Cathy Zielske from St. Paul, Minnesota
Cathy Zielske is a graphic designer, author and blogger with strong ties to the scrapbooking industry. She is the former art director for Simple Scrapbooks magazine, where she oversaw the visual direction of all Simple publications and books.
Cathy has worked as a graphic designer for 18 years, primarily focusing on publication design. She’s worked everywhere from the Science Museum of Minnesota to a chain of Texas grocery stores to a national trade magazine for debt collection agency owners. (Yes, even debt collectors need good design!)
She began scrapbooking in 2001, and found that her background in design and her passion for telling stories made her new hobby as easy as it was fun. As a scrapbooker, Cathy helped to usher in the trend of clean, graphic layout design. She is the author of the best-selling books, Clean&Simple Scrapbooking, and Clean&Simple Scrapbooking: The Sequel. Both books inspire women to take a fun, well-designed and guilt-free approach to telling their stories through scrapbooking.
Cathy is currently developing and teaching online workshops to help scrapbookers write better and take what they've written and make it look fabulous. She's currently teaming with Big Picture Scrapbooking in 2009 to offer her workshops. Cathy also reaches scrapbookers through her popular blog (http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/). She hopes to develop more online content in 2010 and beyond, to inspire scrapbookers to continue telling their story in an authentic and well-designed way.
A native of Everett, Washington, Cathy lives quite happily in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband, daughter and son, where she is a big fan of potato chips, Crowded House and stretch denim. Further, she is 43 years old and has achieved the height of 5'6. She also likes cheese and requires absolute silence to sleep.
According to Cathy:
I can't imagine my life without... coffee.
I would love to win a shopping spree to... this small local pottery shop in St. Paul, Minnesota called “Evla.” The potter’s work is gorgeous. And if not there, then a spree at Room & Board, a Minnesota-based furniture company. Their stuff is to die for.
I am most embarrassed when... I misuse the English language or mis-sing a song lyric.
If I could be anywhere, I'd be... home.
My least favorite chore is... unloading the dishwasher. What a supreme waste of my good quality time.
If I could be on any tv game or reality show, it would be... Are you kidding? Rock of Love, baby. So what if I’m already married…I would make Bret LOVE me.
If a mystery package arrived on my doorstep, I'd hope it would be... an iPhone with a pre-paid plan for two years.
My guilty pleasure is... reality television of all kinds.
I thought I would never... have children. I’m so glad that I did.
If a genie granted me three wishes, I’d wish for... a cure for all cancers, a flat stomach and an iPhone.
You would never guess it, but I... am slightly obsessed with some day owning an iPhone.
If I could be on any tv game or reality show, it would be... MTV’s Real World… because I’d be the freakishly-out-of-place 43-year-old Mom-type who constantly tells everyone to “shut the heck up, I’m seriously trying to sleep here!” and they would all initially hate me, then grow to love me as I’d become the show’s resident house mother. I’d constantly be breaking up fights and dispelling nuggets of wisdom like, “Don’t smoke. It’ll be really hard to quit when you’re 40, and when you finally do, you’ll cry every day for a week.” Then at the reunion show I’d be voted “Most Popular Aging Hipster Cast Member We Couldn’t Stand.”
