Gocco

Dave and I headed to Bend, Oregon this weekend to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. We had to drive through the Cascades to get there from Eugene. It was a beautiful drive, until we suddenly hit a blizzard. Eeeks! We are used to winter driving from Wisconsin, but Wisconsin doesn’t have very many curvy roads on the sides of mountains. Even though the snow was kind of scary, it was gorgeous in that first snow of the season kind of way. Or maybe I just say that because we made it safely through and enjoyed a relaxing mini-vacation in Bend before returning home on snow-free roads.

I broke out my gocco tonight to print up some snowflake Christmas cards. In Eugene, I just have to enjoy the gray rain outside and make my own bright winter snow!

Thanks everyone for your encouragement about my first craft booth. I have a lot of work to do in the next two weeks!! My goal is simply to have enough items to fill up a table. Maybe some day I’ll make the goal to sell something.

Halloween is over, which means it’s time to start on Christmas crafts! From reading other blogs, it actually looks like I’m a few months behind. But I just can’t bring myself to start in earnest until November officially begins.

Somehow I agreed to share a craft booth with a friend at the end of the month. Eeeks!! Right when I thought my life would slow down and I could just relax. This will be my first time ever trying to sell my crafts. I am SUPER nervous about it! But also excited, because maybe this will be the kick in the pants that I need.

I started out small, making these little reindeer tags on my gocco. For the paper I used recycled manila folders and some cardstock I found at a reuse store. I think they are cute, but am still nervous about the prospect of attempting to sell them. Do any of you crafters out there also have a really hard time accepting that someone may spend money on something that you made? Hopefully jumping into this craft fair will help get me over my neuroses.

Good luck to everyone getting a start on holiday crafting!

Tonight I tried out my gocco for the first time! It didn’t go perfectly, but I learned a lot and I like my little Valentine’s Day print. I’ve put together a little tutorial to show you how to gocco print.

Step 1: Draw a picture

Your picture needs to have carbon in it in order for it to work on the gocco. You can either draw it with the special gocco pen, or you can just make a photocopy of your picture. I photocopied mine.

Step 2: Add 2 AA batteries

Step 3: Line up picture on sticky pad

Step 4: Screw in lightbulbs

The lightbulbs contain some hazardous chemical, so be sure to wash your hands after handling them!

Step 5: Place screen in position

The blue side should be facing towards you.

Step 6: Press down (hard)

You will see the bulbs flash and smell them burning a bit.

Step 7: Dispose of bulbs

But first let them cool, because they will be hot! And remember to wash your hands after handling them. Unfortunately they are single use.

Step 8: Peel picture off screen

Look at that! My first screen worked!

Step 9: Block off different color areas with sticky foam tape

My design was a little too close together in places to actually fit the sticky foam tape. My colors did end up smearing in those areas. Next time I’m going to try a simpler design.

Step 10: Ink up your screen

You want to put it on pretty thick.

Step 11: Place screen back in gocco

Again with the blue side facing you.

Step 12: Place blank paper on sticky pad and press down

Hooray! My first print!

Check out all of those prints! Depending on how thick you put the ink on, you should be able to do at least 50 before you need to re-ink.

My finished print. You’re the only fish in the sea for me!

Finished card with my lined envelope.

As you can see from the few opened presents under the tree, Dave and I already exchanged our gifts. And he got me a gocco!!!!

For those of you who don’t know what a gocco is, here is a great video about it. I can’t wait to start printing to my hearts content.

Merry Christmas everyone!!