The Mad Cropper - All About Scrapbooking

Cathy Zielske, Featured Scrapbooker August 2005

by Christine on July 31st, 2005

Our featured scrapbooker for the month of August is none other than, Cathy Zielske of Simple Scrapbooking. I love her work! The ABC Album I am doing for my daughter is based on Cathy’s “Clean and Simple” technique.

Cathy Zielske is the creative director for Simple Scrapbooks magazine. In addition to helping to guide the direction of the magazine, Zielske writes articles and designs layouts that educate scrapbookers on design theory and photography, enabling them to create savvy pages with better flow and balance. She also provides design support for Simple’s creative department and works on a variety of the magazine’s ancillary products.

In 2004, Cathy released her first book, Clean & Simple Scrapbooking, in which she shares her expertise in the areas of design, photography, journaling and typography. Beyond that, she also shares the philosophy of Simple Scrapbooks by encouraging scrapbookers to celebrate their “whole” lives and scrapbook the things that make life rich without worrying about getting everything in perfect, chronological order. A graphic designer by trade, Cathy also teaches her time-tested design concepts to scrapbookers attending her classes at Creating Keepsakes University.

Cathy’s love of photography was the impetus for discovering scrapbooking. Following an inquisitive visit to a scrapbook store where she picked up a copy of Simple Scrapbooks, Cathy discovered that she could combine her passions of writing, design and photography into one glorious hobby. She submitted a handful of pages to Simple Scrapbooks and has been working for them ever since. She instantly connected to the idea of recording what matters most, through simple pages and theme albums, and not letting the piles of photos decide how and when she scrapbooks. She was inducted into Creating Keepsakes’ Scrapbook Hall of Fame in 2002.

Beginning her career as a journalist, Cathy developed a passion for design and moved into art direction. For 16 years she has worked as a graphic designer and six years ago, founded her own freelance design company. A native of Seattle, Wash., she lives in St. Paul, Minn., with her husband and two children.

1. How and when did you discover scrapbooking? Who/What encouraged you?
In the fall of 2001, i read an article about a local “photo memory” store that was opening in my home town. The store was called Archivers. Curious, because I always took a ton of photos, I thought I’d go check out their “vast selection of photo albums.” What I didn’t plan on doing, was picking up the premier issue of Simple Scrapbooks magazine, and Creating Keepsakes magazine. I had no clue about scrapbooking, and had no idea it was a such a creative, expressive art form. Needless to say, I went back the next week, picked up my first sheets of cardstock, patterned paper and adhesive. I was hooked.
2. What are your top 5 favourite scrapbook materials and tools? Things you cannot live without?
a. Hermafix Dot Adhesive (the repositionable kind)
b. X-acto knife, metal ruler and cutting mat
c. Tons of cardstock, especially Bazzill cardstock
d. Paper flowers
e. My Mac G5 computer, because I use type so often for my titles and journaling.

3. What is your favourite scrapbook/layout technique and why?
Truthfully, it’s creating a page with cardstock only. No embellishments, no extras. Just nice colors of cardstock. I find that is the type of page I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Beyond that, I love to create “reverse” type effects on my layout, where the type appears white on a colored background.

4. How do you do your layouts? Do you do them chronologically, by events or special occasions or what you feel like doing at the time?
My layouts are rarely chronological. I just don’t scrapbook that much to be able to keep up. I usually scrap if I have an idea of a page I want to do, rather than look through photos to get the idea. I’m usually trying to do the reverse: find photos to match my page ideas. I will never be a scrap slave to my photos. That would take the fun out of it!

5. How do you start a layout? How long does it take you to finish one?
9 out of 10 times, I start by coming up with the title, and then doing the journaling. I’ll have an idea of the photos i want to use, but I never seem to start by picking out papers and cardstock first. I think it’s because I want to focus on what I’m trying to say first, and figure out how to make it look pretty second.

Once I get going, I usually spend, on average, an hour or less on most pages. This includes setting up the journaling and printing out the photos (if I do them on my home photo printer).

6. Where do you get your ideas and inspiration for your layouts?
Most of my ideas come from my background working as a graphic designer. The experience I’ve had working in publication design for 16 years means there are ideas for layout designs in my head waiting to be translated from a print arena to a scrapbooking one.

7. What is your favourite scrapbook album/layout and why?

I think my favorite layout…well, there are two: one is a layout I did about the fact that my daughter hates black and white photos, because that’s when i had my “a ha” moment that you can scrapbook a big long story, and pair it with just one photo and it is officially complete.

The other one is one i did as a tribute to one of the wonderful dogs in my life. From a design standpoint, it’s one of the simplest I’ve ever done, but every time i read it, I cry.

Cathy’s Layouts:
(I don’t really have any layouts online, per se. You can go to: Simple Scrapbooks magazine

Cathy’s Workspace:
Go to: Cathy’s space for more photos.

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POSTED IN: Features on Scrapbooking