Flower Pillow Top - Seeking Opinions!

Waaah new blogger interface ;_;  I don't like change....

Anyways, things have been quiet on the blog front because I haven't been working on anything!  But that changed last night.

Not only did I buy some new batting to replace the one I melted, I also settled on a ocean stitch for my needlepoint so I can move ahead with both projects.

ocean stitch!

In addition, I went to a quilt class that meets once a month to do a different small project to learn techniques.  This month we were making pillows using fusible web applique, which is pretty much my favorite quiltmaking technique.  I worked on the free pillow pattern from Don't Look Now quilts.

I ended up choosing a relatively monochromatic color scheme, which is rare for me, but it was just what felt right.

However, I came to a snarl when I tried to use one of the decorate stitches on my machine for stems.  Even though I had interfacing on, the whole thing puckered terribly.

No, it doesn't just look like that because it hasn't been ironed.

So I just spent the last two hours picking out all of that stitching.  The teacher said try with super stiff stabilizer next time, and suggested I just throw out this piece of fabric and start anew.  Unfortunately I reviewed my finances over the weekend and discovered I'm spending waaaaay too much on quilting, so by gosh I wasn't going to let this piece of fabric go to waste and have to spend more money on a new piece!

So in a bit, if I'm motivated (I probably won't be, let's face it), I'll reattempt the decorative stitching.  In the meantime, I would love advice.

You might have noticed a gap in the center of the pillow top.  There are two little lovebirds that will go there.  Unfortunately I can't decide what color to make them.  I want something that stands out but many things I try just clash with the color scheme.  So below are some options, I would love to hear which looks best or if there's some other color I should try that isn't below.

Also, second question:  I would love to stick some cute buttons on the flower centers, but then this would be very uncomfortable as a real pillow.  So should I go for appearance or functionality?

same blue as in some flower centers

red

peach

similar dark pink to some of the flowers