I'm getting ahead of myself with this style here since I have a few steps without previous posts to show how, but many of you will know how to do them anyway.
To begin, you need some curls at the top of the head.  I used Curlformers (more on these in the future), but you can use rag curls or a curling iron to achieve the same effect.  I left them in overnight, and just used six.

Get the curls out of the way, and pull the back hair into a ponytail.

Now do a four-strand flat plait (cross the sides, then cross the middle in the other direction).

After crossing the middle strands, combine each two side pieces together so you have only two strands instead of four.  Pull these strands up and around the sides of the pony (one on either side) and bring them together at the top.

Add a clear elastic to hold them together.

Now tuck the tail down to one side and hid it under.  I sprayed on some water to help it bend better.  Stick in a bobby pin.

Spread out some of the plaits from the braid to widen the bun and make it look even by pinching at the edges, pull out gently to the sides, and then pinning in place.

Let out the curls.

Brush the curls back into a piggy above the bun.  Spray with water to soften some of the bumps from curling if you need to.

Lift the piggy, and then pull out a couple thin strands of curls.

Lower the piggy again.  Press down with your finger a couple inches down from the elastic, and then draw the end up again to form a U shape.  Insert a flexi-clip to hold it in place.

Arrange the curls by splitting or combining if necessary.  I pinched a small section or two hair and pulled it to add some more definition and variety of curl lengths.

I suggest using some finishing spray to help keep it nice and neat and to help make the curls last longer.

Lilla Rose is having a Mother's Day sale this week, FYI.  They have a new clip for moms and free shipping. I got this fairy flexi-clip from them, and I love it! (They aren't paying me to say that, by the way.)

More curls!  He's another way to spice it up. This is a simple front half pony.  Some curls from different places on the head gathered together beneath the hairband.  I combined them smoothly by wrapping them around my finger and combing them a bit at a time while on my finger.  For the bow accent, I tied a short thin ribbon into a bow around the end of a bobby pin, and then inserted it into the hairband. 

I've been saving these pictures for a year or so.  This is a curl made with the corkscrew method I talked about in my last post.  Here's a single curl as I let it out of the rag.

Notice the pink arrow pointing a portion of hair that didn't curl very well.  It may have been too wet so it didn't dry and set the curl, or it may have come unraveled while I was wrapping and knotting the ends.  Oh well.

This is after running my fingers through the curls to loosen them up a bit.

I don't like the flat places near the scalp, so I try to style it in a way that will hide it.  Here I did a front half pony, leaving out a chunk of hair on both sides over the ears.  I then twisted the hair left above the ears, crossed it over the hairband to hide it, and then tucked the ends underneath.  You can either stick the ends down into the hairband at the back or use mini jaw clips to hold the twists in place.

A side view:

And a gratuitous shot of these luscious curls (I can't help myself):

(These are the curls I made my blog banner from.)

I love these gorgeous curls!  They last much longer (almost all day) than curling iron curls.  They are a special treat for Belle sometimes when she gets her chores done quickly and there is extra time before bed on a Saturday night.  After her shower, I blow dry her hair until it is damp.  You will want to keep in mind the style you want for the following day and add in the parts for shaping, if possible.  For this I'm just doing a headband, so I'll start by parting her hair on the side in the front.  You will need to divide the hair into sections, but best not to do it all with a comb to avoid the straight lines showing after it is all done.  Just pick up a section of hair, and don't worry about how the edges look at the scalp.  You'll need at least 8 long strips of fabric.  I just tore 4 inch/ 10 cm strips off the end of a piece of old fabric, which is 45 inches/ 115 cm.  You could cut it, but tearing is faster (and more fun).  Pull up your section of hair and then put the rag under, about a third of the length below.

Wrap the hair around the shorter length of the rag.  You can wrap it flat as if running tape around a tube, or you can wrap it like a corkscrew by keeping the hair ends always facing you as you wrap.  This choice will create two different types of curls.

Continue wrapping until it gets hard to hold down the ends.

Pull the rag straight up at the top, and then begin to wrap the longer length of the rag in the opposite direction around the hair.  This protects the hair from getting messed up in the night.

Continue wrapping down the length of the hair until you get near the ends.

Wrap the ends of the hair around and cover them with the rag.

Tie the two ends of the rags together in a square knot (tight enough so it doesn't fall out but not too tight or you won't be able to get it out in the morning).

Vary the directions of the curls by wrapping clockwise and counterclockwise curls to help prevent them from clinging together into one great big curl.  Let them stay in overnight.  Belle doesn't complain about it being uncomfortable.  Undo all the rags, carefully unwrapping the hair to avoid tangles and frizz.  Do not brush it out or you will have a huge mess.  Just run your fingers through it.  You can reform any curls that go awry by coming it around your finger.  Use a spray bottle and fine bristle brush or comb to smooth out any places you want to lay flat for the style you put in.

This headband is my favorite in the world.  It is from Gimme Clips.  The headband has a loop on it where you can stick on a clip.  "Mix n Match" I think it is called, because the flowers or bows are interchangeable.  How clever is that?  What they didn't label on the packaging, though, is that you can also use the little loop to stick a bobby pin in to help keep the headband from slipping around.  I generally don't use headbands much because they don't stay, but this one isn't so frustrating.

(When the timing is right, I'll post some more about french braiding...)

Here is the "do" Belle wore for Easter.  This is my absolute favorite style on her!  She looked like a princess.

I put in some rag curls the night before to get the curls at the end, but a curling iron would be fine.  I didn't have time to take step by step pictures, but I got several angles when it was done.

Part the hair on the side in front.  French braid the front sections to the top of the head, then quit adding hair in.  Braid them down to the ends and put in a clear elastic.  Put the remaining hair in a pony tail, high up and just an inch or two away from the end of the french braids.  For short hair, do an upside down topsy tail to make "cascading curls."  Since Belle's hair is too heavy for that,  I braided the tail of the pony very loosely, folded it in half upwards and added another hairband around the first so the curly tail ends stuck up.  The braid from the front I let hang down a bit beneath the pony and wrap around to the other side.  I crossed them together at the top and clipped them together with a mini clip and stuck in a bobby pin to keep them from falling down.  I hid the clip by looping a curl around and making a circle.  I held the circle in place with a flower bobby pin.  These gorgeous flower accents are easy to make: just clip a fake flower up to the little green nub, put a dab of hot glue on the top of a bobby pin, and stick the flower on.  The big yellow flower I actually just left the stem on and stuck it through one of the elastics.  Stick the flowers in a random.  

I got this idea from Babes in Hairland's Cascading Waterfall Ponytail (thanks BIH!).  I'll spare the detailed instructions since she did it already, but I will leave my note, that Belle's hair appears to be a great deal heavier than Goose's, so after a short time the pull-through (topsy tail) started slipping down and was no longer hidden by the curls.  It wasn't so pretty anymore.  I haven't tried it again since then, but I would consider cinching down layers of the hair at the top of the pony with several bobby pins to help it hold.  I suppose a no-slip grip hairband wouldn't slip, but those are too painful to try with a pull-through.

This style seems better suited for medium length or thin hair.