Sunflower and Leaf Hair Accessory!

I love Sunflowers and so I was thrilled to make this Sunflower and Leaf Hair Accessory! It took about 5-10 minutes and was easy! I love the way it looks in my dark hair!

First I cut a little piece of a fake leaf to hot glue onto the metal Barrette as it made attaching the flower easier. Any fabric or piece of a leaf cut tiny and hot glued on will work, as long as the color blends in or stands out as you like.

Now cut the Sunflower down as low as you can in the stem until it is a little stubby. If you care to as I did take a leaf and hot glue it to the back of the Sunflower. The first one I did I did two leafs from a Daisy Flower cluster and it was fine when worn but then I decided to try it just the other day with three leafs from the actual Sunflower bundle and it looked even better. So any leafs used would work or you can use the ones that come with the Sunflowers. Then take the back of the leaf and hot glue it to the piece of fabric on the Barrette. Let it cool and Walla it is finished!

Of course if you care to you can attach the Sunflower and Leaf to a headband or any other type of hair accessory you care to. Or it can be put on a jacket or articles of clothes at will. Just play around with it and have fun!

Bear in mind as well that the metal Barrette's don't hold a lot of hair. So in the one with the pony tail I took a pony tail holder that is of a color that blends into my hair and made a pony tail and then clipped the Sunflower and Leaf Barrette just above the pony tail as if the Barrette is holding the hair. Also in the pictures where my hair is down I used a small hair clippie that blends in with my color hair to hold the hair and then I simply clipped the Barrette above or below the small hair clippie and so it looks as if the Sunflower and Leaf Barrette are holding the hair up. These methods hold the hair better since the metal barrette's I use don't hold a lot of hair and definitely don't hold thick hair like mine.

• Sunflowers- $3.00 for a bundle at Wal Mart, the Leaf used on the back was taken from the bundle, so two in one for this, score!

• Metal Barrette’s- a few dollars for a package of ten metal Barrettes at Wal Mart

Headband Twist - Meadow Twist - Medieval Inspired Hairstyle

A few weeks ago I was at my religious meeting and there is a little girl of about 5 or 6 years old and her mom had done a cute little hairstyle for the little girl. The hair was put up in a twist in the back and the headband left over the top of her forehead, it kind of looked like a roaring 20’s look.

So when I got home I was thinking of using a similar look for one of my medieval novel characters so I decided to look it up on the internet to see how it is created. It looked super easy but I wanted to make sure. I found this web site, and it shows how to create it, it really was super easy. So I thought maybe if I try it on myself then I can best describe it in my novel. So I did it and the pictures of mine are below. I used that particular headband as a trial headband instead of one to blend in as it was shown in the Meadow Twist Hair Tutorial instructions on the web.
 

If you care to see how I made that Daisy and Narcissus Flowers Burlap Headband go to this link: http://tabularasacoker.blogspot.com/2015/05/daisy-and-narcissus-flower-headband.html

 

Here is the site where the Meadow Twist Hair Tutorial is:  http://blog.freepeople.com/2012/10/hair-tutorial-meadow-twist/

The first back shot is when my hair was completely dry and was a bit difficult. The next back shot is when my hair was freshly washed and a tad damp, I towel dried to a degree and then I began to do the twist. It was easier with it being a tad damp as I got a tighter twist and it stayed up way better and longer.

With the side view if you care to have less headband showing then just start the twist higher up the headband then I did. Again my hair was dry in that picture and so the twist was a bit more difficult for me, I will definitely be doing that hairstyle with my hair slightly damp from now on. And oh boy will I be doing that cute, easy, stylish, hairstyle again!

Now the back view with the purple and yellow peony fake flowers and the ones with the purple and yellow peony flowers and purple butterflies and the ones with pink / purple honeysuckle flowers and purple butterflies was to see how it would look and I loved it! On the web tutorial version it was shown with real flowers which was cute but I have so many fake flowers it just was easier using fake ones and cheaper and lasts longer.

