Wedding Blog
My friend Kathy got married last year and had a beautiful wedding. Kathy is super funny, and one of her great ideas cracked me up: she decided to have cocktail napkins printed with funny facts about she and her husband-to-be. Tragedy struck, however, when they arrived one day AFTER her wedding. Stupid napkin people.
Thanks to Kathy’s genius idea and my decision not to trust anyone but myself (which is surely a serious psychological problem), I will now have custom napkins at my wedding. And so will my friend Amanda. Why? Because this weekend we used a gocco for the first time ever to print fun facts on 1300 napkins. 650 for Amanda, 650 for me.
I am not going to lie, I was a little bit (okay, a lot bit) terrified of the gocco. Tons of people have used them and raved about them. They even say that the gocco is an easy machine to use. But it looked complicated to me. I mean, you have to flash these bulbs, and I don’t get how the screen works, and all the instructions are in Japanese! How easy could this possibly be?!
The answer, my friends, is VERY easy. Well, except for the bulb part. That part takes some getting used to.
So here, in pictures, is our adventure with the gocco.
This is me, trying to arrange my fun facts in order to burn the screen. Please do not ask me how this works. I really have no idea. Actually, I am pretty sure it’s magic. So I didn’t ask any deep questions about magic or science–all I did was follow the video I found online from Paper Source.
Burning the screen requires putting some weird bulbs (my manager told me they’re carcinogenic, which is why we’re outside–sorry, squirrels) in the top of the machine and then pushing down on the machine to make them flash. For some reason, this process terrified me. Probably for the same reason I really don’t like popping balloons–I really don’t like loud noises or bright flashes. I was convinced it would be very bright because Sue (the woman in the video) acts very surprised when her bulbs flash.
As it turns out, it was neither loud nor very bright. Although, Amanda looks very surprised for some reason!
Okay. So our first trial with the ink did NOT go well. In fact, we both nearly freaked out and thought we were gocco failures. The ink was sort of bleeding all over the napkin, and half the words didn’t even print. It was not legible. Then we noticed that the black ink tube said, “for fabric.” Long story short, Amanda was concerned about this when she bought the ink, but the guy at the store told her it would be fine. As you can see, it was not fine:
So we decided to try the other thing of ink we bought, which was red. It was all in Japanese, so we had no idea if it would work on paper or fabric, or neither. As it turns out, it works on paper:
And it is BEAUTIFUL! We were so proud of ourselves! We promptly made tons of napkins. Here’s beautiful Amanda with the gocco and many, many napkins:
All in all, this project cost us each about $50 in gocco supplies and napkins. When all is said and done, we both had 8 facts and 650 napkins. Lucky for me, I was able to borrow Paper Source’s gocco for this project, so we didn’t have to invest in one. Sadly for me, at 9am yesterday morning one of my co-workers told me that Paper Source has the gocco for sale again, and I promptly dropped about $200 bucks on a gocco and a bunch of supplies. Oops. So I guess this project cost me a teensy bit more than $50! Oh well, there are many wonderful years of printing ahead of me. Right? Right?
When I got home, I put all of my napkins in a water-proof tupperware for safe keeping. And there they will sit for the next 3.5 months. High five!
And for all the Negative Nellies out there, yes, I did check to make sure that the ink will not wipe all over my guest’s faces when they use them. And no, they will not give anyone cancer. 
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Share this post: A New Skill
Oh dear, posts like this make me want a gocco so badly, and a cuttlebug and a xyron! So cute Miss Cream Puff!
I love the fun facts idea! My gocco is sitting on the table waiting for me to grow the balls to try it. Thanks for letting me know it’s not too hard.
What type/size font did you use to get it to come out so clear?
Those turned out great!! Good job!!! Maybe I’ll have to try my hand at this gocco stuff now!!!
Hi Miss Cream Puff. I am also a summer San Franciscan bride to be. I love your idea! I have a gocco too but all my printing jobs are mess. I believe its the copier I am using. Anyways, can you please tell me what you used to print your random facts. Was it a laser printer or copier. I am really trying to figure this out! Any tips will help.
Fantastic! I just ordered my invitations, and so thought I had absolutely no excuse to buy a Gocco, but I am seriously rethinking that right now.
I’m still scared of it. I need to see more fun projects.
I went to Miss Creampuff’s wedding and all I got was cancer.
I rove these napkins, Miss CP. Too ambitious for me!!! The personalization is so awesome!
Very nice! I’m including fun facts of us also but it’ll be part of the table-name cards to (hopefully) encourage conversations at the tables.
LOL @ your final comment. I went to a wedding once where the bride stamped all the napkins with regular gold ink. It did kinda freak me out and I tried to use the unstamped parts of the napkins… I’d bet THAT is hazardous to one’s health!
