Tutorial: Pin in Crown Braid

Hi hi guys~

Today I'm going to show you my improved crown braid method. I did this for Diantha and this is if you need to make a hair appliance and not necessarily style a full wig (though you could use this in conjunction with a wig if you wanted something you could take apart for easy storage).

So here's the goal. Something too fluffy and large to be an actual braid.

And here's what we're going to be using:
Silky braiding hair ($1.69)
Kinky hair ($1.99)
Knee highs ($3.00 for 3 pair box)
Little braiding rubber bands ($.99)
Scissors
Hot glue and glue gun.

Originally I tried this without the pantyhose/knee highs and ran into this problem. The balled up kinked hair liked to pop out. I also originally tried this with brown styrofoam balls but the rigidity actually made it unusable. Also if you have old panty hose with runs or whatever they work great for this too. If you're doing a darker color and want to cheap out with knee highs then get the off black. If you're doing a lighter color then get the tan or nude ones.

First and foremost if you're using knee highs you'll want to stretch them a bit. It's a bit close on whether they're long enough to work for a crown braid but for me it's just long enough.

Next, shove your first balled up clump of kinky hair into the very end of the hosiery. Get a good firm grip of the toe area of the hosiery to make a little handle like part though. I just reused the balls from Diantha Braid Mark 2.

Next lay out your silky hair and kind of roll the hosiery ball in it until it's evenly covered, pinching it around the little nubby toe area handle.

Now begins the tricky part. rubber banding this hair hosiery combo is a pain but you gotta do it. Also once you have this end done go ahead and trim it down and stub it with hot glue. Make sure you get the hosiery in that hot glue stub. I didn't do this in the tutorial pics and you'll see at the end the difference.

Now make sure the hair is evenly smoothed over the ball and pinch the other side. Now rubber band that too. It is a pain pulling all that hair and hosiery through but I found pinching and holding the rubber band open with one hand and pulling the hair through with the other was the easiest way.

See the difference? You can't really tell there is hosiery in there but now the ball is firmly secured in there. Also pay no mind to the color difference, that's because I bought #6 instead of #8 and riiiight after this photo ran out and got the right color.

Now gently dig into the hair, pulling the hosiery down so you can easily shove another ball in there then pinch and smooth. Lather rinse repeat.

Once done go ahead and stub the second end as well. The end on the left was the first end which I stubbed at the same time as the second end. You can see how the first ball is a bit lumpy now, a problem easily solved by stubbing the end sooner rather than later.

Now you may be wondering about how I'm going to hide those stubs and why I now have one less ball on this thing. I have really long hair. Enough that a bun of my natural hair is about the size of one of these. So I put my hair in a low bun, then pin in the crown braid with bobby pins (about 10 do the job) and tuck the stubs under the bun, using two pins on each to secure them.

On the left is the Mark 2 crown braid (no pantyhose), on the right is Mark 3 (with pantyhose). Visually not much of a difference but longevity-wise it makes one. Mark two only last one con, Mark 3 has done three and is still going strong.

The cost for this, not including derping on colors and remaking it was about $8. It could easily be $4-5 if you have old pantyhose and little rubber bands on hand. The total cost for me was about 5 packs of hair, a bag of styrofoam balls, two bags of little rubber bands and a box of knee highs so about $18-20. The full cost for Diantha's hair also includes a set of clip in bangs (the gel, hair spray, clear tiny rubber bands and razor comb I also used were left over from styling my friend's Mr. Ral wig) so about $23-25. And it's way more comfortable than a full wig.