Craft Rescue - impromptu cushions

I've been working on this table runner project by Martha Stewart, but ran out of inspiration, as every time I laid it out, it looked like crap. Blinkin' Martha, don't know how she does it, everything looks so perfect on her website!

So, after much fiddling with it, here's what I've come up with - a funky cushion! I'll sew it onto a plain (maybe linen) backing, and turn it into a 40cm square cushion. Have loads of leaves left, but won't bind those, I'll make another cushion and raw-edge applique them on.


I think I'll leave the tips of the leaves hanging loose off the edge of the cushion


What do you think?

Help me, I'm stumped - Craft fail in the making

Any suggestions how I get this

to look like this (excusing the bad photo quality)

They're supposed to be parasols, but I don't know how to get the spokes to stand out. At the moment it just looks like a bunch of lumpy circles...

Alrighty, here's what I came up with:

I finally found a use for that scallop-style stitch on the machine. If I had the mojo to do it again, I'd change some of the fabrics (like that pale blue blob), and keep the sizes more regular, as the random sizes don't seem to have translated well.

The question now is, what do I do with it?