FocusPositives

I have always admired the girls in Korean dramas. They have really diverse, cute and romantic looking hairstyles. In my opinion I look pretty fobbish (fresh of the boat) with the regular braids. So I thought I’d give it a twist instead of the regular braid. To my surprised, twisting a braid turned out a lot easier and more stylish. The added benefit of this hairstyle are fun wavy curls that I’ve always wanted. If you have hair like mine, straight as a stick and have been mistaken for straightening your hair, you’ll know how hard it is to produce lasting curls without heat. You will love how easy and fast these two hairstyles are. Great for lazy days. You almost do nothing for the curls. People will think you spent hours on your hair.

Direction: Day 1 – Twisted braids

• Dampen hair 80-90%
• Separate hair in half
• Separate hair in half again, twist strands two towards the front
• Twist the two strands to the back and pull tightly
• Tie and repeat on the other side

Direction: Day 2 – No heat, Soft wavy curls

• Sleep with braids on
• Untie hair
• Separate hair with hand (DO NOT COMB)
• Optional: Style and spray with hair products if desire

http://youtu.be/xm2_9ZhpYlc

There’s not much real estate on my desk. I share one monitor between two laptops. The setup I have going on needs two keyboards and two mouse. The keyboard  tray fits both keyboards but can easily fall out in the back. I made this quick easy hack at zero cost partly as a fun challenge and more importantly to stop this annoyance of my keyboard falling out in the back every time I switched keyboards. You could use it on a slanted tray in the front to stop the keyboard from sliding off. It may not look very pretty in the front of the tray but will do the job if you haven’t found a solution yet.

Material:

• 2 pieces of cardboard, 8″(w) x 4″(h)
• Scissors
• Utility knife or Xacto knife
• Tape optional

Directions:

1. Measure and cut 2 pieces of cardboard (In my case I just cut out the small side of a tiny cardboard box.)
2. Measure the thickness of the keyboard tray.
3. Divide the height (4″) in half and draw a line in the center and measure a rectangle with the measurements indicated on the photo in the middle of the cardboard.
4. Divide the width (8″ into five columns) 1.5″, 2.5″, 4″, 2.5″, 1.5″.
5. Use Xacto of utility knife to cut out the rectangle strips from #4. For a tight fit, cut out less than the thickness of the tray.
6. Fold at the dotted line.
7. Slide the 2 cardboards onto the back of the tray and tape for extra reinforcement.

One of my favorite buns had little braids in the middle. I tried it before I knew how to  make my sock bun looking nicely. The technique I saw didn’t work for my annoying hair. When I saw the bun again while surfing the internet I thought I’d give my “Gutsy Sock Bun” technique a little challenge and see if it would work. With some modifications,  my “Gutsy Sock Bun” technique  handled my disobedient THICK, STIFF, and LAYERED hair very well. Let me know if it works for you as well. Enjoy!

Materials:

• Scissors
• A sock
• A doughnut or a DIY sock doughnut
• Rubber bands
• Comb

Directions:

1. Cut a 1″-2″ hole at the toe of the sock and your ready to start !
2. At the highest point where your bun will sit, grab a small circular section of hair and tie it up. Don’t grab too much hair for the top, you’ll need more hair at the bottom to cover the sock and mesh donut.
3. Select a tiny bunch of hair. braid to the end and tie it off. If you have longer hair you can braid half way down or a little more to save time. The ends of the hair will be tucked and hidden inside the bun.
4. For my bun I did about 8 braids, you can do more or less according to your preference. I think the more braids the better the bun looks.
5. Grab the rest of the hair and tie it up and finish off with using “a bun with a gut” technique.

KEY POINTS:

• The thinner the braids the easier it is to conform to the shape of the bun.
• Keep the braids wrapped in the center of the pony tail
• Spread braids evenly over mesh donut

Here’s a quick tutorial for those of you who use your hair bun mesh donut very often like me. The mesh donut will eventually either completely or partially break apart. The mesh material is very sturdy, there’s no need to create waste so don’t throw it out. I’ll show you how simple it is to fix in the video below. Enjoy!

Materials:

• Needle
• Needle threader (optional)
• Matching thread

http://youtu.be/SrTZSHoHWP8

Easy sewing project

If you are looking for easy things to sew or things to sew for beginners here’s a easy free sewing pattern I made. You can use a scrap of stretchy fabric or even cut up fabric from an old shirt because it requires so little fabric.

I have been eyeing this pretty piece of vintage scrap fabric in my mom’s stash for a long time. The fabric has been around since the beginning of time for me. There’s not much left of it so I thought it would be great for a summer top. What I ended up with is this halter top. It requires very little fabric and is super easy to sew. It’s super comfy and stretchy, unfortunately I don’t know what type of material it is. You could use any stretchy material and it would work the same.

How to customize free sewing pattern

The image below shows you how to make your measurements and how to draw the fabric pieces to make your custom halter top pattern.

Materials

• Front piece (cut 1) = A (width) x E (height)
• Back piece (cut 1) = B (width) x E (height)
• 1 Strap (cut 2) = A (width) x C height (height)
• Add hem according to color chart above.

Directions

1. Hem the top of the Front and Back pieces by folding 1/4″ then 1/2″ and sew.
2. Fold the 2 strap pieces in half and sew on the wrong side. Turn the pattern side out.
3. Place straps on top of the Front and Back pieces and sew together.
4. Face pattern sides together and sew the straps together.
5. Hem the bottom of the garment like #1.