I know, I know… it’s Thursday. Pretend it’s yesterday and enjoy these fantastic Gocco tips submitted by DIY Bride Miranda. If you’re unfamiliar with the Gocco, it’s a small screenpriting machine from Japan.

I’ve been reading wedding blogs compulsively for months now as I’ve been planning my April wedding. I’ve learned so much and found some amazing ideas and advice. I wanted to contribute now by sharing what I learned by making my wedding invites with my Gocco PG-11.

First of all, I’m a relatively artistic person (I’m a costume designer by profession), so I thought I could easily handle making my own invitations. I do tend to be a little impatient, though, so I knew I was going to be challenged by this project. I waited a long time to begin, and read the instructions included and online over and over again. There are a few helpful hints they don’t mention anywhere, though, that I learned the hard way by making a whole set of very flawed invitations that I ended up having to throw
out. Maybe I’m just especially “challenged”, but I thought I might be able to help someone else as they begin their own Gocco invite project.

This is what I learned:

1. Have plenty of extra bulbs and screens on hand. I used up the ones I had in my first screw up and then had to wait weeks while a new order got shipped. It’ll make you feel much less pressured if you have plenty handy.

2. Print way more (15-20) invitations than you think you’ll need. That’ll allow you to weed out the less than perfect ones.

3. DON’T try to do more than two screens/colors in your first design unless you’re an extremely compulsive/careful/fastidious person. It was harder than I thought to make things line up perfectly. There might be some designs where this is easier than others…where being a little off won’t show too much.

4. Don’t make a fine border on your invitations and expect it to print clearly. It turns out that the stamp doesn’t work as well on the very edges of your machine, so fine details on the edge will sometimes not print. A border also points out too obviously when your paper’s a little off-kilter…something I found to be easy to let happen.

5. Use a couple of tiny pieces of masking tape to affix your card to the stamp pad. Sometimes I’d line the card up with the registration guide (that clear insert that comes with the PG-11 that helps line up your second screen) and then it would shift when I closed the top. Make sure you put the tape on a part of the card where you’re NOT printing something, or it’ll interfere with
the print.

6. Don’t use fonts that are too fine or small. You can use a 12 point font if it’s a blocky font, but curvy fonts (like the cursive font on my invite) just blur together illegibly when they’re smaller.

7. Make sure you have paper towels handy. This can get messier than I thought from what I read from other people…but maybe that’s just me, again.

8. The paint is very sticky and hard to clean up. DON’T use water, because it just smoodges it around on you, but doesn’t remove it. Just smear that remover they include and wipe it off with paper towels. I’m impressed by people who cleaned and reused their screens. It’s not easy to clean off the paint.

9. Go really slowly. My second time around I took a lot more time to make sure the card was even, aligned, and taped down, and it made a huge difference.

Good luck!

Photos of the Gocco Process

Gocco with “registration plate” down to help line up card for second printing

Pieces of tape strategically placed

Our finished invite

Miranda is a Boston-based costume designer. She designs for theater and opera in New York and around the country. She marrying a Cajun in the gorgeous French Quarter of New Orleans. Miranda envisions her wedding to be “fun, festive, inviting, and the opposite of a cookie-cutter event. It turns out that what I do for a living has made planning a wedding really manageable (knock on wood). It’s not too different from what I do all the time, so I’ve been having a lot of fun.”

{Tips and photos are copyright Miranda Hoffman.}