Books to help you with your flower show design

Our library has three copies of this book, and you can find it at 745.92 BEL

For an all-around guide to flower arrangements–for the home and for floral competitions–Belcher’s book provides a good, basic course in design. Step-by-step instructions, line drawings, and many color photographs provide examples of successful arrangements. These are used to define essential qualities of shape, line, texture, negative space, color, and the rhythm created by the sum total of an arrangement’s parts. Other elemental principles of design–dominance and contrast, proportion, and size and scale–are described in terms of how they pertain to flower arranging. Experience has prepared Belcher well for her role as an instructor. This handbook features fundamental information on the history of designing with flowers, technical information for working with floral supplies, interesting craft ideas for making containers, and both traditional and contemporary arrangements

Check out this book under 745.92 HAW

Written to give the reader …”pleasure, to encourage and challenge to experience at first hand the beauties of the natural world and the gratification of using materials to create imaginativce designs.” Chapters track the history of creative design and include elements and principles of design as well as conditioning and mechanics of floral design.

Our library has two copies of this book written by the National Garden Clubs, and you can find it at 745.92 OSB

The subject for this book was chosen to complement the design chapter of the 2007 edition of the Handbook for Flower Shows, titled Exhibiting in the Design Division of a Standard Flower Show.

Our library has one copy of this book, and you can find it at 745.92 DOE

The subject for this book was chosen to complement the design chapter of the 2007 edition of the Handbook for Flower Shows, titled Exhibiting in the Design Division of a Standard Flower Show.

Showcasing more than 250 designs by more than 130 gifted amateur arrangers under the auspices of the World Association of Flower Arrangers (WAFA USA), Flower Arranging the American Way is a contemporary celebration of an art form dating back to the third millennium bce. Superbly photographed by Mick Hales and other talented photographers, with each arrangement explained in clear and inviting detail by author Nancy D’Oench, the selection of designs shown here is distinctly American.
In addition to flowers and foliage, each design incorporates natural materials from the seashore, the roadside, and even the compost heap to make dramatic mixed-media creations. Arrangers at all skill levels will find inspiration and advice aplenty.

Our library has two copies of this book and you can find it at 745.92 EMM

Leaf manipulation is a strange-sounding term and a floral design technique new to most of us. This book demonstrates how to modify leaves to create movement and interest in a floral arrangement. You learn that with simple tools like scissors, staples, and U-glue dots, almost any type of foliage can be shredded, bent, curled, cut, and woven to create unique and unnatural plant forms. 

One doesn’t have to purchase expensive flowers for designs or grow exotic plants. The foliage from common houseplants can be used in leaf manipulation. Many good designers find plant material in unexpected places and change it into an unrecognizable form for use in floral designs.