My grand idea to make a beaded blue ribbon for the new beads category at Art in the Redwoods is turning out to be quite a journey. I was just too unhappy with the stiffness and clunkiness of the all beaded version (right corner). Then I got the idea of beading on some of that Lacey's stiff stuff. I could get much finer resolution on the words and images if I sewed them on free form instead of following the brickstitch scheme. My idea was to bead the words in colors and then do the background in white. Duh! It took a couple of hours before I realized that the stiff stuff made excellent paper! All I really had to do was bead in the writing and sew on the seal and ribbon. Unfortunately my guidelines on the stiff stuff were not to be hidden by erasure or painting over so I made a second one. It was worth the redo efforts as I could make other refinements like putting 'First Place' in gold. I still need to finish the second leg of the ribbon, but the end is in sight and I am already planning my next animal.