I had another member ask about Lola's haircut and was able to give her this info. I give both my pups their haircuts and thought maybe this might help.
What I typically do is:
1.brush her hair out and part it down the middle from her forehead all the way down her back,
2. lift her up on a chair seat and sit on the floor so that she is eye level with me (Hubby helps to make sure she doesn't take a flying leap off the chair),
3. then I basically trim her (with a scissors) along her body as straight as I can...then try and do the exact same length on the other side, lifting up both sides to compare the length. I try and trim along the natural lines of her body and legs, so it looks a bit more tapered and natural instead of choppy.
As for her face and top knot, I try to cut her face in a shape that is a bit wider around her "cheeks"...and thins out towards her ears. I also trim under her chin a bit to give her that "chubby cheeks" look. I leave her "bangs" a bit longer so I can pull them back into the topknot. When I do her topknot, which I have to redo about every 2 days (she loves to roll around and mess it up), I brush her "bangs" and pull them back and put them up in a tiny rubber band. Then once you have the hair in the rubber band, you can pull the hair a bit forward to give it a bit of volume and tighten the rubber band.
For her face I only use a scissors. I have a big scissors that I use and a small one...they are both sewing scissors as I find that they cut the best.
When I start her face I first cut close to her ears to create the shape there and then I can know how wide I can go with her cheeks. I (TRY) to comb it out so it is free of snarls then I taper from right below her ears to almost a point down to her chin. It trim underneath her chin to almost give her a "bob" cut...if that makes any sense. I try to match both side...but to be truthful she isn't a big fan of getting her hair cut so sometimes days after I see some hairs that seem like they came out of nowhere and then I just grab the little scissors and trim the hairs so that it all falls into place.
Also...I always cut her hair when it is dirty, that way I can tell which way it is going to naturally lay and then after a bath and conditioning it dries nice and fluffy into the new style.