I wanted to do something elegant, but not with tons of elastic showing. So we did these upside down french braids all around her head that came to a central spot at the top of her head. It's a simple concept, actually. Here's one way to do it:
First, wet, wet, wet hair and make sure it's free of tangles. Next, divide the hair into 6 even sections. I did two in front, two in the middle, and two in the back.
Next, she laid down on the couch and I braided her hair starting in the back. I french braided from her neck up to the center of her head and then regular braided all the way to the ends of her hair. Just continue to move around the head until you've finished all 6 section.
As you can see, they all end at one central location.
At this point you can do just about anything with the remaining hair. You can ponytail it and undo the remaining braids, out of the pony you can do double twists or other tiny braids, you can just messy bun it, you can combine the braids all into one big braid or weave the braids all the way around in a cool pattern, etc. The sky's the limit. I just ponied all the braids and turned it into one big bun using bobby pins to hide the ends of hair. And since I don't have one of those cool fancy pony-o's (or "thingies" as
Jamie calls them), I used a boring adult scrunchie.
One thing I WISH I had tried was knotting each braid and undoing a couple inches of free hair at the ends and curling it. I may re-try this one in a couple weeks and do just that so that we can all see how it turns out.
And here's a fun collage for all of our family (great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended cousins) who are ALL long, long distance. (you can click the collage to see it bigger)
This one is probably easy enough that you don't need an explanation. But real quick:
Then I just separated out a square section on each side at the front. Pull the rest back into a tight, tangle-free half (or whole) pony.
I made two ponies with elastic out of the squared-off sections. As you can probably see, I "flipped" them (pulled the pony through underneath) before starting the cork screw.
Once you finish the first cork screw, clippy it to the back while you do the second one. I always twist further than necessary in case a little bit of it comes unraveled while I'm doing the final pony.
At the very end I pull both cork screws into a tight half pony in the back. Then from that pony you can do anything you want--a messy bun, a braid, several braids, etc. I took just a little bit of hair from that pony and made another larger cork screw down the back and added some ribbon.
I wanted to do something elegant, but not with tons of elastic showing. So we did these upside down french braids all around her head that came to a central spot at the top of her head. It's a simple concept, actually. Here's one way to do it:
Next, she laid down on the couch and I braided her hair starting in the back. I french braided from her neck up to the center of her head and then regular braided all the way to the ends of her hair. Just continue to move around the head until you've finished all 6 section.
As you can see, they all end at one central location.
At this point you can do just about anything with the remaining hair. You can ponytail it and undo the remaining braids, out of the pony you can do double twists or other tiny braids, you can just messy bun it, you can combine the braids all into one big braid or weave the braids all the way around in a cool pattern, etc. The sky's the limit. I just ponied all the braids and turned it into one big bun using bobby pins to hide the ends of hair. And since I don't have one of those cool fancy pony-o's (or "thingies" as Jamie calls them), I used a boring adult scrunchie. 
~~~~~~~(Click images to see larger)~~~~~~~
Cross the other side over.
Braid down as far as you can (probably even more than I did in these pictures) and then elastic them off while you move to the other side of the head. Once both sides have their criss-cross braids in and are banded, make sure you have a good part in the back (zig-zag or straight or whatever you want). With this bunch of hair you can do anything you want--messy buns, braids, ponies, curls, you-name-it.
I did simple ponies, but I crossed the braids from either side before fastening the ponies up (you'll remove the braids elastics, too).
And this is when I realized that she wasn't wearing what she was supposed to be wearing today. Dumb mommy. So I carefully removed her shirt and put her outfit on before finishing off the braids with ribbon. I also added these little sunflower buttons by looping a bobby pin through the back of the buttons and sliding the bobby pins into her hair. Voila!
I'm kinda late posting today--even considered not posting this experiment. But, alas, here we are. Today we're just testing out lacing with different types of new ribbons. We ended up with 6 laced "puffy braids" (3 on each side) and braided them on down the back of the head. It was pretty simple, but still a good learning experience. I think we'll use smaller ribbon for the lacing next time. However, the bigger ribbon works well for the braids.
