I have long hair.  Okay, so I have REALLY long hair.  In the shower my hair brushes the backs of my calves.  That makes it difficult sometimes to be able to have multiple and varied hairstyles.  Usually I end up wearing my hair in a bun (especially during my clinical rotations as a student nurse) or maybe a French braid or something along those lines.  When I’m feeling like doing something different I will “scrunch” it with some gel and mousse and go for a messy curl look and wear it down.  And really, those looks are getting OLD.  I try to do a few different things for going out, like braids for accents when it’s up or curling it in a fancier way.

I have found many different styles through the use of YouTube.  There are some awesomely creative people that have put some really neat styles on there.  Here’s the problem though, I have REALLY long hair.  There are some styles for really long hair but a lot of them are things I already do or that I’m just not interested in trying.  Last night I was looking around and found some cute things that aren’t designed for super long hair but I thought I might be able to make work with a few tweeks.

I only know the poster as “LetsMakeItUp1” (I think her name may be Kaley but please don’t hold me to that!) but she has some GREAT videos.  One of the videos includes 5 styles for wet hair in under 10 minutes.  Check out the video here.

The style I decided to try first was the first one with multiple braids that were knotted and pinned up in a sort of pseudo bun on the back of the head. Of course I had to make a few modifications because her hair, while longer, is still considerably shorter than mine.  I figured I would show you my finished product and how I made it work.

This is my hair at church this morning from behind.  It’s got that little bit of messiness I was looking for when I put it up.  I used very little hairspray once I got everything pinned in to place.

This is the side view.  It’s a little out of focus but I think it still easily shows how pretty the side braid ended up looking.

Of course I couldn’t do the style exactly the same way it was done in the video but the basics are the same.  I made a top/side braid and divided my hair into two sections in the back and also braided them.  I had to make some modifications from there.  First, I only braided my hair about half way down (maybe even a little less than that).

Sorry for the fuzzy look of my hair.  This is actually after I took my hair down in the afternoon so it’s not real smooth looking.  I think this pic shows the length and change I made though.  Even braided you can see how long my hair is and you can see that I tied off the braids fairly high up.

Then I changed a few things about how I tied off my braids, given the length I was dealing with.  First I tied the two back pieces, then I added in the front piece.  I alternated tying the side piece with the back pieces until there was just a little bit of braided hair still hanging out with the loose hair still hanging out.

You can see the hair ties still hanging out of the knotted braid portions of my hair.  That’s where I modified the hairstyle again.  I took each of the three pieces, one at a time, and rolled them on two fingers up to the tied off portion.  That’s when I then tucked that part under the braided/knotted areas and hid the unbraided portions of hair.  I pinned everything in place and that’s how I was able to only braid part while still getting a very similar look.

And this is how it turned out this afternoon when I did it again for this post.  Again, still just a little bit messy but fun and not too fussy.  (Sorry for the picture quality.  I obviously took some myself and Kimmy too the ones at church.  I definitely need to work on my picture taking ability!)

I think I could easily dress this up with a neat flower hair pin or hair ornament or wear it casually any day I’m out and about.  It looks fancy enough to give the impression I’ve put work in to it but not so fancy that it would feel strange for every day.

I can also see myself trying multiple styles on that video I referenced earlier also.  Have you found neat hairstyle ideas online?  If so, where?  I’m obviously open to neat, new ideas!