Our Gocco festivities started around 10am when BFF and I opened the Gocco box and marveled at all of the supplies labeled in Japanese. I mean, i knew they would all be labeled that way, but to see it in person was unreal. I literally had no idea what each thing was supposed to do. Enter www.youtube.com and the famous Etsy Valentine's Day Card video. We watched it two times all the way through, and then figured we could probably get started.
As an FYI, the flash bulbs are coated in some sort of toxic film, so don't let any pregnant bridesmaids handle them (that means you, BFF!). But only in California, apparently.
I didn't take any pictures of the process while it was happening, as we were way too focused on the Etsy video (we followed it step by step; it was pathetic). I did get a nice shot of my screen, all inked up and ready to go:
The top gold part was for the sweet little leaf, and the navy part was for the text. Everything was all fun and games up to this part... then we started printing.
The actual transfer of ink from screen to paper came out fine. Nice even. But it was a little slanted, like the letters decided they didn't want to be a part of the formation any more. So I made another few prints and realized that the screen must be crooked, which is impossible because it's attached to the Gocco frame in the little tracks. Then it hit us: the actual print on the screen was crooked! Well, the only thing to do was make another screen. So we went through the whole process again, and again came out with a crooked screen. And here's the thing - if the screen is crooked, there's no way to get a straight print, unless you turn the paper you're printing on, and really, I didn't have enough paper to go through that whole trial and error thing.
Here's a shot of my slop-y invitations:
Had they not been so slanted, they would have gotten a run through the Xyron and slapped on some navy blue card stock. But alas, they crooked, and I am way too anal to be sending out anything this crooked. ::Sadness::
As a back-up, BFF and I decided to scour the internet in search of wedding invitations that wouldn't cost a fortune... you know, just in case. I'll admit, I'm into saving $$ and cutting costs, but not at the expense of the final product. And my Gocco "final product" screamed homemade in a way that I just wasn't cool with.
But lucky for me, Etsy saved the day! We stumbled across seller WhimsicalPrints and loved what she had to offer! Here's some samples of her save the dates and invitations:
And without further ado, here's the invitation we ended up going with:
The tree will be black, and all of the print will be navy blue. She was able to put the "reception to follow" bit over to the left of the tree in the corner and change the text for us (as our parents are hosting). Overall, I am very happy with our chose in invitations and relieved to not be making them. Oh, and the total cost for the purchased invited? $1.90 per invitation/response set, included printed envelopes! WhimsicalPrints mailed me a physical sample the other day, and they are beautiful! And you really can't beat the print - $190 for 100 invitations! The best part is that I still had about 100 pieces of invitation cardstock, 100 pieces of response card card stock, and envelopes for everything... so I posted it in the classified section of WeddingBee and was able to sell it to another DIY-er for cheap. We both won on that transaction!
Anyone else start a DIY project that didn't turn out quite they way you planned?
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