Wedding Blog

When it comes to DIYing wedding invitations, I have to say that those made by using a Gocco machine are pretty awesome. If you’ve been around the hive for a while, surely you’ve noticed a lot of Weddingbee bloggers have used this handy dandy machine to create invites and other fun projects. (Mrs. Penguin, Mrs. Lemon, Mrs. Lime, Mrs. Gummi Bear, Mrs. Peppermint, Mrs. Tiramisu, Mrs. Cupcake, Miss Dumpling, Miss Champagne, Miss Ballet Flat and one talented WB reader, to name a few.)

But there is one teenie-weenie problem with the Gocco: Production of these machines and the accompanying supplies has been discontinued. (OK, OK. Maybe that’s not so teenie-weenie. That stinks big time!)

I came so close to buying a Gocco last year when Paper Source was selling them through their website. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t. They were about $150 and probably would have needed to buy at least $50 in additional inks, screens and bulbs to make our invitations. Without any idea of how I would do our invites, spending $200 back then was unreasonable. Soon thereafter, the “no more Goccos” announcement was made and the supply hoarding began, which increased the price on remaining supplies. Goccos are hard to find now and, from my understanding, so are the bulbs and the screens.

I figured it would only be a matter of time before another company launched a product in hopes of making ANTG (America’s Next Top Gocco). I guess that day has come, thanks to Provocraft. Introducing the YUDU:

Source

YUDU (pronounced “you do”–weird name, right?) is the latest silkscreen machine to hit the market. The Home Shopping Network seems to be the only place you can get one right now and it’s currently retailing for around 300 smackaroos. The video on the HSN sale page focuses on using the machine for screen printing on clothing, but the item description says it will work on paper, too.

When compared to the Gocco, the obvious differences include:

• A much larger screen size (11″ x 14″)
• Built-in, reusable bulbs, reusable screens
• Burning screens takes more time
• You have to apply emulsion to the mesh screen before burning an image (Gocco screens have the emulsion already on them)
• You can burn any image you print regardless of whether your base artwork ink is carbon-based. You can even burn stencils.
• You need to pull the ink over the screen for each pass as opposed to just pressing down like you do with the Gocco.

There is a discussion about the YUDU in the forums on Etsy and some videos and tutorials here. Check them out if you want some more information.

I’m curious to learn a little bit more about how this machine works. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be getting one to put our invites together, but it could be fun for craft projects down the road. The cost seems a little high, and without having a lot of user testing, I’m hesitant to give it a shot. I’d really love to see this in action to get a better sense of how it works. From what I’ve read, it should be in stores sometime in February, so maybe there will be a demo day.

I’m most interested to see how it would work on smaller, detailed images and letters used commonly for invitations. If it could make prints as well as a Gocco, imagine how awesome it would be to be able to print all of the components of a single invitation in one pass on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet. It seems like that would be a time saver! But until I learn more (and get to see it up close and in person), here’s my verdict for now: Cool machine, but it’s too new. I’ll see how consumers receive it before I drop the cash for one.

What do you think of the YUDU? Have you heard anything about it? And for Gocco users, do you think anything will ever be able to replace your machine?