birdies!

ok...so it was MUCH harder placing the birds than i thought it would be. some goccos come with registration plates so you can place your cardstock in the exact correct place each and every time to ensure proper placement. not the case with mine. so of course, i messed a lot more cards up, ugh!

anyway...here are the birdies. tomorrow we glue!

now we have text!

so once again, this project was mine and mine alone. joe was pooped so he headed for bed while i conquered our text. i made a few mistakes, but luckily we've been printing enough that it'll be okay.

i decided to do our names in green and the rest of the text in brown. so first, i inked up the master screen (a new one)!


again, i used the ink blocking material that came with my gocco.



here they are drying all over my apt!



here's a close up...you can see some errors, of course. tomorrow i print the birdies! anyway, the pink worked out A LOT better than the green!! :-)

invitations take deux

so i redid the background this morning...i think it's still too dark. the white paint started leaking all over my hands, and i just wanted to be done with it.

i started with the floral stencil printed out on a laser printer and cut it to size.

then i burned a master screen and inked it up generously.



after i stamped the cards (using the back of the old ones so i didn't have to buy new paper), i left them out to dry. i really need to get some drying racks, i think.


later today i have to do the text again, ugh. then the birdies! wish me luck!

RSVPs!

ok, so we're seriously behind schedule. especially since we decided that we want to redo the invitation and make the background light pink. joe and i have had a lot of stuff going on (outside of the wedding) and we decided to go for a drive tonight, just to get out of the city. as a result, we're even more behind schedule, agh!! to make matters worse, joe isn't feeling well again and he has to be up at 5am tomorrow for work...so, guess who had to make the rsvps all by her little self? :-)

i started mixing paint.


then painted the master screen and inserted it into the gocco.


i used the gocco ink blocking material to make sure the paint wouldn't overlap into other areas. it's grey and sticky. i didn't think too hard about which colors i wanted to put where this time. i just wanted to get them done, haha. i figured i should use brown for the text this time though. :-)

here are some drying!

gocco invitations

omg, it's been way too long since i posted. so much has happened!

first of all, we started making our invitations. now, i'm a total gocco newbie. for those of you who don't know what a gocco is, let me update you. a gocco is a japanese screenprinting machine that's no longer being manufacturered, so you have to buy them by auction only. i paid about $250 for mine on ebay and it came with a variety of ink colors too. i did one test with the machine to make sure it worked (made thank you cards) and then i basically spent the next month just learning everything i could about the machine and tips and tricks, etc.

so...first we printed the background of our invite. green was the one color we didn't have, so my fiance got work mixing blue, yellow and a bit of white paint together.



that blue thing on the coffee table is the gocco.


so, basically they looked like this:


i sure wish i had invested in those drying racks!



ok, then we both came down with the flu! so...almost 2 full weeks later, we began the challenge of printing the text.



we fell in love with that apple green color when my fiance mixed it, but the next day i realized that it would make our text super hard to read. whoops!

our names were supposed to be in a really pretty pink!


obviously, that didn't really work. :-( so in the end, we printed all the text in brown.


here they are once again drying. *sigh*



after this, we still have to print the little 2 birdies in pink! agh!!!


here's my fiance working on the stamping process. he looks stressed...and uh...that's because the process was pretty stressful for us...especially in our tiny 100 degree apartment! (not to mention the fact that we're both just pretty stressed in general right now).



tomorrow we print the r.s.v.p. cards!

i'm back!

okay, i've been m.i.a. since february, i know. sorry about that. i've been having major computer problems for a few months and well...i have a habit of starting blogs and stopping. sad but true. :-( but alas- i've returned! reason? i found out today that one of my coworkers got engaged last night! fun to share! what's really wacky is that yesterday, she and i were just talking about the whole topic in the office ladies room! such a weird coicidence! so anyway, that inspired me to get back to the blog. so lemme catch y'all up.

1) i bought a dress! and that's a whole story in itself. i fell IN LOVE with one dress at kleinfelds (know the place? they shoot "say yes to the dress" there. thankfully, there were no cameras there that day. phew)! anyway, they had it in my size and it was gorgeous. but i had to do all kinds of things to the darn thing like raise the neckline, open up the cup size, blah, blah, blah. this is in addition to the regular alterations.

my mom came into town for a couple of hours (literally) and i felt pressured to just find something. we went to rk bridal and i was SO excited to show her the dress! but alas- they didn't have it in my size to dry on so i couldn't show her. :-( plus...they basically told me that the changes i needed made was impossible. apparently, the designer is known for having sexy necklines. which doesn't go well with big busted women...ugh. and although kleinfelds said they could do it- it would have cost me a fortune and i didn't have the budget for that, so i had to walk away from it. :-( i was DEVESTATED. honestly. ever fall in love with a car and then realize that you can't have it? ya...it sucks. royally. so i ended up with another dress that looks really beautiful but has a little more sparkle and bling than i would like. they told me i can ask the seamstress to remove some of the sequins when it arrives, which i'm definitely going to do. everyone kept telling me that i should sparkle because it's my wedding day but i'm like uh...no...i'm not that girly. no sparkle, please. ick. so...it should arrive in july or so. i'll keep you posted.

2) i booked hair! my wedding planner hooked me up with a vendor named diana from valley stream and she was super nice. we tried and up do and a down do. i'm still waiting for those pics...i should probably email her. hmmm.

3) i invested in a gocco! if you don't know what that is, i'll tell ya. it's a nifty little japanese screenprinting machine! they don't make them anymore so you have to buy them on auction like on ebay, etc. i plan on making some cool things with that thing...if only i can get started with it.

i've been really busy with work lately and i'm also prepping to teach a university course...so my mind is all scattered. still left: makeup and florist. meeting one of each in the next 2 weeks! also still have to do our engagement shoot! ack!!!

ok so much more to say but i gotta skadaddle.

caio for now.