my idea of home.

Last year, I threw a Rapunzel Birthday Party for my daughter. I wanted each little girl to have a Rapunzel braid, but all of the ideas I found online weren't going to cut it. We had 15 kids coming to this party and I needed something that was cheap, easy to put on, light-weight, and preferably re-usable.

On Pinterest, I found an idea on a blog called, spoonfulofsparkles, where she took yellow, plastic tablecloth covering (by the roll) and draped it around the room to look like Rapunzel's hair. I loved the idea, so I went to the party store and bought a 40"x100' roll for $14. Because there was so much of it, I decided to play around and see if I could make a braid from it. It worked! The best part was that I was able to incorporate a barrette so that the girls could take them home as a party favor and add them to their dress-up collection. In fact, I have heard that the girls still play with them and it has been an entire year!!
I made the 'Birthday Girl' braid a little more special than the guest braids by adding more flowers and making them a little more elaborate. Flowers are the most expensive part of these braids, so this saved on the cost of the braids over-all.

I am going to show you how to make them, but I also sell them, if you would rather not put in the time or make the mess. I charge $4 for the guest braids, and $6 for the Birthday-Girl braid. Just email me at myideaofhome@yahoo.com if you are interested!

Ok, so first, let's go over the supplies-

You will need:

-A 40" wide x 46" long piece of yellow, plastic tablecloth covering

-1 large barrette (I found a package of 3 at the dollar store)

-1 large Flower

- 4 - 8 small flowers

-1" or 1 1/2" wide ribbon

-2"-3" ribbon

- Hot Glue gun and about 3 glue sticks

-1 strong hair elastic

To Start, cut the plastic in 3 pieces, lengthwise (if you want to measure accurate, it's about a 13" width for each piece). If you don't make an even cut, don't sweat it. It wont be seen.

Next, take each piece, and fold the sides in, gluing one small dot to hold it in place.

Once you have done this to all three pieces, stack the glued ends on top of each other, and glue them together lightly, just so that the ends hold together while you braid.

The next part is a little "Boot-leg", but it was the best I could think of. I just closed the glued ends in a drawer so that I could braid it without it moving all over the place.

Now you can start braiding!

Be sure not to pull too tight. You want the strands to look big and fluffy.

When you are about 7" from the bottom, put the elastic in.

It's time to attach the barrette.

This part can be tricky, so I took as many pictures as I could to show how I do it.

After the barrette is attached, I like to glue a 1x5" strip of ribbon to reinforce the hold and to cover the barrette.

Now I add the flowers. I get a large enough flower to cover the barrette. The small flowers can be grouped however you want.

I finish it off with a nice, wide ribbon at the bottom. I like to add a little bit of glue under the knot of the bow so that when the girls run around with it, it doesn't slip off.

It is helpful to do my daughter's hair like this because the braid doesn't pull on her hair and is supported up higher on her head. (She wears hers for hours.... and hours.)

And, of course, since I am a tad on the "perfectionist" side, I hide her real hair by tucking it into one of the loops of the yellow braid. This way, one might actually believe that the yellow braid is her real hair :)