Giveaway Win: A Hairbow Fascination

This would be the first of a series of posts I'll be doing to showcase the fruits of my 'labor' (chos) a.k.a contest/giveaway wins! :) Disclaimer: I am not a contest fanatic (as in basta contest, joiiiin!), and hindi din naman in denial, but I do enjoy joining giveaways - especially when I like the prizes.I don't always win, but when I do, I consider them blessings from the sky.  Hihi. So let's just say these posts are a celebration of unexpected blessings!♥

They will be posted in random order, kung ano yung maalala ko for the day, that's what I'll write about. Para fair. So ayan, enough na with the explanations, hindi naman ito presinto (corny. haha).

Back to the post's title: hairbows. What are hairbows? Hindi na ko maghahanap ng Wikipedia explanation - effort? :)  Let me just show you then:

Hairbow photo from this source.

Super cute right? My fascination for these lovely hair accessories started when I was preparing for my little girl's first birthday. I got a tutu with matching hairbow from Babies and Hairbows, it was all cutie-patootie pink and purple and I just fell in love with it. The big bow on my little baby's head (which only had a thin spread of hair that time), made her look doubly adorable.

Ever since, I've been purchasing hairbow after hairbow after hairbow from my favorite online stores (I only have two favorites up to now). There are a loooot of hairbow makers out there, to the joy of hairbow-crazed moms like me. I don't have a mountain of them yet, but my little girl at four years old now has more hairbows than her long hair can probably handle. Hehe.

BUT - the addiction's still there. Gnawing at my meager mommy budget. Hubby raises his eyebrows everytime Mr. LBC or Mr. JRS stops by our house - he knows I'm feeding 'the hairbow monster' in me again. You know what he said? "Kaya ko din gumawa niyan! Ibili mo ko materials." I couldn't say "Weh, hindi nga?!", simply because I know he probably really can!

And para bang the universe conspired with the hubs, one of the blogs I now faithfully follow, Bebengisms.com launched this giveaway in partnership with Xai Baby Shoppe. Xai Baby Shoppe is an online hub of hairbow materials - they have everything you need to make those hair cuties - from clips, to soft bands, to hard headbands, to plain and printed grosgrain ribbons, to feather appliques and whatnot, they have it!

So mega join ako sa giveaway, which was done via Rafflecopter. And when the contest concluded,this was the little surprise that I got. Yahoooo!

Screenshot of Bebengisms Xai Baby Shoppe giveaway.

The starter kit included 21 different high-quality grosgrain ribbons (plain and printed), a pack of alligator clips, the tying floss, the tying salon clip (na si hubby lang ang naka-gets ng paggamit the first time around. He really is a born craft-er. :))

Imagine my delight (and hubby's) when this kit was delivered to our house! Parang tumalon ang puso ko, at napasigaw ako ng "Ilabas ang glue gun! Ngayon na!"

But, in real life, I didn't make a hairbow right away. I didn't know how, and I was too scared to waste the pretty ribbons because of my not-so-coordinated hands.

 The photo on the left is the starter kit I got, and the one on the right is my daughter's early warning device a.k.a huge orange hairbow which I made. Hindi ako nainform ng tutorial na pinanood ko na magiging ganyan sya kalaki once made. Oh well, newbie moments! :) This style is apparently one of the hairbow's many styles which include boutique, pinwheel, bowtie/tuxedo, loopy, etc.

Hubby's 1st attempt at making a boutique hairbow. Ribbons used were from the starter kit.

My first attempt was kemerlu compared to hubby's. I mean just look at the photo above. It's not yet benta-worthy (perfectionist ako. Haha), but it was definitely beautiful. My hubby is a natural hairbow-maker. How did I get so lucky? :)

Here's a couple more of the hairbows we have made so far, and my little K modeling a pair of Lalaloopsy prettiness bows that her daddy had made.

I am so looking forward to making more hairbows, it's so addictive! Yung tipong pag nawriwriter's block ako, pag naiinis ako, pag inaantok ako, pag naiinip ako, I just whip out the starter kit and I'm all better na ulit. Been seriously stalking Xai Baby Shoppe's ribbon and hardware offerings, and they have a really wide range of materials - I have to jot down those that I want. Compute compute muna ng budjey, and I'd definitely be sending in that order form. Mommies out there who are just as nuts about hairbows as I am, making these lovely things are really worth a try, promise! You can do it for your babies, or if you discover you really have the 'magical hands', then you can even make it the foundation of an online business - kumikitang kabuhayan why not? :)

Thanks again to Bebengisms and  Xai Baby Shoppe!