I love that idea. C’mon Penguin….we can do that project with 53 days left. But get your rings first, and your marriage license. Then we will dive into another DIY project.
I LOVE your napkins! I was going to do something similar but had recently crossed it off my DIY list because the list was getting a little long…. you might have just inspired me to put it back on!
Very fun project. Thanks for sharing! I’ve been looking for other projects where I can get more use out of my gocco. I never thought about printing on napkins.
The napkins look great! Now I have another DIY project to add to my list.
Also, thanks for sharing that the gocco bulbs don’t flash in a scary way - that is another of my reasons for not using mine yet. I am also afraid of popping ballons and bright flashes!!
These tools are so versatile!! I’m glad the ‘bees’ are thinking outside the box!
My birthday is in June and I just took my mom by AC Moore to show her the cuddlebug - and various accessories I ‘need’ to go with it She has a 50% off coupon that’s good this Saturday - and my fingers are crossed!! (She also has instructions to buy me the fiskers rotary paper cutter with another 50% coupon - that I’m reimbursing her for though!) Ooh lala - I can’t wait to try my news toys. (Even though the wedding is over - I’ll think of some other projects!)
The gocco stills scares me a bit - but maybe one day!
I’m sad we only got to see fun fact #1
HAHAHA. Way to conquer your fears, girl!!! We rock.
GREAT idea! Now I want to know all the other Random Facts! Your guests are going to have a great time with this creative detail!
As a crafty mc-crafterson myself (I just blew 75 dollars at a scrapbooking store this weekend) it’s good to know the Gocco isn’t as intimidating as it looks…I might have to invest, yet!
GREAT money saving (kind of!) and personalized tip! GREAT job!
Very cute! And as for your friend whose napkins came a day late…at least you could re-use random fact napkins instead of the regualr wedding napkins. I love this idea!
I love this idea! But I am also afraid of the Gocca and not willing to spend the money for it (yeah i may be cheap).
Does anyone have any ideas for a slighty cheaper/easier way to achieve this awesome idea?!
They look awesome! I sooooo want a GOCCO! I’ve hesitated because I find it intimidating. Thanks for including all the tips and good-to-know facts in your post….my fears are beginning to go away! Great Job =)
Amanda is pure hotness. Can I get her digits?
The faces you guys made burning the screen are priceless!
Thanks for posting this! I was wondering how well gocco would work on napkins. So I take it the dried ink didn’t rub off? I wonder how it looks after the napkin gets a little wet. . .
Thank you for helping me part with $200 to get my gocco.. I’d been uming and errring about it but this post was what i needed to part with my cash. I am VERY excited. hoorah for gocco.
I am doing this too! Beverage napkins are on sale at Party City this week - 99 cents for 50 in lots of colors, pretty cheap!
Gocco ink is oil-based, so it shouldn’t run or bleed when wet.
One more question, What happens to the ink when it gets wet? I was thinking of having cocktail napkins at the bars, but drinks get wet, napkins get wet, does the ink run??
Inquiring minds want to know….
Brilliant! I’m sure it will go down as my one great regret - being Goccoless for the wedding. Yay for living vicariously!
Those are going to be so cute! I love Random Fact #1. I can’t wait to see all the facts. (Please post those.)
Thanks for the shout out!
We struggled to find someone to print 3 or 4 lines of text for us, and even then there was a limit of 25 or 30 characters a line (that may sound like a lot but including spaces it’s not much). It looks like you have a lot more freedom since you’re setting it up yourself.
For anyone who wants to have personalized napkins that doesn’t have a Gocco, the Ebay seller Canopy Streets will do 5 sets of napkins (each set is 50 napkins) for $50 before shipping (I think that’s the price). Of course this is also the seller who sent my napkins to arrive the day AFTER the wedding.
U R MY HERO. This is such a great idea. Custom napkins are something I decided I wasn’t going to bother ordering from an overpriced company, but now I can have them AND not break the bank. So you just used the regular ol’ Riso Gocco ink?
Where did you find the best price on napkins?
(I’m totally caving and adding this back on my DIY list. You are too cute!)
What are you doing to me???? Seriously. Bee talent leads to DIY madness! My fingers are going to fall off :0
i usually don’t comment, but i wanted to say how funny it was that you wound up buying a gocco machine shortly thereafter! =) that’s so awesome haha! the napkins look great!
SO AWESOME!
I am still scared of the Gocco 
WOW! personalized napkins using gocco…what a great idea!! and they look awesome!!
Thanks, everybody!!
@Kelly: I used size 12. Amanda went a little smaller, I think and hers didn’t turn out too well (it looked kind of handcrafted), so she reprinted them in a different font a little bigger, and it worked a lot better.
