Mug Rugs - fails and successes

Let's start with the Mug Rug I tried to make for Rob. Obviously, it needed to be 'manly', so I tried one in black, grey and blues. Massive. Ugly. Fail.


Black and Grey are not my friends in the sewing world. I'll leave those to my work wardrobe. Aside from the random design it as you go method I used, the colours are gross!
Here it is:

Needless to say, it's been relegated to 'pot holder' status, and the sooner it gets burnt to pieces, the better!


Here is my second attempt, which I made in brick colours, which hopefully are still considered 'manly' enough to be used. It is now sitting on the armrest of Rob's side of the couch.

Footnote: I did get this pattern from someone else's blog, but didn't save the link, so can't acknowledge you here - sorry! 

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?