Since getting his Glowforge laser cutter, MichaelMikkelson has been making some absolutely beautiful projects, occasionally sharing tutorials on some of his techniques. Most recently, he has shared how he creates these acrylic and wood inlay flowers.
To get started, he purchased a collection of flower icons from Creative Market, but there are also free alternatives such as Flaticon to get you started (If you're planning to sell your finished project, please ensure that wherever you source your icons allows for this in their license). Alternatively, you could also draw your own from scratch.
The tutorial then walks you through creating the paths in Adobe Illustrator (although the process will also be similar in other programs such as Inkscape). to ensure your acrylic pieces fit correctly into the wood border you will need to account for kerf. The tutorial leaves you with various differently coloured paths saved in an SVG allowing you to select which paths to cut in the Glowforge software (red for wood outside edge, purple for inside edge, green for acrylic); if you are using a different laser/software then you will want to take the time to group the different parts so that they can be properly cut - i.e. group the red and purple paths as one shape, and separate the green path as its own shape.
Since you properly accounted for kerf in the design stage, your acrylic petals will have a nice tight fit when assembling. They may need to be lightly hammered into place, but shouldn't need any adhesives. To finish, he also laser cut some acrylic stems which he attached to the flowers using super glue. He also applied the same techniques to make the above pentakis dodecahedron.
Head over to the instructable to learn how to make your own flowers!