Paint Your Own Nesting Dolls: Twelve Step-by-Step Projects for Decorating Blank Wooden Dolls

The author of this book, Carmen Barros, moved into my neighborhood, so I've had the privilege of seeing her nesting dolls up close and personal. She's won awards and I can see why - her work is exquisite. I didn't even know you could paint your own dolls, much less turn them into such works of art.Carmen showed me some tricks, like it's important to get blanks that are well-made. Otherwise the dolls can easily fall apart if picked up by the head and you risk damage. She made sure a good resource for well-made blanks is in the book.My best-friend from high school collects these dolls, so I bought the book for her for Christmas. Since she knows so much more about the subject than I do, I waited for her response before posting this. She told me she loves the book. Says she can't wait to get started painting. That's good enough for me.

I have just returned from a Baltic cruise, during which I spent 2 days in St. Petersburg. While on the ship I bought an unfinished nesting doll set. I haven't begun painting the dolls and after reviewing this book I know it will be a tremendous help when I am painting. The brush stroke information will be very helpful to someone who is not familiar with this type of artwork which at one time was very popular and known as "tole painting".

Doesn’t have patterns except for largest dollSome good information yet did not help mePerhaps type of paint was helpfulIt’s an okay bookI was expecting more information than in the book

This book is exactly what I wanted! A very practical explanation, including where to buy materials and easy and advanced examples. My kids are studying Russia this month and I had nesting dolls as a project, the book just answered all my questions. The design is very pleasant, too, with color front and back pictures of the finished dolls.

This book gives very helpful ways in which to paint these dolls. They are trickier than you may realize because all surfaces are curved. I recommend this book to adults. I think the project may be a bit difficult for children to master.

It is a beautiful book and I can't wait to use it on my nesting dolls.

I have a Russian daughter in law and she always talked about the nesting dolls so I thought I would try to paint some for her. She gave me some blank ones to try. They turned out gorgeous. I would recommend the book to anyone to get them started on a lot of fun.

My granddaughter requested nesting dolls for Christmas and this book was perfect for someone who didn't know how to approach this project. The step by step instructions, illustrations and suggestions for obtaining the right paint and supplies were perfect. Thank you Ms. Barros!!!! My granddaughter loved her nesting dolls!!!!!

This book was great at describing the best sequence of steps to paint a matryoshka. It gave good hints about colours, paint strokes etc.