Puffy Braid Crown with Pony Tail

So far, out of all of the styles I have tried-this by far looks the fanciest. It is hard to find styles that look intricate or fancy that can still be done on itty bitty girl hair. I usually save it for church or for a day when I know we have an outing and she can dress up a little. It take a little longer than the others so I tend to let her watch the coveted Elmo movies while we do it.

Here are the basic directions:

1. Make a part that goes all the way around the head (like a hair headband). Be sure that you give yourself enough hair to actually pull into the ponies around the edge-especially with itty bittys this can be difficult.- so make sure your hair/headband part is rather thick.
   
2. Pull the center portion of hair into a loose pony. Right now, you are not putting it up to stay. You just need it out of the way. I even like to put it in a loose messy bun just to hold it up.
   
3. Begin at the nape of the neck. Part the hair in the center of the nape.
   
4. Starting on either side of the nape of the neck, gather enough hair to make your first ponytail.
   
5. Continue around the head by making a part about an inch or so from your first rubberband. (This can vary by how many rubberbands you want to end up with or how much hair you have to work with--I like to make my parts so she has a rubber band on each side of the nape, just behind each ear, one just in front of each ear, and one about where her temples are...plus the center on top of course)
6. Pull up the hair from the new part and the hair from the most recent pony and make a new pony (just doing a puffy braid headband around the head)
   
7. Continue to do this until you have reached the center part on the top of the head.
   
8. Repeat process on the other side of the nape of the neck.
   
9. Take the leftover ponies on the top of the head and gather them into a final pony right on the center part on top.
   
10. Take the top center pony and pull it into a large ponytail that you can make with your saved hair from the middle.
    
11. Place a bow and voila--a beautiful do.
    

I hope I explained this well enough to follow. I am still pretty new at all this. Enjoy!