@ shelli: we used a copy machine at kinkos. laser machines heat up the ink so it soaks into the paper. Apparently regular copy machines leave the ink on the surface of the paper (don’t quote me on this–this is what one of my co-workers told me), so that’s why it works.
@Pengy: hahahahaha. Are you kidding?! These NAPKINS are too ambitious for you?! Have you SEEN your own favors!?
@Jann: that’s a good idea! I am hoping this will encourage mingling, too. I have 8 facts and I numbered all of them, so I’m hoping people will run around and look for the other numbers.
@Michelle: you crack me up.
@brooklynbaby: YOU SO SHOULD!
@Tiramisu: these seriously were NOT hard and not too time-consuming. I think they will definitely be worth it. We went to Party City (I think?). It was like, $2 per pack of 50. You might be able to find them cheaper, even, because we didn’t do any research on the napkin prices.
@jillian: I will totally share all the other facts with you guys after the wedding. I don’t want to ruin any surprises for my family members!
@Sarah: Honestly, I don’t think there IS a cheaper way to do this, at least not with this number of napkins vs. number of facts ratio. You could always buy a gocco and then resell it. They have them on paper-source.com right now for $140-something.
@tenfour: we do rock. It’s true.
@bloomin: 867-5309.
@Jellopixy: I tried that. It looks fine! Doesn’t smudge at all.
@Katya: I will email you. I can’t post them on the internets until after the wedding!
@Cupcake: Yep! Just regular Gocco ink!
@Griffen: HAHAHAHA!
@Pauline: Seriously. I went into work the next morning and my co-workers were standing around the computer, all buying them from paper-source.com. After our discount, the small gocco + all the supplies it came with were just over $100. I couldn’t say no! Thanks for the compliment!
@bigshot: Oooh, I got a star!! That is super cool!! I just recently discovered google reader, and I have to say, it is AWESOME.
I was curious if you used any particular napkins. I have been working on gocco-ing my invites, STD, etc. and I picked up a random cocktail napkin at a work party to try it out with the gocco. Unfortunately, it seemed almost as if the ink dissolved into the napkin. This particular napkin seemed to have some sort of plastic-ish finish on it, but other than that I can’t figure out why it didn’t dry correctly. My other gocco projects have been coming along very nicely, so I thought this was odd. I can’t seem to figure out any other reason for the ink to disappear when it dried…especially as it looked just fine when I first printed it… Any suggestions?
Hmm. That’s strange, Marriah. Ours were just regular old paper cocktail napkins. Does it look at all like the one that I messed up? Because that was fabric gocco ink. Although, it sounds like you’ve been gocco-ing on paper this whole time, so that’s weird! Maybe it’s just the napkin. Sorry, that was totally not a helpful answer.
OMG. I am soooo doing this! I’m the nut who bought TWO goccos (the big one and the little one). So, I have to make good use out of it, or FH might beat me over the head with the both of them. =)
I had been digging the personalized napkin thing for a while, too. But decided they weren’t in the budget. Well… they are now!
I’m am seriously thinking about getting one of those suckers. I’ll just have to get over my DIY fears… LoL What model are you using in the photo and which model did you get?
[...] not all bad I have invested in a Gocco to make our invites, which might be the most awesomest thing ever. We’ll see. It will [...]
[...] I read Miss Cream Puff’s post about Gocco-ing cocktail napkins with useless facts about her and Mr. Cream Puff, I knew I had to [...]
How many tubes of Gocco ink do you go through making that many napkins? I just ordered some through paper-source but I want to make sure I didn’t go overboard… or underboard? 
I am so borrowing this idea. I have to find someone who has a Gocco machine.
[...] darn easy. I borrowed the idea of Gocco’ing napkins from Mrs. Cupcake who got the idea from Mrs. Cream Puff. The only difference is that I don’t think we have fun facts, like they did. I’m a [...]
[...] Miss Cream Puff [...]
[...] first: napkins. I’ve wanted custom napkins since I saw Mrs. Cream Puff’s forever ago. I decided not to do random facts (they will show up elsewhere, though) just for the [...]
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Mrs. Cream Puff, San Francisco Bay Area
Age and Occupation: 25, Illustrator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Merchandise Planner
Engagement Date: May 27, 2007
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: February 7, 2008
Venue: Ceremony at Crissy Field and Reception at the Green Room
About Me: I never dreamed about my wedding as a little girl because I was too busy playing in the mud or pretending to be Martha Stewart–but now that it's here, I'm having a fabulous time DIYing everything in sight! We’re planning a very fun multicultural wedding (I'm Jewish and Mr. Cream Puff is Chinese), filled with as many personal details as I can muster.
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