Reserva la Fecha: El Gocco

Our Save the Dates were our first project using El Gocco. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one from a former bride-to-be who had no more use for it. Through this project, I grew to love El Gocco and I grew to hate him.

Now I know that there are tons of Gocco tutorials out there. But if you're like me, even watching tutorial after tutorial kept you thinking "WTF, I still don't get it." So I'm going to put one more out there just as an attempt to maybe, hopefully reduce the amount of people out there still thinking WTF con El Gocco.


Everyone always says that you have to use a laser printer to print the design that you are going to burn with your Gocco, or make a copy of the image and use that. Apparently, carbon-based material in the toner is essential for successful "burning" of your image. Since my printer is an inkjet printer that does not use toner, I had to make a copy of the image. Once I made my copy, I cut down the image so it would fit on the Gocco sticky pad, and stuck it on.


Next I inserted a brand new screen (blue side out) into the slots on the top part of the Gocco.


Here's the yellow Gocco lamp house. No flashbulbs attached just yet.


Gocco lamphouse after I screwed in the one-time use flashbulbs.


Next, you place the lamphouse back on the Gocco and get ready to push down on the top part of the Gocco to activate the flashbulbs and initiate "burning" of your screen.


You'll hear a loud "POP," will smell some nasty shiz burning but it's all good. That just means your Gocco is working its magic. Lift the top part of the Gocco again and you'll notice that your image is now stuck on the screen.


All you gotta do is peel the image off the screen. You'll notice that the image has been transferred to the screen. Aha! This is what they mean when they say "burning your image." The flashbulbs create an environment that is so hot that it burns the carbon-based material onto your screen. Sweet!


The next thing you gotta do is slide your screen off the Gocco, turn it around and peel off the transparency on the opposite side of the screen, and apply your ink over your image.


Once you're done applying the ink, put the transperancy back over the ink, and slide it back into the Gocco slots. You're ready to start stamping!

Close the top part of El Gocco, apply pressure, aaand...

Stamped! jeeeeaah!
I did the same thing for our "signature design."

...and made a serious design flaw. Damn. I was going to stamp the entire back side of our Save the Dates with the talavera design, but apparently I forgot the rules of symmetry and El Gocco hates me. After hours of frustration and do-overs, I decided that my attempts were futile. I was ready to give up on this idea, but Mr. Tortolito had some other plans. Here's a sneak peak:


Up next: how we rectified the situation and the final outcome of our Reserva la Fecha project.

What do you think about El Gocco? Friend or enemy?