Make your own headband:


I was watching the neighbor girls yesterday afternoon and we worked on a project to pass the time away. I can't find my camera right now so I pulled a picture form Google images to show what the headbands look like. This one is a bit bigger than the one we made, but ours were still fairly chunky. We used some silky ivory fabric I had.
Here are the directions:

1. Wash and dry the fabric
2. Cut the fabric to be 4" by 42"
3. use the template below and lay it on the "wrong" side of the fabric. On each end trace the pattern, it will make a 30 degree angles point.
4. Take the fabric to the sewing machine and fold it in half with the "wrong" side out. Starting from the middle, sew the headband out to the points. back stitch when you begin, but do not back stictch at the point. (This will cause puckering.) Simply leave a long string of top and bobbin thread and double knot it. Do this to both sides leaving space in between to pull the fabric through.
5. Cut off the extra fabric by the points and pull the fabric through the hole making the "right" side of the fabric show. Use something pointy like a crochet hook or a pencil to make the points look good. Then iron everything in place.
6. Go back to the machine and sew from point to point. To avoid any puckering issues, you can begin and end about an inch from the point. Now you are done.

Note to self:

• The girls were excited to use the sewing machine but were so tired form a long day at school that they had a hard time focusing. Especially once Maggie woke up form her nap. They just wanted to play with her.
• They were here for about an hour and it was long enough to let them all get to the ironing stage, but we didn't have enough time for them to sew the hole closed.
• They all needed complete supervision on every part of the task except for pulling the fabric through.
  
  

Navy Ball Hair:

Here are some pictures and directions for how I did my hair for the navy ball.

These are the special tools I used The green container is some very sticky goo I use to smooth things out, and control fly aways.

1. make a part. I prefer for it to be off to the side. I take the part from my hair line to about 2 inches in at an angle. I think this makes a good chunky bang.
2. I keep the bangs out of the way while I put the rest of my hair into a fairly high ponytail.
3. Smooth the bangs back. I use flip clips to keep them in place and then remove them latter when it is closer to the time of the event. I normally put one clip in above my ear because that is where I am turning the direction of the hair. Then sometimes I put one more wherever it is needed to help keep a smooth curve.
4. If the hair is long enough to reach the ponytail, use a second ponytail holder to secure the ends of the bangs. this will make the ponytail stay extremely well.
5. I take small chunks of hair and wrap them around my curler, starting with the ends of the hair and rolling towards the roots. (This can be done around any round item that is the desired circumference.) Don't roll too tightly because now you need to pull the curler out of the hair. Carefully bobby pin the curled hair into place, positioning in front of the ponytail holder.
6. Repeat with all of the hair that is in your ponytail.
7. My hair is so thin that I don't have enough to go all the way around the ponytail holder, so I just cover the top and put fresh flowers on the bottom. You could use anything.

I cut the stems of the flowers to be about an inch or two. Making sure that they are not longer than the pedals. Then I use two bobby pins per flower and place them in an X over the stem.

CSA

My sister just told me about CSA, Community Supported Agriculture. It is a system for getting farm fresh produce direct from the farmer instead of the grocery store. I have read a little bit about it and think that I will get signed up for it after we are all moved and settled next year. I post it so that I don't forget about it latter, But I also thought i'd share it with everyone to look into it for themselfs too.

Here is a site I found that shares a little bit of info on it and has a search tofind a CSA farm co-op in your area.

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Sorry locals, There are no CSA's in our area!