Tomie de Paola award entry, progress

I am somewhat hesitant to post all of my work in progress for my entry- can't decide whether this is reasonable or paranoid.  A little of both, mayhaps?  I really got down to work this week, believing the deadline to be the 5th of December, not the 15th- which, as I discovered today, is the actual deadline.  Deadlines really work for me... when I have a deadline, I make decisions, I get things done- not that I don't without a deadline, but I somehow find a way to prolong things...not through any lack of motivation or effort.  My book, for example- I fuss and fiddle and put things aside so that I can 'think' about them and ostensibly find the 'perfect' solution...and I never, ever manage to just bang out a page within a day, or two days the way I can if I HAVE to.  I don't really know how to make my self-imposed deadlines as REAL to me as an externally imposed deadline, I really don't... Anyone else have this problem?  Any suggestions would be muchly appreciated! 
In any case, I am quite pleased with my progress thus far.  I am going to incorporate a pattern, surprise surprise... I envisioned what I realize are actually quite eastern european flavoured floral-botanical patterns, although Heidi is set in the Swiss Alps, I still think that  it works...here are some of my pattern experiments:

I tried turning this into a regular repeat; this attempt shows just the framework and no petals, leaves, etc.:

However, I realized that this was too 'regular', not quite what I had envisioned.  I want to use this pattern ON the mountain they are ascending, so I wanted it to look a little more like actual plant life... something more like:

That was more like it... but finally I decided to go with this one:

I've since transferred it to the drawing...which no, sorry,  I've decided I'll wait to show you in its various stages only after it's all finished and sent in.  That will be soon enough; I'm ready to make with the gouache.  I'm going to (try to) pretend that I don't realize that the deadline is actually the 15th.  I'm having fun with this; it's going well.

'mail me art' entry

So, here is my entry for the 'mail me art' contest in the u.k. I'm reasonably pleased with it, although I had to put packing tape on the edges to hold it closed. I made my own envelope out of bristol (because I wanted to paint on it and wanted to be sure that it would hold up), and did all of the painting/pasting etc. BEFORE gluing the envelope closed. It wouldn't stay closed, due to the thickness, multiple layers of thick paper and slight warping (BECAUSE of painting)...alas. Next time I'll know better! It looked even better after the guy at the post office put the postage sticker on and postmarked it. Perhaps I'll get to see what it looks like after its travels?!?! I hope...!