Flights of fancy

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful winter's day for a bike ride.

So John and I rode to Tamborine Mountain, for a short trip, and to drop in on my friend, Jo.

She owns a shop on the mountain, called 'Flights of Fancy'.

It is situated at the end of a short laneway just behind 'Mountain Dreams Antlier'...which is situated just behind 'Heritage Wines', at the top of Gallery Walk in Long Street.

It is there that some of my trees and faeries live while they are waiting for new homes.

Above: A peek inside Jo's 'Illuminated Forest' Room, starring my 'Enchanted Tree' that I created specifically to help showcase the faeries for sale. 

I met this hugely talented lady some years ago. She and I have a few things in common.

We both have darling daughters, and an endearing grandchild. We both love to create and draw. We both love all things Fae. And we both went through the traumas of surgery, chemo and radium for breast cancer, about two and a half years ago. Although, I take my hat off to Jo, who continued to run her shop while undergoing treatment. That takes guts!

These shots were taken during the 'bald' phase of our treatments. The phase where I felt decidedly like a lizard, with no eyelashes and brows, let alone fine facial hair....as you can clearly see, Jo definately was the more elegant, with her sequined flower stuck to her dome, and wearing make-up. Where as me...I just got by.

The Mountain hosts an annual 'Scarecrow Festival' once a year, and each shop creates their own version of a scarecrow.

Last year (2009) being the first year for the festival, Jo created a cheeky 'Puck' from Shakespear's play ' Midsummer night's dream'... which was fantastic!

So I was looking forward to seeing what she had conjured up for this years festival.

Above: 2009 - John with 'Puck'

This year, Jo has had a mermaid theme going on in her head...so I should have known it just had to be a 'Mermaid' scarecrow.

This is the sort of thing we expect from Jo...just wonderful,

and I'm sad to say, but it puts everyone else's scarecrows to shame.

She really is an amazing lady, my friend Jo. Her artwork has to be seen to be believed as well.

She and her lovely daughter Cassie, are about to open their own Etsy shop!!!

(Yay! Let's hear it for 'mother & and daughter' teams!!)

update:

Jo and Cassie's etsy shop is called Twisted Whimsey.

And Jo also has just opened a facebook page, for her 'Flights of Fancy' shop.