My 16 year old neighbor asked me to do her hair for the Snow Daze formal dance that was on Saturday.  (I was very flattered that she asked!)  Her hair is just beyond her shoulders, but was classic length at one time.  When it was really long, I used to braid her hair quite often.  Anyway.... I digress.... She wanted her hair french braided on each side, with half her hair left down.  Easy enough. 

As I was braiding the first side, I was trying to think of some way to dress it up a bit.  So I thought about braiding some ribbon in with her hair.  I happened to have some satin ribbon that matched her dress (shock!  ), so I tried to braid it in.  Her hair was so slippery, I could not get it to stay in place, plus the ribbon I had was very thin and was not showing.  Bummer.  Start over again.

I finally decided to do the french braids then sew/weave the ribbon into her hair.  That worked great!  I brought the two braids together, used an elastic to make a ponytail, then wrapped the tail with criss-crossing ribbon, ending in a cute bow.  (Once the hair was braided and in the ponytail, I threaded a large darning needle with the ribbon, and used a sewing stitch through the braid.)

I thought it looked pretty nice.  She said it looked nice (she's not known for expressing herself in verbose fashion, so I really did not know how she liked it).  When I saw her parents later that night, I asked what they thought.  Mom thought it was great, Dad never got to see it.  Neither of them really knew how she felt about it.

Last night she came over to return some things that had been borrowed and    she still had the ribbons in her hair!  I was soooo surprised that 1) the braids lasted through the night and the next day 2) she liked them well enough to try to keep them.

She also asked if I could do her hair for the spring Prom.  This time she will give me more time to match the dress, so I can get ribbon that will work a little better.  She also said that a couple of her friends would like me to do their hair for Prom!  I guess I'd better mark that date on my calendar 

How nice...your neighbor is very lucky to have you to help her, wish you were my neighbor. 

oh yes ... group braiding!!