DIY Hair Wraps

Summer is just around the corner, (Only two more days of school!!!) and I can't help but want to do everything summery. But that's been going on since we spend Christmas break in Florida and it was 80 degrees. Still, summer time is so close I can smell it. I live for summer. A while ago (like last year,) I saw  this picture, and immediately fell in love with the idea. It reminds me of sunshine, and beaches, and, well, summer. 

After looking at a bunch of tutorials, I dug out my embroidery floss, (I literally had to dig it out of my draw,) and picked out the colors I wanted.  I picked teal, redish, dark purple, light purple, and pink. My sister picked green, pink, orange, dark blue, and light blue. I cut my strings a little over twice my hair length, but after doing my sisters hair (which is shorter then mine,) with thread the same length, i had to re-cut mine because that length was barely enough to wrap my sisters hair.  

1. Pick and cut thread. Make it longer then you think it needs to be, so that you know you cut enough. 

2. Take a small section of hair where you want the wrap to be and braid it, securing the end with a small hair tie, which will be removed. (I wanted the end to be covered when I put my hair up, so it ended up being a little to far back.) 

3. Secure the strings to the top of the braid. I inserted a crochet hook through the hair between the scalp and the start of the braid and used that to pull the thread through. Then I tied the short end around the long strings, and wrapped all the strings together around the braid. 

4. Start wrapping. Pick the color you want to start with and wrap it around the braid until that section is long enough. Make sure to hold all the threads to the braid, along with the short ends to hide them. 

5. To switch colors I tied a knot like you use for friendship bracelets, then held the old color to the braid, and started wrapping with the new color. (I'm not sure if you really have to put in a knot.) Continue wrapping till you reach the end of the the braid. To mix it up a little, I like to do sections with two colors at once, or leave a strand out of the wrap then wrap in around the wrapped section to make X's before I add it back in. 

6. When you reach the end of the braid take out the hair tie. Then I split the treads into two groups and tied them around the end of the braid a couple times.  To finish, I trimmed the end to so that they were even. depending on how much is left, you might or might not want to do that. 

These are supper easy once you get the hang of it. It's a little hard to do to yourself though. I should know, I tried. Mirrors are helpful. So are sisters. I would say these are perfect, except I keep forgetting it's there while I'm combing my hair...