Chignons

I found out last year that a lot of people buy clip-in buns that are matched to their hair color so you can have a beautifully styled bun in seconds.  Put your hair in a ponytail and clip your fancy little piece over it and pin it down and tada, you're done!  Some examples pulled off Google:

I found Jessica Simpson created one of the more popular chignon's on the market. (Please note the Photoshop on Jessica Simpson's face in the top left two pictures.)

I have too much hair to use a chignon clip-in (it would be the size of a small bucket to contain all my hair) so when I am feeling fancy, I'll take fifteen minutes to braid my hair and do something like this:

Parted my hair into three sections and french braided them completed, secured the ends with plastic hairties.  I separated out two small bunches of hair behind my ears before I did this and left those loose.  I crossed the two side braids under the center braid and pinned where they crossed and brought them out and around to form the oblong shape (low to accommodate a cover), pinned the outward-most points and coiled them in to the center to fill out the bun, pinning as necessary to secure.

Using the third braid, I folded it over, pinning the loose end to the center to form a loop.  I then flattened the loop left to right to fill in the center of the braid and hide the ends of the braids then pinned it down.  Taking the two pieces of loose hair, I twisted these into ropes and wound them around the base of the braids, pinning as I arranged each around the braids.  This was to give the braids more structured chignon/bun like look and also better anchor the hairstyle (for those of us that have dense/heavy hair, this distributes the weight over more space).

You can see fly-aways at the nape of my neck, these are easily handled either with hairspray to smooth them to the chignon or with a a few bobby pins by tucking the hair and pinning it.  A style like this takes 15-30 three-inch long bobby pins depending on (1) how well it is pinned, (2) how well the braids are done, (3) how long I'm expecting it to stay up.