Easter came early this year and all our snow melted away by the beginning of April. After Easter I took down my Easter decor and was left with a “what now” kind of feeling. Normally we don’t have much of a spring in northern Alberta. The snow often lingers long into April and sometimes we have hot weather at the beginning of May. This year, it was way too early to put up summer things. When I looked outside, the only thing that seemed to be changing was the poplar and willow trees. I decided to go with willow as my spring decor.
Back in early March, when it was warm enough to work outside, I had made that basket out of the willow branches. At the same time, I had collected branches and made some stars. This involved joining three pairs of willow branches then securing the ends together with zip ties. After the first set of three, you weave in the other sets one at a time tying the ends.
They end up looking like this.
I really liked the way the first one turned out so I made two more that day.
In picturing my spring decor, I decided that I wanted to add a small sign with a bible verse that says “spring” to me. I look outside and see the daily changes as winter turns into spring and I marvel at every one. There is always that feeling of joy. For some reason this song kept playing in my mind. I used my wood burner and burned this sign.
I made a couple more willow wreaths and gathered some fresh pussy willows. I have red willows on the left and the more greenish willows on the right.
The contrast is hard to tell from farther away.
I ended up wrapping the zip ties on the stars with burlap twine. I really like the way they turned out. Maybe I will hang the third one somewhere outside.
If I could capture the sounds of the birds in the morning and somehow bring that indoors…THAT would really be spring for me. This morning I heard the Wilson Snipe doing its who who who dance in the sky, the ruffed grouse drumming its wings, our two mallards quacking happily in the pond, many robins singing their sweet songs, a pair of yellow rumped warblers quietly cheeping in the tree and I was able to feed a few chickadees from my hand.
So, until I can find something better, freshly cut willow branches are a great representation of spring at our place.
The stars ⭐️ look lovely and will serve a dual purpose. The weaving reminds me of Germaine!
I am glad that someone else likes to use willow branches for crafts too!! I had a willow bush but we had to dig it out when it died. Love the crafts you made!