{Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair!}

I am the mother (of two boys) who dreams of one day dressing up a little girl. I love my little boys and the dirt that surrounds them, and am grateful to have such cute little neices that I can make/buy things for and fill that little girl void (for now).

At our church Halloween Trunk or Treat this year, my good friend Nicole had dressed her little girl as Rapunzel from the movie tangled and she made her the cutest hair piece! I knew I had to make one and make my son wear it for three seconds before he yells at me and tells me that he doesn't want to look like a girl.

My husband was in the middle of block week exams, aka MIA for three weeks in a row. So, to keep myself busy, I was going to make my Rapunzel hair piece.

I went to my fav, Hobby Lobby, and bought yellow yarn - best news was that it was 50 percent off so I spent about three dollars on the yarn. You really won't even use a whole ball of yarn for one hair piece so don't buy more than one unless you are making multiple hair pieces (great as a Christmas gift for the little girls in your life!).

I then went over to the flower stem section and bought a bundle of flower stems (also on sale) and spent about two dollars on the flowers. Next, I bought some purple ribbon to braid into my hair piece.

The longest part of this project is the actual cutting of the yarn, it went pretty fast surprisingly, but I would say that I cut yarn for about an hour. If this is for your own daughter, the best way to decide how much yarn to do is to hold it up to her head and measure how far you want it to drop to the floor - my strands were quite long but I am not sure of the exact length. I used my four year old BOY for my measurements:)

I cut yarn and pre-divided into three sections which I then planned to use for my braid. If you have worked with yarn before then you know that it can get tangled up so it was just easier to pre-divide my piles as I was cutting. They didn't have the same number of strands per section, but they looked close enough (again, I am not a perfectionist and love projects that don't have to be perfect!)

Once all of my yarn was cut, I used a cut three strands of the purple ribbon that were the length of my yellow yarn and added one ribbon strand to each section. I then took a hair tie (out of my hair) and tied it to the end and then tied yarn over it to cover the hair band. I saw online that some people just tied ribbon around the three sections but I thought a real hair tie would have a better hold on the braid.

Once divided and tied together, start braiding, and braiding, and braiding.

Once it was all braided together - I finished it off with another hair tie, and then tied ribbon over it to add a little pretty touch:) I then pulled the flowers off of my flower stem and hot glued them to the hair piece.

While I was making this project - my husband kept walking in the kitchen and said "I know you want to wear that and that is why you are making it.." - he was right, I did want to wear it, and I did wear it, probably about 10 times before giving it over to my sweet little neice Holly.

Moving on - one the hair piece was done, I cut more yellow yarn and hot glued it over one of my stretchy Goody brand headbands. I then glued the headband to the hair braid. This makes the hair piece flexible so that it can fit different size heads and people. I have seen other projects where they make the hair piece wrap around the head as a braid, but heaven forbid you accidentally braid it to small and it doesn't fit after all that work! I didn't want to risk that (although the braid version is super cute) - so I just did the attachable headband.

I made my four year old model the headband for a photo - his face says it all! He told me "I'm not saying cheese and don't show that picture to ANYONE! They will think I'm a girl!" [so this is me not showing it to anyone ;)]

P.S. - if the little girl in your life doesn't have blonde hair, change the color of your yarn - I have seen it made in brown and it's super cute! Remember, these would make great Christmas gifts and are VERY affordable - fabuless!

sincerely fabuless, Las Vegas.