Cathy Zielske's Blog, page 11

My five best design tips for cardmakers!

Today I’m sharing a video to highlight five of my best design tips for cardmakers. I promise you that a little study of design can help in all crafty endeavors, and especially when you are sitting down to create a card. Take a peek and see if you glean some inspiration for this clip!

If you want to see the actual videos for most of the cards featuring in this clip, enjoy. Click on any card image to watch its video.

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Cathy Makes a Card—the giveaway post!

Welcome to the blog post for this week’s livestream (January 22, 2025). If you’d like to win the one of the two cards, leave a comment below and I’ll choose the winners a few days following the live.

In the meantime, check out this livestream replay here:

So simple and easy!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

SUPPLIES:

Affiliate links are used in this post and below at no additional cost to you. I receive a small percent of compensation when you click through and sh...

Two ways to make a shaker card!

Today I’m sharing two ways to make a shaker card and hopefully, these tips will help you the next time you set out to create one. Or, maybe you haven’t tried one yet? They are easy to make and the recipient will have fun shaking it. I promise! (I showed my adult daughter these cards, and she shook one of them really hard and I said, “Easy there, girlie, the glue hasn’t dried!”)

I will be the first to tell you that Shaker Strips make this so seamless! But I will also show you how to us...

Cathy Makes a Card—the giveaway

Welcome to the blog post for this week’s livestream (January 15, 2025). If you’d like to win the card, OR one of the two packed boxes of crafty goods, leave a comment below and I’ll choose the winners on Friday at noon central time. (Open to US residents only.)

Thank you SO much for donating to the Red Cross Fundraiser, which will end in a little over one day.

In the meantime, check out this livestream replay here:

I love the bold pattern with the simple greeting and frame. Th...

Let’s unbox the latest card kit from Simon Says Stamp and make five cards

Today I am unboxing the latest card kit from Simon Says Stamp for February 2025 called Distressed Vintage Notes. If you ever thought you weren’t a vintage-y card maker, I hope to inspire you to change your mind! Also? The pack of ephemera in this kit is in a word, ginormous!

First things first, let’s get into the unboxing and makes video:

I seriously am surprised at how fun this kit was to work with. CZ does vintage? WHO KNEW?

Also something I did not know when I made my v...

Beautiful blooms featuring cool tones and lovely products from Pinkfresh Studio

Today I’m sharing two cards featuring gorgeous blooms from Pinkfresh Studio and I’m doing them both using lovely cool tones. For my first card, I’m using the Butterflies in Bloom stamps, stencils and dies.

I love using soft lilac colors for flowers and as a cardmaker, you get to use whatever floats your crafty boat.

For the second card, I kept the same palette and used the Embroidered Blooms Die and Stencils, along with the Embroidered Hoops die set which is just darling.

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Turn a die that says one thing into another!

Welcome to Day One of a blog hop for the Simon Says Stamp To Be Loved release. Today’s card idea came from one of my YouTube viewer comment where she pointed out that I could also spell “So Sorry” with my new “I’m Sorry” word and shadow die set. Well that is so smart!

The die set looks like this, but by cutting out two sorrys and giving one a trim, the new greeting was created!

I used the Tucked Hearts stamp for my background, and used SSS Pawsitively Saturated Ink in Sage stamped...

Get the most out of your cardstock with Zero Waste Dies

Welcome to the blog hop to showcase the January 2025 release from Altenew. Today I’m sharing three cards made by using a Zero Waste die and coordinating products. I love how all three cards turned out!

Here is the video showing you how they came together, even with a few mistakes along the way:

Here are a few more photos of the cards.

So bright and cheery! I love having all the butterflies ready for multiple cards.

THE GIVEAWAY

Altenew is giving ...

Cards to help you say I’m Sorry (new from CZ Design)

Today I’m sharing my newest CZ Design releases as part of the Simon Says Stamp To Be Loved Release.

I have one stamp set and two dies out today. First is the I’m Sorry Sentiments, which feature a host of greetings along with one larger “I’m Sorry” stamp. You can buy the stamps separately or with the coordinating die.

I also have a standalone word and shadow die set. This would work well with the small greetings in the I’m Sorry Sentiments but the die itself is slightly larger ...

Cathy Makes a Card…with a greeting that floats!

Welcome to the blog post for this week’s livestream (January 8, 2025). If you’d like to win the card, leave a comment below and I’ll choose the winner a few days following the live.

In the meantime, check out this livestream replay here:

I love the floating greetings! If you’ve never tried it, you should!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

SUPPLIES:

Affiliate links are used in this post and below at no additional cost to you. I receive a small percent of compensatio...