Flowers on a gradient

This is my entry for Nails by Kayla Shevonne's nail art contest. I'll admit, I'm not very good at drawing flowers. But when I had this green and purple gradient I thought it would look good with a flower, so I gave it a shot.
Without further ado:

For this look I used the following colours.
The gradient was You Belong to Me by Essence and Buffy the Violet Slayer by Wet n' Wild and on the ring finger, Prima Gloss Silver by Orly.

For the flowers I used Porcelain Party by Maybelline, Orange by Joe Fresh, Wanna be your sunshine by Essence, with a bit of Finger Paints' Sparkle top coat.

And the leaves are Re-fresh Mint and Holly-day by China Glaze.

After painting my nails the light teal, I used a sponge to make the purple gradient. I painted right on the sponge. It seems to use more polish that way but I was really happy with how it turned out.
For the flower on the ring finger, I painted the on a sandwich bag. I hope it's not considered cheating. I just would not have been able to paint them directly on my nail. I painted the leaves first and then added the white, the orange and then the yellow. I wasn't happy at that so I added the sparkles. On the other fingers I added the dots with a straight pin.

I hope you like these.

ps. I am going to try to post weekly. I just went through and sorted all the pics I have and I have done some cute manis, I would love to share. So I just have to get my butt in gear! haha