Weddingbee Blog

Part 1
Part 2 

Miss Tiramisu = dedicated new Gocco owner and suddenly a DIY believer!

Armed with my trusty new printer, I researched, planned, designed, and then carefully opened up that pretty orange box and took out the Gocco. My first project was a set of personalized stationery for my Mom’s upcoming birthday. (I know your favorite color is red Mom, but come on, the whole point is to test out the goods, so you’re getting wedding blue!). I used an adorable lily-of-the valley design- my mom’s favorite flower at least:

I used the New Gocco Guide by Claire Russell to take me step-by-step through the process. I highly recommend this book for Gocco virgins- you can buy it on Amazon.com for $90, or, if you happen to not enjoy overpriced things, on Think Ink for $10.95.

If you haven’t yet experienced the magic of the flashing Gocco bulbs, you have to see it for yourself. I was psyched to find out that my HP printer worked just fine for making my design, and I could burn it directly to a Gocco screen without photocopying first. My book suggested I try my first print out on scrap paper, but I was just too excited to go grab some. I lined up the notecards, pressed down, and VOILA! beautiful card on try #1. I was hooked.

My mom loved the cards, and my Gocco confidence was high. I moved onto test run #2 which was to be Thank You cards. I think I got a little ahead of myself, and perhaps a little too sure of my skills. Laughing in the face of careful planning, I recklessly Gocco’ed myself a big fat mess. Feel free to enlarge for full ink-seepage screw up enjoyment:

Well at least I got to try out a few ink colors, which I was really loving. I was finally ready to start designing. I needed a motif, some sort of image to tie the whole thing together. My first thought was the very New-England-summer hydrangea. I’m using hydrangeas in the bouquets and centerpieces, and they clearly come in blue- perfect right? One of my go-to sites for artwork is clipart.com. Here’s some flower artwork that I considered:

All pretty, but again I was a little underwhelmed. I did design a whole invitation suite (invite, RSVP, reception card, and directions) with that last hydrangea image, though. Mr. Tiramisu gave his “sure they’re nice, whatever” approval, and we were good to go. Just as I was starting to finalize the designs though, Mr. T picked up that awfully smudged Gocco thank you attempt and enthusiastically (this is not a word you can use often when it comes to Grooms and invitation design) asked where it had come from. He was so impressed by the gold ink and the “clean lines” of the swirl design. And he asked if we could use it instead of the flower.

I was a little reluctant, but he gives a wedding opinion so infrequently- how could I say no? I came up with a new set of invites using the swirl design- just to try it out. And the verdict? He was right. They are gorgeous. I’m in love (with our invites, and with my suddenly invite-caring-about Groom!). Instantly a swirl motif-ed wedding was born.

Anyone else have an invitation designing saga to share?