 

I have an event coming up in the end of March where I will be wearing a purple and white flower dress and I think I will do this twist and place the purple and yellow peony flowers and purple butterflies in the back of my hair around the twist as seen in the below pictures.

Now I bought some multi-colored and some black headbands to blend in or stick out as I wished but they made my head feel like it was in a vice grip, pictures of those headbands on are below, but thank goodness the headbands only cost $1 for a package of six, I got them at Dollar Tree. I was smiling through the pain, lol, looks good though! I will use them for other things, maybe for when I make ribbon headbands. And I already tried but the ribbon headbands are two flimsy for me to get a nice tight twist that will hold.

So I tried playing around to make a much more comfortable headband but I failed a few times and am still trying to find a way to wear this hairstyle with headbands that will blend in and not hurt but I have yet to find a way but I will edit and explain when I do find a way. Also the headbands that are tighter seem to roll back on my head as well so I would have to keep it on my forehead which hurt as well.

So I have a dress that has a thin braided rope belt and so I tried that in my hair and it gave a Native American vibe to it but I can’t wear that with my dress in a month as the dress doesn’t have brown in it. I will just keep looking for a softer alternative to the headband. I have about a month to find an alternative.

• Headbands- $1 for each of the packages containing six headbands, bought at Dollar Tree. Hopefully if anyone uses them that they have a better time with it then I did.

• Purple and Yellow Peony Fake Flowers- $0.97 at Wal Mart. I bought them a while ago but I think they are only $0.97.

• Pink / Purple Honeysuckle Fake Flowers and Purple Fake Butterflies- $0.97 at Wal Mart. They had the Honeysuckle Flowers with two Purple Butterflies on a stem of the flowers which I thought was a great score.

 < Honeysuckle Flowers and Purple Butterflies

 < Purple and Yellow Peony Flowers, the Purple Butterflies are in the images below

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit February 23, 2016: 

 

Meadow Twist Head Band Update. I found the solution a week ago but have been so busy it has taken a while to finally update everyone on my progress with this hairstyle. So I was at Dollar Tree and I was looking at ribbons and burlap and I came across lace ribbon and I thought maybe I could make a headband that was comfortable, had good grip and would hold a tight twist in the back. So I bought the ribbon and reasoned if it didn’t work I have other uses for the lace ribbon and it was only $1.


See as I had said in the above portion of this post that I couldn't use ribbon as it was too flimsy, slick and wouldn't hold a tight twist. Well the lace ribbon though still ribbon is of lace and the material looks and feels different. It can hold better as it isn't slick like regular ribbon and is firmer as well than regular ribbon.

 

 

So I bought the ribbon and went home and played around with it as to getting the right length. It is trial and error with me. It took a few times to get the right fit. When I had it cut to the right size I took a cut piece of one of the head squeezing headbands I had previously bought at Dollar Tree and hot glued a tiny fragment to the end pieces of the lace ribbon so that it would have still a bit of maneuverability and stretch to it. It took cutting and hot gluing three times to get the right hold and fit but in the end it looks perfect and holds the Head Band Twist / Meadow Twist perfectly!

 

 

Now I used one of the black headband pieces for the end of my Lace Ribbon Head Band as I have dark hair and it didn’t matter and plus I had already been cutting that one up so I didn’t go cut any others up. But if you have lighter hair or want it to blend in more with white or neutral lace ribbon then you could use a white or tan headband piece cut up. The color of the white headband I wear in one of the pictures in the above pictures could have been cut up and used to blend in more with the lace ribbon if you have lighter hair or just want it to blend in.

 

 

Below will be the pictures of the Lace Ribbon Head Band! Also note my hair was wetter than I normally have it for the headband twist so that is why it looks so slick in the pictures. I showed the back view to show how it looks with the Lace Ribbon Head Band and I showed the one with flowers to show that it keeps firm and holds the flowers just as good as the head squeezing headbands do but this Head Band is way more comfortable.

