матрёшка!

I love Russian nesting dolls. For Christmas, Ryan gave me a wonderful hand painted owl in the style of the smallest, innermost solid piece- was such a great addition to my teeny tiny but growing collection. Below are photos of nesting dolls/ collections, art, etc that caught my eye today.

If I was gutsy, (Mom, stop reading here) I'd love to get a bright, colorful tattoo of a pretty Matryoshka. Below are photos of Silje's artwork, of Little Bird Crafts, whose blog I read frequently.

This tattoo photo is her own, on her leg, and it's pretty big. I don't think I could ever pull that off, but she's a tattoo artist so she can. (Her blog is fantastic, by the way. She's so creative, a really great artist!) I have a pretty doll sitting on my shelf at work, in the most beautiful colors... pinks, reds, oranges, green, floral, lots of different patterns, bright pink cheeks. Inside, instead of smaller dolls, there’s a piece of paper, rolled up and yellowed, obviously no clue what it might say:This is my soft and squishy translation of my Matryoshka doll... I’d like to make sisters for her, get better at it.

There's a Russian/Slavic/Eastern European shop in Old Market in Omaha called Red Square. I go into this shop almost every trip, look at the nesting dolls (so expensive..) attempt conversation in my feeble Czech with the shopkeeper, but usually leave empty handed. I think next visit, I'll take one home.

The first Russian nested doll set was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter.

Its kind of hokey, but I like the imagery of the proverbial onion layers...things may appear static on the outside, but there's always more and more to discover on the inside.

[ photos: Silje Hagland, Weheartit, google images and authors own]