Category Archives: Tutorial

How to put your hair up with a pen/pencil: a tutorial

Posted on February 7, 2011 | 7 Comments

Yes, this is my first tutorial. Ever. I think.

Here we go: Emily Smucker presents….

How to put your hair up with a pen or a pencil or a spoon or whatever long straight thing you happen to have on hand.

Step 1: Put your hair in a ponytail

(Just for the record, the girl reflected in the patio doors is my little sister taking the pictures. Thanks Jenny.)

Step 2: Grasp the ponytail with your hand

Step 3: Loop your hair up over the top of your hand.

Step 4: Wrap the remaining hair around the base of the ponytail

Step 5: Around and around and around

Step 6: And around, until you have used up all your hair

Step 7: Slide the loop of hair off of your hand…

Step 8: And up over the rest of your hair, like this

Step 9: Stick a pencil or a pen through it

Step 10: Ta da!

Noteworthy notes about this hairstyle:

I wear my hair like this every day. I never had the problems with my hair falling out once I put my hair up like a lot of Mennonite women do.

You can do this hairstyle without putting the ponytail holder in at the beginning. You can just hold it with your hand. I did that for years and years but now I try to put a ponytail holder in it because it helps it stay up longer.

This style usually lasts me all day. If it falls down, it takes approximately 12 seconds to put it back up.

If you are wondering why there are those long-ish hairs at the nape of my neck, I will tell you. Once I did my hair in a whole bunch of little braids. When I got done I realized that there was a teeny strand that I had missed. So I ripped it off and then it grew back enough to just hang there without staying up in my bun very well.

One more thing:

It is possible to put your hair up like this using a spoon, a stick, a knitting needle, a crochet hook, and any number of things. However, sometimes things like sticks and spoons are very hard to get in and out and cause lots of pulled hairs and are in general a big pain.

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I don’t like kleenexes

Posted on June 23, 2009 | 4 Comments

I have never really liked kleenexes, actually. Why did mom always have to buy those little kleenex boxes to set in my school desk? Why couldn’t I just grab a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom like everybody else?

Toilet paper is cheaper. And you can get a big piece or a little piece, depending on how much you  need.

But once when I was telling my mom all this, she proceeded to tell me about how, in her childhood, her friends would ask for a kleenex, and her mom would tell them to just use toilet paper, and she was extremely embarrassed. Something like that. So of course then I felt bad and never again complained about kleenexes. Well maybe I did. I don’t actually remember.

I still don’t like kleenexes. Every time Mom visits me, large ugly flowered boxes appear all over the house, and I don’t know what to do with them. I suppose I could use them, but I’d much rather replace them with my latest craft obsession, homemade kleenex boxes.

So easy to make. And fun. Get a coffee can or a reliv can or some sort of can that’s around the same size as a roll of toilet paper and has a soft plastic lid. Cut a hole in the lid, pull out the cardboard tube in the roll of toilet paper, and stick the roll in the can. The paper should be pulled from the center of the roll and go out the hole in the lid.

Easy sneezy.

And fun. Cause you can decorate the can however you want.

And you can refill it again and again, unlike normal kleenex boxes.

And you have all the amazing benefits of using toilet paper.

The first time I made a kleenex box out of a reliv tin it went very well. I had to unroll some toilet paper from the roll to make it fit in the can, but I just folded up the extra and stuck it in my bathroom and used it.

But yesterday when I got a roll of toilet paper to put in my latest kleenex box I ran into a problem. All I had left was this thin one-ply stuff like they have in gas station restrooms. Which meant that a LOT of toilet paper fit on that roll. So to get it small enough I had to unroll and unroll and unroll until I had piles and piles of extra toilet paper around me. So much that I got sick of trying to fold it up. And it seemed wasteful to just throw it away. So instead I tried to make a sort of paper mache out of it.

I really have no idea how to paper mache. Like most craft projects I attempt to do, I made it up as I went along. I soked it in water and elmers glue and then tried to form it into something.

It didn’t go too well.

Finally I made a sort of bowl. No idea how it’s going to turn out. It’s still trying to dry.

Different subject:

I have so much fun layering my clothes and such to make them unique and modest, but that doesn’t work well in the summer. What I need is t-shirts.

So today I took this Seattle Seahawks t-shirt my brother gave me that hung like a sack, and took it in. It was so easy. I just measured two inches in on the side from the hem to the tip of the sleeve, and surged it all the way.

Now I have a t-shirt that fits me, is long, and doesn’t have those “itty bitty cap sleeves” that my mom detests so much.

I feel very clever and thrifty at the moment. :-)

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Posted in Fashion, Tutorial