Pippi Longstocking Braids

a.k.a. April Fool’s Hair

Actually, I did this a few weeks ago. It was Wacky Hair Day at my daughter’s school. I got her hair done up in a bunch of ponytails all over her head, and then – since I was going in that day to volunteer and still had a bit of time before we had to leave – I figured I’d coiffe myself too.

Note: only reason this worked so quickly is that I had a coat hanger already straightened out, leftover from Halloween tails and towers, tucked away in the crawl space near my craft corner.

Result? The kids loved it! And lots of teachers asked how I did it.

Here’s how. You need:

longish hair two hairbands wire coat hanger pliers/wire cutters

Step 1) Get all the kinks out of the wire. It’s hard to get the sections that were twisted together to be truly straight. Maybe you want to just snip them off, if your hanger will still be long enough.

Step 2) Bend the wire to fit snugly over the top of the head. Like a headband with really really long sides. Then remove it for step 3.

Step 3) Plait two loose braids; make ‘em too tight and it’ll be a lot harder to guide the wire through later. Same goes for the bands. Keep ‘em loose for now, just enough to hold the braids in place.

Also, note: the braids should start near the ears, so they’re in line with the wire “headband” that you’ll be adding back in a minute.

 

Step 4) For this step, it helps to have a third hand. : ) Guide the wire ends down through the braids. Once the wire is shoved past the hairbands too, you could tighten them if needed.

 

Step 5) Bend the wires into whatever shape you’d like.

 

Step 6) Make sure you won’t poke somebody’s eye out! Curl the ends of the wire around or snip them off close to the (tightened) hairbands.

 

No more steps) Just be careful walking around. I kept forgetting I had protrusions on either side of my head. I bonked at least one of my children at least once that morning!

Final note: my hanger happened to match my hair color quite well. If that’s not the case for you, you could try putting the wire on the head before making the braids, combing some hair over it, and then braiding around the wire. That was a lot harder for me, but maybe if I had been doing it on someone else, it would have worked better.