Baptismal Braids

Yesterday Kate was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
I spent a long time trying to figure out how to do Kate's hair for the occasion.  Her hair is beautiful -- smooth and silky, and straight as a board.  Since I wanted her hair to look nice for pictures before and after, as well as not take much time to "fix" after the baptism (by full immersion).... it took a little research.

Anyway, here's what I came up with.  And I like it :)

I started by having Kate take a good shower, and gave her a trim (it's been a while and apparently her hair grows unevenly).

Ta-da!

I made a full part down the center of the head.  Then another part across the top of her head near the front.  This front section I divided into 6 parts going across.

Apparently I skipped the photo of a step.  Oops.  I braided each of the 6 front sections going back and secured the bottom of each with an elastic.  I made another part going across her head one each side and created three more sections to start a french braid on each side.  I used an elastic band to secure the end of each braid to its corresponding side.  This is the slightly complicated part... The braids on the left side were secured to the sections on the right side and vice versa.  Plus, the braids were woven together.  This is easiest seen by looking at the pictures.  Each braid alternated over/under/over.  It's not nearly as complicated as it looks, just takes a teensy bit of concentration.  On her actual baptism day I missed one of the over/unders and it drove me crazy! 

I finished a french braid on each side starting with the three rubber-banded sections.  The tiny braids were left braided so at the top of each french braid has tiny braids through it also. 
Finally I lifted the bottom of each french braid right up and used a hair bow with a french clip on it to secure the bottom of the braid over the hair bands securing the three starting sections. 
With her hair wet I just spread out the ends of the hair and let it dry on its own (this worked great after the baptism!)  With her hair dryish I used a teensy curling iron to curl the ends down a bit into a puff instead of sticking straight up.

These were great for baptism day.  Her hair stayed secured really well when she went under the water and came back up.  When I changed her out of her wet dress into a dry one and changed the bows (from plain white to the white with blue stripes) her braids stayed nice and tidy.  I simply patted the hair gently and yes, it dripped a little over the next while, but not bad.  It probably helped keep her cool at the picnic lunch at the park afterward :P  I'm very happy with how these worked!