Fab Five: Favorite Posts of 2012

This time of year, everyone is coming out with their "Best of 2012" Lists, from movies to books to music.  Since I had such a great time taking photos and creating posts this year, I am listing my favorite post of the year.

Before I go forward with the list, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading and following my blog this year.  Because of this blog, I have gone places and seen things around my state that I never experienced before.  I'm looking forward to doing more exploring with my camera in 2013, and I hope you stick around to witness the journey.

Also, I especially want to thank Jenny Matlock at "Off On My Tangent", Lanaya at "Raising Regan", Jay at "Crafty Spices", Paula at "Sincerely, Paula" and Ramona at "Create With Joy" for your fun blog hops (they are great for sparking my creativity), and Claudia at "Images by CW" for your amazing photo blog (your pictures are truly an inspiration).

Without any further ado, here are my top 5 favorite posts of 2012:

5) Milwaukee Museum Mile - where I visited 5 art museums in Milwaukee on a Sunday Free Admission Day.

4) Road Trip: Wisconsin Auto Museum - where I took a trip north to one of Wisconsin's most unique museums.

3) My Hometown: Guitar Town - An exhibition and party celebrating Waukesha, Wisconsin's distinction as a Gibson Guitar Town, due to it being the birth place of Les Paul, the inventor of the electric guitar.

2) The Cutest Parade in Milwaukee: Brady Street Pet Parade - Need I say more?

1) Huzzah! My Very First Trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire - And I will definitely be going back.

This post is also for the "F" assignment at Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Click on the link to see more or to add your own fun post.

Happy New Year!!  I hope everyone has an inspirational, educational and fantastical 2013!

Higher Education: Mount Mary College

A couple of weekends ago (the same weekend I photographed the Snowpeople at the Domes), I went over to Mount Mary College in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa, since I was already in the area for an art demonstration at Artist & Display.  I have wanted to take photos at this prestigious women's college for a while now, due to its amazing architecture, and, even though it was a cloudy day, I think I got some good ones.

Mount Mary College was founded in 1913 after it was St. Mary's Institute and located in Prairie du Chien.  The college is geared towards women, and features credit and non-credit courses as well as Masters Degree programs.  The college also has a wonderful art program and gallery, and, as far as I know, the only Fashion History museum located on a college campus in Wisconsin.

I went around the main square of the campus, which houses the college's original buildings in the Gothic style.  Each side of Notre Dame Hall (shown at top) has a covered walkway to other buildings on campus.

I thought the Gothic style of the windows of Bergstrom Hall were truly stunning.

The lamp posts outside Notre Dame Hall are all ready for Christmas.

A wonderful statue of Saint Mary sits outside the entrance to Notre Dame Hall.

Here is a close-up of the statue.

More really stunning Gothic architecture.  This was outside Caroline Hall, the residence hall.

There are other statues scattered on the campus.  The one above is embedded into the side of Caroline Hall.

One of the covered walkways off of Notre Dame Hall.

There are many nice statues located on the campus grounds.  I thought the one above was especially interesting.  Because it's located in a courtyard behind Notre Dame Hall, I almost missed it.

The College sits on a beautiful 80 acres with plenty of park space and even a place for children to play including jungle gyms.

This is also my "E" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Click the link to see more!

Wordless Wednesday: Snow in WI (Finally)

We may have a white Christmas after all!

Linking up to Create With Joy's Wordless Wednesday.

Decked Out At The Domes

Over the weekend, I visited the Mitchell Park Domes where they have a very cute exhibit, "Let It Snow", going on until January 6.  I've posted about the Domes many times, but if you are unfamiliar with Milwaukee's indoor botanical garden, I have a photo of it below.

 

The garden is made up of three climate-controlled biospheres, the Arid Dome, the Rainforest Dome, and the Show Dome.  The Show Dome has rotating seasonal displays that correspond with featured plants and flowers.  This month's display involved a gigantic Christmas tree and plaster snowpeople, each with their own distinct personality, intermingled with red, pink and even yellow poinsettias.

Below are some of my favorite snowpeople.

This snow-woman was my favorite of the group.  I especially love her red scarf and bracelet.

This funny-looking snowman reminded me of Frosty.

I thought this snowman looked very classic with his wreath and wool hat.

I found this snow-couple adorable.

 

I couldn't tell if this snowman was afraid of the dog or the one to be feared. 

 



Personally, I don't think the dog looks quite so scary.

 The last snowman, to me, was quite mesmerizing amongst the white flowers, looking up at the Christmas tree.

From what I could tell, the artist who designed the snowpeople created the Don Quixote sculptures from this past October's display.  You can see them here.

This is also my "D" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Click the link to see more!

