This Year’s Spring tree

We finally got our Spring tree up this year. We like to force a live branch and my husband had been clipping one from one of the apple trees at his work. But the trees did not fare well this winter so we cut off the top of a very young tree we found by the side of the road. We don’t know what kind it is and we are hoping it is not the same as one we had a few years ago which produced some very messy droopy things.

In the upper left hand corner of this picture you can see the maple syrup bucket I crafted using a metal pail and the top of a metal birdhouse. You probably can’t see the other maple syrup ornaments (they were refrigerator magnets) – an old wooden bucket and a maple leaf with a painting of a sugar house. Other decorations include:
Green Mardi Gras beads
Shamrocks
Eggs
Rabbits
Chicks
A Kokopelli
Frogs
Insects
A Baseball Glove
A Joker Playing Card for April Fools Day
A Kite
A Bird’s Nest and some Birdhouses
A Beehive

A new addition this year are the brightly colored feathers at the end of some branches. These are in honor of the Swedish Easter trees called Paskris which traditionally sport feathers, eggs, paper roosters, yarn ball chickens, crocheted catkins (which apparently look like hotdogs) and pipe cleaner witches. I found out about Paskris when I pinned a tree from Aunt Peaches on my pinterest board “fall and spring trees”. http://www.auntpeaches.com.
I found more info on Paskris trees on http://www.aswedeinthekitchen.com. I also found and downloaded a picture of a Paskris that included a witch on the deviant art website.