Vintage-inspired Floral Nail Art

I've been incredibly busy working on my final projects for school, but have been dying to do a real manicure for weeks. Today I happened to have a couple of hours to myself (rare) and decided that it was time... but I was feeling totally uninspired. Then, I remembered this awesome floral top I picked up at Goodwill a few weeks ago, and I knew EXACTLY what the inspiration for this mani was going to be!

The blouse is made of an ivory polyester crepe and is covered in half-dollar-sized coral-colored flowers that have bright blue-purple centers and abundant bright green leaves.  It's such a cheerful, springy pattern that I had to pick it up.  There's no tag, but I suspect that it was made in the eighties (just like me!  LOL).

With polish bottle for scale! (I can't help it; I'm a geologist!)

For this manicure, I had to custom-mix a bunch of colors to get the shades right.  For the background, I mixed a half bottle of plain white (L'Oreal French Tip White) with 8-10 drops of Julep Stella, a boxed-macaroni yellow-orange, to get an antique white creme.  I painted three coats of this over Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hard as Wraps.  I then painted little splotchy rings of Wet n Wild Blaze randomly on each nail.  It's not the most pigmented polish, so I went over each one twice.  Next, I used a tiny paintbrush to add little smudges of Revlon Cherries in the Snow to the outer edges of the petals.  For the leaves, I mixed a couple of drops of Julep Roc Solid with China Glaze Budding Romance (my favorite polish of all time!), and painted little dashes randomly around the edges of each "flower."  The centers of the flowers were a mix of Sinful Colors Go Go Boots and Nina Ultra Pro Sailor.  I used a dotting tool to place a large dot in the center of each flower.  Last, I used a tiny brush with a bit of Sally Hansen Night Flight to place little dashes around the outside of the flowers and around the centers.  I'm not sure how I feel about the outcome of this last step, because it looks a bit messy up close.

Please excuse my ragged cuticles... I'm out of orange sticks, and I resolved not to use my nails as tools anymore! 

I usually feel like I shouldn't bother doing a crazy mani with my nubby nails, but I've been having such a hard time growing them out lately because of the horrible Buffalo winter, the stress and associated poor diet, and the fact that I have been terrible about my cuticles.  That said, I'm still really happy with this mani.  It's super cheerful, and from a normal viewing distance, it looks pretty good!!! 

Where do you find inspiration for your nail art?  Tell me in the comments :^)