beautiful doll

A few years ago, it would have seemed impossible to me that you might form relationships with people online. But even though you may never meet your online friends in real life, you really do get to know people through their artwork and creativity, as well as their generosity and kindness and humor.

I recently did a private swap with one of my favorite people on Swap-Bot, the irrepressibly funny RyeRye. She sent me several packages, the first of which contained great packets of handmade shipping envelopes she had made by stitching together pretty vinyl wallpaper samples.

The package I just received contained a beautiful art doll she handmade, using pipe cleaners as the base covered in fabric strips. I love the colors on this doll, as well as the vibrant way she is posed--it's so hard to create a sense of movement working with materials like this, but somehow she's managed it.  Often when you enter into a swap you don't really know what to expect, but I love doing it because every once in awhile you'll get an amazing surprise like this one. This doll is so wonderful, and best of all, it will remind me of RyeRye whenever I see her.

On a sadder note, I broke our camera by dropping it immediately after taking this photo. (If you heard a shriek of anguish just moments ago, yes, yes, that was me.) I take photos of...everything, so this is a huge problem. Especially since I like to post photos on the blog! It might be a little while before we can get a new one, so this fills me with enormous amounts of agitation. I'd better go look at this doll again and go back to my happy place.