March to Grace, Mary and Patty - too dotty

These are the last three using tulips and those Klimt borders. I might put these on the back burner and try again someday. These are all *fine* and from a design standpoint, Patty's is the best. The *happy birthday* completes the design. If I do this again, everyone will get a *kindly deliver to:* above the name.

Patty's is an example where I came very close to edging beyond *fine* into *nice* - the element keeping it in *fine* is dots. I use dots all the time to fix things. And then, as with everything else, they can go too far. It's like a dish that needs salt. It needs the right amount. Over salting is a disaster. On Patty's I over-dotted. You are free to disagree - but, I saw it without dots so I am the only one who saw it when it was *nice.*

Of course, I could have nudged it back into *nice* by figuring out how to make the dots work. Right now, they are in competition with the other shapes. The tulips are not dotty. They have nice shapes. Maybe layering dots onto the tulips would have been fabulous. Also risky. I was going to let it go. I've over-dotted so many times. At least I got the colors right.

The new dahlia stamps should be out soon - they are similar to the tulips - all pink. The tulips had some purple and that dark purple tulip was harder to work with.