Nearly one year has passed since my initial endeavor with my beloved Print Gocco PG-5. I’ve been at school, reading about circuits and thermodynamics and differential equations, and my darling Gocco has been sitting in its cute little box, waiting patiently for me to return home.

I’m here, Gocco! Let’s make some awesome prints!, I said.

Okay Sam, I love you!, it replied.

One whole tube of tangerine ink later, I’ve got billions of prints. I severely underestimated the number of papers I could print, so I just started printing everything in sight. I’ve got my screen in a ziploc in the fridge (someone said I could do that) so I won’t have to clean it off. I want to try printing on scrap wood next, we’ll see how that goes. Right now I’m lucky everything in my room is not covered in orange cameras. Or maybe I’m unlucky… because they’re pretty awesome.

Oh, and if you ever try to save leftover gocco ink in something other than the original containers? Keep them in the fridge! They mold like crazy.

(if you ever need help with gocco ink colors, i made some nifty gocco ink charts last year)

And yes, these are all shots of my creative space on this lovely Thursday evening.

Here’s the screen before I used that whole tube of ink on it. It’s an image without full blocks of color, so the ink per print is low, but to cover the whole screen took a whole tube regardless. I’ll be printing orange cameras for life! (i’m okay with that!)

Here’s my impromptu drying rack: a dish rack we almost got rid of a few days ago. It works wonderfully.

…I told you I made billions of little orange cameras. They’re so pretty…

These were my favorite prints of the night: the tangerine camera looks so cute on avocado green paper, and I made an orange camera printed moleskine!

Best part: I didn’t have to clean the screen. Yet. Cleaning gocco screens is by far the most (read: only) terrible part of the gocco production line. They weren’t meant to be reused, but what else are we supposed to do when they don’t make the things anymore? So sad. I love my Gocco. We’re very happy together.

return of the gocco is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

I would like to return to you,

to your smelly bulbs,

to your sticky, relentlessly finger-dyeing paints,

to your wonderful easy-but-difficult feeling,

and make some ampersands.

love,
samantha.

(click each image to see its creator!)

gocco goodness is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

I arrived home to this lovely package filled with gocco inks that I ordered before my trip! I’ve got a lovely assortment, ready for all sorts of fun adventures & experiments. I even got a few of the fabric inks to play around with those eventually.

It was really tricky to find the colors of ink I wanted because, first of all, they’re rare. I ended up ordering mine from Northwood Studios because they had the most reasonable prices.

There are lots of colors of Gocco ink, and many of them are quite similar. At four bucks a tube, you don’t want to end up with three avocado greens… so I’ve put together this gocco ink chart image set to try and keep all the names straight (thanks to some ebay pictures!). Click for a larger image!

go go go gocco is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

I made my screen, printed about 30 little whales spouting hearts, then spent a good hour or so cleaning the screen! I definitely understand now why everyone hates cleaning the screens so much… no fun, and I made quite a mess. But the printing was so much fun! I’m hooked. (and of course, my first print was a whale.)

I’m always nervous to jump into things like this… especially with about $10 cost per screen, messing up is just so unacceptable! But for today I let myself have this one as a ‘practice’, and luckily it turned out great. They’re all a bit more “spongy” looking than I had expected, but I also made a design with a huge ink blob of printing area. I think in the future I’ll stick to more defined lines.

I still have ink all over my hands and I’m super tired, so I’ve been rubbing my eyes.. which of course has made them itchier. Wouldn’t be surprised if my eyes are bluer than usual in the morning.
(and of course i’m totally joking – i don’t think i actually got ink in my eyes.)

And my sewing lesson went wonderfully! We both had lots of fun, and she made some cute stuff: a pillowcase and a little zipper pouch. Tomorrow she’s going to work on a tote. I’m excited. I was very, very nervous this morning. And everything was fine. :)

i gocco-ed! is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

I was sure I’d have to wait out the weekend, convinced that little Gocco wouldn’t make it to me until at least Wednesday. I could draw this out a lot and create suspense… but my title’s already given it all away. It’s here!

I had a yard sale this morning (which was rather successful, but would have been more successful if I lived near more crafty-types) and, despite the 92-degree forecast, I wasn’t too badly off in the little pocket of shade I found in my front yard.

The mail came at 11, no packages. I wasn’t surprised. But I was surprised, ecstatically so, when a second mail truck showed up at quarter to 12 and the mailman walked up, asking me if I was Samantha. I said yes, and excitedly chatted with him as I signed various slips, exclaiming, “this came all the was from japan!”, to which he replied, “yep.” He wasn’t quite as excited as me. As if a Gocco’s a run-of-the-mill package… psh!

So after dismantling the yard sale, cluttering up the living room, taking down signs all over the neighborhood, and generally hustling about, I opened my brand new lovely baby Gocco. I have not yet created anything amazing with it, but that will come soon, don’t worry!

After watching the (slightly goofy, I did laugh a few times… but I was also really tired) instructional video transposed from VHS into an MPEG, I took a nap, showered, and went to my roommate Hannah’s birthday party: a John Williams concert at Wolf Trap! I know, like there wasn’t enough excitement in my day.

They played selections from many of his film scores, including Jaws and ET, and of course my favorites: Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. They didn’t play my favorite John Williams music, Jurassic Park, which I think is my favorite movie score ever… but the rest made up for it. When they played the Indiana Jones theme, I can’t imagine what my face looked like… I was grinning like an idiot. It was just awesome. And there were all sorts of guys dressed up in costumes: lots of storm troopers, a TIE-Fighter pilot, Boba Fett, a Jawa… somebody even had an incredibly realistic, life-size R2-D2 remote control bot!

And, we had lawn seats. And it thundered, lightning’ed, and rained in some form for almost the entire thing. We were soaked, huddled under umbrellas, and having an amazing time.

it’s here! it’s here! is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog