Although I had things I knew I should be getting on with, yesterday didn’t exactly start on a high point of efficiency and purpose.

As is my usual habit, I got lad’s breakfast, then sat looking at Pinterest over my own bowl of granola. And as I looked at lots of pictures of flowers, an idea blossomed.

I would make some little stuffed fabric flowers, using the same method as for my doll face brooches!

I wasn’t sure exactly what I would do with them once I had made them, but I still wanted to make them nonetheless.

Alas, my first attempt did not resemble anything floral. More like a strange, lumpy little blob.

I tried adding some decoration, but it didn’t seem to improve things much.

I cast it aside in disgust. Not such a great idea after all.

Determined not to end the day’s making on a low, I decided to tackle one of the things I had promised myself I would do.

A while back I bought this stack of mount-board offcuts, thinking that they would make good backing material for stitchy pictures.

And it just so happens that I need some pictures for the Sherwood Art Week exhibition in June that I’m participating in.

So I thought – here goes nothing, and got stuck in…

It turned out ok, I think.

But despite my success, I just couldn’t get that lumpy little blob out of my mind.

I hate discarding something I’ve made, even when it hasn’t really worked out. I thought – it just needs something…

So I turned to my newest obssession – beads. I love ’em.

I keep visiting the bead shop and having to restrain myself from leaving with a rainbow sackful of those colourful vials of seed beads.

They’re tiny, they’re blingy, and they seemed just the right thing to perk up a lumpy blobby flower, being in every sense just the opposite of lumpy and blobby themselves.

And lo and behold – what a transformation!

My beading needs a little practise, but I want to make more of them. I want to make this one into a pendant on a long string, for me.

And now I definitely want more beads.

Because anything that can transform that blob into bling has got to be worth having in quantity, hasn’t it?

Do you think if I wore enough beads they might work some of their magic on me? ♥