Topiary/Pomander/Fail?

Do you ever take a shot at projects that just will not work properly for you?  This is one of those.  What I wanted to do, was to mimic the pomander at Pizzazzerie.  It's adorable, all pink and pearly and matching perfectly with the rest of her decor.  Here is what I got instead:

First I started with a white and brown styrofoam ball.  I had started to use the ball for another project and tried to paint it brown. It didn't really paint well so I gave up on the previous project.

I bought Martha Stewart's hydrangea punch specifically to make this project.  With it, I cut out a thousand little green flowers.  Actually I'm not sure how many flowers I did, but it took almost two full sheets of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper.

It was at this point that I referred to the original tutorial and realized that I had completely forgotten to get the pearl-tipped pins that were supposed to hold two flowers together and make the centre look pretty.  Ugh.  Okay, no worries.  I didn't need any stinking pins - I had glue, in gun form.  I went through the whole batch and glued two flowers together, staggered.  Then I fluffed up the petals and glued each one onto the ball.  

It started to look nice, but,....you could see the white (and brown) of the styrofoam in between the flowers.  Damn.  Okay, I had to colour the ball I guess. Well I knew that the paint wouldn't cover it.  Look at me learning from past mistakes.  Woohoo.  Okay, so how about using craft paper and mod podge to get the ball covered.  Yeah, that could work.

Ouch. Check out how ugly that thing is.  I tore the paper into smaller pieces so that it would work on the circular surface.  It was surprisingly tedious and messy.  And ugly.  Thinking that I was being really smart, I had put the ball on one half of a ribbon roll to keep it from rolling around.

Have you already guessed what happened next?  Yes, I accidentally glued the ball to the cardboard.  Duh.  Finally, I got the entire surface covered with green, let it dry, and was ready for the next part.

Stegosaurus?

The actual gluing of the flowers onto the green ball was without incident and went fairly quickly.  I had thought that I would paint this ugly vase and rest the pomander on the top of it.  Of course, this idea worked better in my mind before I measured and discovered that the pomander was way too small for this vase.  Duh.  Again.

Here is the ugly vase BEFORE painting (hopefully that was obvious) with the way too tiny pomander sitting in top.

Okay, all is not lost.  How about I go back to that ribbon roll and fancy it up a bit.  I already know the pomander fits in there perfectly.  I painted the exposed parts with a leaf green acrylic paint and then glued two ribbons around the diameter.

Um.  Yeah.  No, besides the greens all being different, this just doesn't look right.

Okay, how about finishing off the bottom and calling it a kissing ball and being done with it.  I was planning on putting this in our dining room on our buffet.  Though it seems like this saga is now complete, there is one more chapter.

When you compare the above kissing ball with this paint sample, do you notice anything?

This is the colour of our walls.  In my mind, I think of it as green.  Maybe a goldish greeny brown, but I thought it was green.  So I picked out scrapbook paper that was green.  Except,...who in their right mind does an entire project before checking to see if their paper matches their walls? Who I ask? Yep, me.  Duh.  Again.  Again.

So now I'm left with no home for my kissing ball.  Maybe I can keep it for Christmas decor?  If anyone needs a kissing ball,....     :)