Changing charted cross stitch designs

I've been on a bit of a cross-stitch kick at the moment.  And it was as I was finishing my last creation I realised that I tweak my designs more often than not!  That is to say, deliberate changes, not the 'oh drat, I put that stitch of green one space to the left... oh well she'll be right' sort of difference.

Exhibit A is by Teresa Wentzler, who I really really like (as evidenced by the three large projects of hers that I did before deciding to take a cross stitch break).  I love her dragons byt the original pattern used a lot of coloured swirls around the head and tail that just didn't work for me.  Plus I had to change the letters and phrase a bit as my first name was too long to fit easily.

Original design (from Patterns Online)

My version

I tried to take a photo of another unique feature but it was a bit tricky- I used a UV colour changing thread to make the hem and stitch the inner pages in.  The border is a nice matching blue in sunshine and a purple on the spine.

Original pattern

The second example was a cute little kit I got at a needlecraft shop just around the corner to my parents that I've not visited before.  It's a kit made byMill Hill called Christmas Jewels.  But when I first saw it I actually thought it was one of the old style hot air balloons (similar to what the Mongolfier brothers famously used in their first flight.

It was only when I opened it up to start it I realised it was a pointy Christmas bauble.  Oops!  A bit of scribbling on a bit of paper to work out in my head what I was aiming for, a bit of studying the pattern carefully and a bit of making it up as I went along and I ended up with this:

Full of hot air!