distraction #2 and #3 - beads and hair

and here fly again, before I continue with what else kept me from blogging (my first distraction can be found here) I changed my blogs comment section a little, now you can answer each others comments and so can I too :) I've always wondered if there was a way to answer to one of your comments directly and a little googlesearch did the trick :) -- the comment marathon can begin

soooo the title mentions it already, beading and hair. Now let me start on the first as it's fading away again (the latter steals A LOT of my spare time). The Beading, or better bead crochet. I made another necklace:

I don't really remember why I rummaged out my bead collection in the first place, but it kept me busy for three days (why I know this?, I actually watched the clock: 3x6hours) I threaded the beads onto a thread and started crocheting in the round. Pretty simple actually. The tricky part is the threading as this is the part where you can follow a pattern. You can see my first finished necklace on flickr here (never mind my duckface smile). On my first necklace I just mishmashed all my bead together and they gave me a nice mother-of-pearl like effect. With my new piece I followed a snake pattern. It's very subtle but if you look closer you can make out the snake swirling. I really like this kind of crochet ans started following a few gals over at pinterest with beading boards (just so I won't forget about this craft again)

Now onto HAIR, oh dear, I dream about my hair, I actually do! The rest of this post will be about how I work on my dream of Rapunzel like hair, if you give a s*** about this just stop reading here :) all the rest of you, welcome to my little extra journey on this blog. Don't say I didn't warn you ^__^

well, yes I'm growing out my pixie cut. I've started to think about this in June, about a month after I went super short with my pixie. I liked my pixie a lot and won't say I'll never turn to have it all cut off again but for now I want to braid - I want to updo - I want to be Rapunzel. Pinterest is one of the reasons I can't stop thinking about hair nowadays. All the endless possibilities of updos, braids and accessories! Not to mention how to care and wash and make it grow quicker. I've spent hours, no - days on there reading through oils and scalpt massages, nutrition for my hair and No-Poo. Until my biology studied brain said: hey you stupid! all you can do is maintain good state of your hair, you can't make it grow quicker. Summer will make it grow quicker (the extra heat adds a little extra kick to your metabolism, it will also cause damage if you don't be careful, so I won't recommend to add on purpose) but all in all oils will only make it 'healthier' in a way that it will smooth it more. What will help it grow though is exercise and a healthy diet (just like this wouldn't be good anyways, but unfortunately I already try to live a healthy diet and exercise a lot therefore I won't profit from a change here)
Anyways I got a kick out of no poo. I read everything I could find and got more enthusiastic and more confused the more I read. Clearly no silicones would be good, no sulfates would be great as I color my hair. But would baking soda be good? will it clean enough? I didn't know and wasn't willing try just yet. I decided to go sulfate free first. And so far I really like it. Sulfate free shampoos don't lather as much but I got used to this. Also after three washes I see volume and texture again (the first two washes my hair was just blah, clearly clean and felt good but no volume at all). I guess that's been due to the loss of silicones, and by now they should all be washed out.
I also use as less heat as I can and only color every three month now. I also plan to change from 20 vol h2o2 to only about 8 vol. I think this will damage even less. Though I want to talk with my stylist about this. Sure I know a lot about chemicals and stuff and color my hair for almost 20 years now (jesus I feel soooo old now) but changing a running system still frightens me.

a few pics:

may:

september:

now:

My hair is at this awkward mullet state now (I even learned there is word for this stupid too long hair in the back in English, there is no such word in German, at least not that I know of one.) and I need to find ways to make it look good without chopping it. I try to curl no-heat ways and do find some quite nice so far, although the best result so far takes a lot of time. On days I don't have so much time I just use velcro rollers.

Oh, never let me forget to mention hair accessories!! Oh dear what a whole world lies before me. Wraps and pins and flowers and all this gorgeous stuff and best of all I can make all these beautiful babes myself! So place your bets, you can expect some serious DIYs on hair accessories on here soon!

so long, have a wonderful night, Diana