Wordless Wednesday: Mount Mary Statue

Taken last Saturday at Mount Mary College, a women's university in Milwaukee County.

Linking up with Create With Joy's Wordless Wednesday.

Artist Trading Cards: December Swap

 

On December 15th, the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group will host their last meeting of the year.  Unless we get our first substantial snowfall that day, I plan on attending, and I haven't gone since last spring.  This last meeting doesn't have a specific theme, and, in fact, it will be a chance for participants to unload their surplus of leftover cards. 

 

Due to my photography hobby, like I said, I haven't been to a meeting since March.  I made a set of cards for the April swap, but I had just bought my new DSLR camera, and was having too much fun with it to attend.  The theme that month was "Springtime" so I chose to focus on April in Paris.  The card below was one of the cards I made, and you can see the rest of the set here.

 



I was hoping to attend the July swap where the theme was "Printing & Publishing" which I was really excited about.  I made some cards based on travel magazines of the 50's and 60's.  But, again, there was an event I wanted to photograph (I think it was the Waukesha County Fair for my composition class), and didn't make it.  You can see that set at the top and down below.

In addition to the cards above, I am also making some new cards to celebrate the holidays.  The card below is, obviously, for Christmas, and I hope to also make some for New Year's.

In 2013, I hope to attend more Artist Trading Card swaps as part of my resolution to do more arts & crafts projects.  Last year, I wrote a post on how to make artist trading cards and how to participate in swaps in your area.  To read that post, please click here.

This is also my "C" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Click on the link to check out more!

Big Change!

As you might have noticed, a big change has come to this blog - it's name!  Although Art, Photo, Craft was unique (and easy to use as a domain name at the time), it really didn't make enough sense, and, probably, was hard to remember.  So, I am now Midwestern City Girl.  I took the title from the tagline of my tumbler blog.

I will still post photos about Milwaukee and it's surrounding cities, and try to post more arts & crafts projects as well.  I wanted to wait to make the change after the new year, but had to strike while the domain name was, well, cold.

Hope you like the new name, and I look forward to taking more photos to share.  Thank you all for the follows, reads, and nice comments!

Beginning the Holiday Season

I have a yearly tradition - on the day after Thanksgiving, I put up my Christmas tree and all of my other holiday decorations.  Then, in between December 26th and Jan 1, I take them all down.  I know to some it may sound rushed, but in the words of Ally McBeal, "I prefer to experience a full month of Christmas."

So, for my "B" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday, I'm sharing my (hopefully) Beautiful holiday decorations.  You can also get a little glimpse of my personality as well, and the things that I love.  The photo at the top is of the passthrough between my kitchen and dining area.  The photo below is the bookcase/stemware case that also sits in my dining area.

This is my sofa table.  I normally keep the plastic barware set on the lower shelf during the rest of the year, but I do enjoy filling the glasses with glass balls and then lighting the candles on each side.  On the lower shelf you can see a big present among my souvenier shot glass collection and rock-and-roll souvenier mugs.

This is my entertainment center.  There's really a lot of space on top to fit decorations, but I prefer to keep it simple.  Since I don't have a stocking, I hung an ornament off the snowman hanger.

This is my CD holder/small bookcase that sits to the right of the entertainment center.  The card in the frame is from Four14, a Milwaukee-based photography/graphics design company you can find on Etsy.  The late-70's-era camera on the first shelf of the CD holder is the same one I use in my avatar.

This is my penguin-ornament collection that sits on one of the nightstands in my bedroom.

I have two Christmas trees.  This is because I love ornaments so much I have bought so many throughout the years.  But, one of the trees is in my bedroom, and has red and gold (and kind of glam) ornaments.  Yes, the presents underneath the tree are this year's gifts.  I'm already done shopping and wrapping (please don't hate me).

And the one in the living room is my first grown-up tree.  It's fake, but it's 6 feet tall, which makes it one foot taller than me.  I did have a snafu with the lights, though.  I bought 2 strands of very cheap lights and half of the second strand burned out already.  I improvised with icicle lights that I had around and knew I wasn't going to be using otherwise this year.

Here are some of my favorite ornaments.  You can also go to yesterday's post to see my Harley-Davidson ornaments.

And here is one of the ones I bought this year, a silver fox.  If you would like one of your own, I bought it at Target.

Although I don't have a ton of space to decorate, I think I do pretty well with what I've got.  I hope your holiday decorating, if you choose to do so, goes well and you have a lovely, sparkly, comfortable home this season.

Wordless Wednesday: There's A Harley in my Tree

Make that two Harleys.  I got these ornaments years ago at a White Elephant gift exchange, and they were made to commemorate Harley Davidson's 90th anniversary.  Next year will be the 110th anniversary of the motorcycle builder/dealer.

For more Wordless Wednesday photos, click here.