Modern European Design

If I was ever to open a shop, it would be a European design shop.  In European design, you generally don't use any foam to hold the flowers together.  Instead, you use twigs, curly willow, rope, stems, and other materials to create what the pro's call armatures.  When you order bouquets from European shops, they hand tie them for you so when you get home, all you have to do is cut them and set them in a vase...no need to re-arrange when you get them home.  There is an emphasis on nature in the designs.  Usually, color is just used to accentuate the line and shape of the design.  Here is an example of a European design:

Inside the vase, I used curly willow to construct an armature.  I then brought the curly willow up through the design.  The sunflowers bring color into play and the amaranthus and deflexus continues the line down the side of the container.  The neck on the taller sunflower was weak, so I made sure it was supported by the curly willow.

Here is another example of a modern European design:

In this design, I used an urn shaped container with a bit of an old world flare to it.  I then wrapped the container in a twig ribbon that I got from Michael's and used that as an armature.  The flowers include, lisianthus, a few roses from my garden, a stem of hydrangea and hanging amaranths.