! and I was quite amazed how lined up they turned out. Enjoy the pictures.

BTW: Doesn’t that summery background in their room just set the beads off? In case you are newer to our blog, or didn’t know, my sister painted all the walls of the girls’ room. It’s amazing! And yes, she does travel (BC/AB) to do murals!

These girls are such hams. But I like it – then I get a lot of good pictures!!

I wanted to take a picture of Sugar’s extensions, but… well, I was ambushed by two dancing prancing girls.

Hams.

It’s been a while since I’ve changed my hair dramatically… maybe I just sort of ran out of things to do. After all, it’s been every colour. So I decided (without telling my husband, of course,) that I was going to do something a little more drastic.

We designed it so that you can see the hair tatoo when I part my hair on the right, but not when I part it on the left. Or, I can use a barrette to really show it off. I’ll have to post a picture soon of me actually wearing it!

Jrock was less than impressed – he said it looks like I have ringworm.

Sugar said “it’s kinda wierd, but very interesting.” Spice said “I like your new hair. It’s awesome!” And I like it too. So three out of four ain’t bad!

If you like the look – Ken at Oxygen Salon in Kelowna did it for me.

I did veil braids for the second time last week – last time was on Sugar but this time it was for Spice. She looks super pretty. It’s a very feminine style – and not that difficult, either. I know, it looks really intricate, but appearances are deceiving.

For all of you who always ask me to post a video (which is probably never going to happen! Because I spend a lot of time doing hair already! lol) Here are some basic instructions.

1. Divide a row of hair in the front into an even number of sections. Each section, make a little pony tail with rubber elastics. 
2. Then make two little braids coming from that ponytail.
3. Next row – divide it into sections again, offset behind the first row (think rows of bricks.)
4. Bring one of the little braids from each of the two front row sections into the new section. Secure the braids and hair from that section with an elastic. Then comb out the section ponytail so the old hair mingles with the new hair.
5. Then, make two braids.
6. And so forth. I liked finishing it with a “puff” – aka a big ponytail.
7. The tip is to do the little ponytails near the back of the section, and don’t tie the elastic tightly, as it might break the hair.

When you want to take it out, snip the elastics. Never try to take them off.

Hey – if you do this style (great for special Christmas!) then post a link in the comments to your pic. I would love to see it Click to embiggen the photos.

Usually when we look on the internet for hair ideas, we take an idea, often simplify it, and make it our own.

This week, however, Sugar saw one of Alicia Keys’ styles and wanted “exactly that.”  Well, I am not stylist to the stars! but here is my interpretation. click the pics to embiggen…

Funny note: We were out at a gathering today and a little Ethiopian girl asked Sugar “who does your hair?” Big people ask tthis all the time, but it’s the first time I’ve heard a child ask her. “My mommy, of course!” she replied. You betcha!

BTW, the Alicia Keys has to be the spokeswoman for Hollywood braids. I mean, some of these are SO fabulous… a little gallery for you! May we all be inspired…