 

 

 

• Lace Ribbon- $1 at Dollar Tree

 

• Headbands- $1 at Dollar Tree for a Package of 6 Headbands, these headbands or even pony tail holders are what I often use at the ends of my homemade headbands as they give good maneuverability and stretch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Appearance vs. Personality!

So on this Musings of a Lonely Writer post I am going to discuss the feeling behind a characters physical appearance vs. their personality. I am going to discuss whether a reader wants a beautiful character or a much more normal character or if it even matters. Could perhaps the personality matter more. Or is it a combination of both.

Okay so when I read a novel I read about so many types of characters but I always get the impression that the character is always perfectly perfect in some aspect, either he or she is handsome or beautiful in some way or they are gifted a perfect personality. In real life that is not always the case. But as I’ve said before the rules and aspects of real life and that of the worlds of books aren’t necessarily the same and don’t have to be.

In my writing I have discovered lately that my characters are these ethereal beautiful characters and sometimes that starts to bother me as I want to have a real character who struggles with not only physical but personality limitations. I mean I love characters that are so different then me and are everything I am not but I also want characters that are similar to real people, myself included.

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So I have started writing a story called, “Death of the Heart Song” and my main character has an undesirable first name, Misery, and her physical traits and personality traits are lacking any sort of beauty or desirableness. She is often rude and crude and says what is on her mind and she doesn’t care who you are when she speaks her mind. She lives in a Kingdom that has beautiful musically inclined people and she has no musical abilities and is classified as ugly in her Kingdom. So later she butts heads with the Prince and becomes quite a distraction to him and she has no clue why.

Their relationship as trainer and teacher and as friends and would be lovers (they are about the same age, he has just turned 16 years old and she is about to turn 18 years old) is a fun one to explore and write about but their relationship is not the main part of the story. The Heart Song element is the main part but I won’t get into that long story. The reason I write this at all is to show I have now made a character that is classified as unattractive and I wonder how she would be perceived by a reader. Would her physical lack of beauty or her personality make a reader love or hate her more or would it be a combination of both or would neither matter all that much.

Also I want to point out I didn’t make her unattractive just for the sake of saying to myself or others that I now have an ugly character. She was undesirable and had flaws as she presented herself to me in a dream and I found it fresh and exciting to see a character that is different then most characters I have written about or read about before.

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I wonder if young and old readers alike care more about the physical appearance of a character or the personality or does it matter at all. But I guess it probably varies by each person and by each story and how the author wants to present the said character and how the reader perceives said character.

Also do you think that authors present too perfectly perfect characters or just the right amount of perfect and flawed? I asked my mom and she said she doesn’t think that there are too many perfectly perfect characters. She also said that sometimes attractive traits, like in a romance novel, are sometimes a plus or needed but in other stories it really doesn’t matter.

So in books I wonder if the characters physical or personality traits even matter. I mean they matter a little bit. But I find a book with a much more normal flawed character in many ways is interesting and gives me more in-depth insight into that character and their world or story.

But the writer in me still finds beautiful glorious characters to be fun and intriguing. Personally I still think though that personality means more. My characters are so different personality wise but they are so interesting and funny or sassy or fiery or sweet or crude or bold or brave, ect. I think that what they say and how they say it is much more important and how they react to the good, bad, and ugly themes in their stories brings me closer to them then what they look like.

So beautiful or not or great personality or not I think how they handle themselves and what their story is and how they live it is much more important. And though looks and a good personality often matter I think how they handle themselves makes or breaks a character and makes the reader love or hate or love to hate the character. If an author can get characters to surpass ones ideas about what makes an ideal character then it impresses me and leaves a lasting impression on this lonely reader and makes me want to make the lonely writer in me push the boundaries of my character layouts.

Care to weigh in? Then please leave a comment in the comment section of this post!

Keep Writing! Keep Reading! And Keep Inspiring!