Beauty Behaved had asked how I was doing the flowers in the nails, so here’s a quick breakdown — it’s really not difficult at all, and a great effect.  I know a lot of people use glue to get this done but a lifetime of crafting has taught me many things, one of which is that I’m horrrrrrible with glue.  It’s just catastrophe in a bottle/stick for me, so I use the naturally tacky-glueness of a topcoat to get the job done.

The flowers are all pre-packed dried ones that you can find everywhere (a whole bunch of examples here, though I’ve never directly ordered anything from this site).  You could just as easily pick and use your own too though!

And for the topcoat, instead of using the standard quick-dry SV, I use the CND Super Shiney; it can be applied to go on really thick, has a good shine to it, and dries sloooooowly, which is perfect for this.

After applying a 3-coat base (in hindsight should have used something that was good in 1 coat so there was less buildup overall, I just like the blue) of love & beauty Sky Blue, I added a clear topcoat of the CND.  Immediately after I dropped the flowers on the nail where I wanted them to go so the center was affixed into the topcoat but the rest still all flayed out.

Once the topcoat dried to a sort of tackiness, I went back and pressed the petals down into the polish.  It doesn’t matter much if you leave your fingerprints on the nail since you’re covering it up again anyway, so feel free to just press down (without smudging the polish underneath of course).

Repeat with another topcoat.  Once that starts drying you can pick off the extra bits of flower on the nail that aren’t covered in polish, and press down any bits that are still trying top pop up.

One more topcoat (you can use SV for this one) and you’re set!