Merry Christmas

This will be short but I just wanted to post a quick wish for a very happy Christmas to everyone. I love you all and I hope your holiday is full of love, warmth, loved ones, and joy. I'm thinking of all of you tonight.

Merry Christmas!
Love, Brandee

Christmas Goodies

My favorite thing about Christmas is all the traditions and the smells and sounds of the the season. One of the things I remember about Christmases as a kid are all the fun treats my mom would make, cheese balls, and candies, and peanut brittle. I don't remember lots of cookies at Christmas, my sisters might have different memories but I'm a little younger so mom might have cut some of those things from her very long to do list by the time that I was old enough to remember. But one cookie that I do remember, and it's one of my favorite Christmas treats, are Russian teacakes. Now that my finals are over I finally had time to do some baking. So I made these Russian teacakes for the party I had the other night. They are simple to make and I think they are a little fancier than a regular cookie. It was fun to spend a little time in the kitchen.


These cookies are nice because they aren't too sweet. You roll them in confectioners sugar after they are baked so they are frosty, wintry, white. I think they look pretty on a Christmas table.

Christmas Party

One of the things I love the most about my new(ish) apartment is that with the extra room I now have I can finally invite people over and entertain friends. On Wednesday evening I had a Christmas/ end of semester party at my place. Since I was in High School I always thought it would be so sophisticated to have a formal Christmas party where everyone dressed up I mentioned that to my friend Annie and she totally got behind it. It was allot of fun and I'm hoping to have another party soon. Some of these pictures are blurry because the lighting was soft.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

My goodness, it has been a long time since I was able to blog about what I've been up to mostly because I've been very busy! One of the classes that I've been taking this semester is a Millinery class. Millinery is the art of hat making here are pictures of the hats that I've made this semester.

Some of the class wearing their Regency bonnets



This is my bonnet It was made from an old straw hat that I wirerd and cut into the brim shape and then added a fabric crown.



This is a Cavalier hat made of felt, made by taking a felt hood (kind of a "blank hat with no shaping or sizing) then I wet it with water and blocked it into the shape, wired the brim then we stiffened it with sizing.



This is my Buckram Cavalier hat. it is made from a stiff material called buckram. I patterned the shape then cut out the individual pieces, wired them then covered them with fabric then stitched the pieces together.


This is my Medieval Hennin. It is made in the same process as the Buckram cavalier hat. I did make the large braided trim that goes around the top of it. I made a long velvet"snake" then braided it with several pieces of contrasting trim to give it the right scale and interest.

Showing off our Hennins on the day of the final.

One of my other classes is Scene painting This is my final project for that class, It is a translucent drop, which means you paint it in a certain way so that it can be lit from behind so it can change looks. Some will change from day to night mine just glows. I chose a vintage corset ad for my project. These pictures show the work in progress.





This is the finished project lit from the front (it's a little shinny because it was still wet when I took this picture.


And this is what it looks like lit from behind it doesn't show up so well in a photo but the stars glow and the the highlight on the lady glows. I get to take this one home and I'm planning on hanging her in my bedroom.

So there is a sample of what I've been working on this semester. Now I have to get back to cleaning my house.