Ellie the Elephant

My mom came back from quilt market last fall raving about lots of good things. One of the good things she found there was BJ designs. She described them as these really colorful pictorial wall hangings of horses and other animals done in fusible applique but with wild bold fabrics. She said the booth was just a feast for the eyes because of the fun fabrics used to make the animals. I was skeptical. She said she was ordering some patterns and I would see how cute they were.
The patterns came and they didn't really wow me. A few of them sold but nothing remarkable. Then BJ designs called and asked if we'd be interested in a trunk show. Yes.  They sent us 5 quilts of patterns we were selling of theirs. When the quilts arrrived I finally understood what had grabbed my mother about them at market and so did our customers.
They were fun! I also saw right away how important photos are in the selling of a pattern- EVERYTHING. Unfortunately the photos on these patterns do NOT do them justice- enough said.
My daughter took a fancy to Ellie the Elephant, seen below:

And indeed it was the best selling pattern from BJ designs and patterns we had except for this one of the horse head:

But my daughter's room is NEON green with black and white accents and she wanted it to coordinate with that color scheme... Challenging? Yeah, you could say that.

Here is what I started with for Ellie:

And here is Ellie once she was built:

 It was my daughter's idea to use the flower for her eye which I think is really cute!

So Ellie needed to be put into her new habitat:( remember I said NEON green)

So here she is at home in her place complete with borders:

Pretty fun I think.  I was a little unsure how it would look with all the black and whites but I think it is successful- not everyone's personal taste I realize but it works ya know?