Go get a gocco

www.papersource.com

Don't underestimate the gocco. I know it looks like a child's toy (one that's ready to break any second) but it’s actually a sophisticated printing device that brides-to-be are swooning over. In fact, the topic of gocco-ing your invitations, etc., has been tearing up the forums at The Wedding Bee for over a year now.

One look at these forums proves the gocco's abilities (just check out the picture of a gocco-created invite to the left): with a little creativity and know-how, you can create a professional, artistic and totally individual wedding invitation, perfect for your style, theme and personality.

And, here’s the best (green) part: you make your own design and you print it with more eco-friendly ink on more eco-friendly paper.

Having a gocco gives you the freedom to use eco-friendly alternatives in your invitations, envelopes, placecards, save-the-date cards, menus and programs. I have scoured the market for recycled paper invitations and I am sad to say that they just aren’t as visually appealing as regular non-green invites. That’s just due to the smaller size of the market. And using cotton paper is more expensive, especially if you’re not willing to really shop around. Plus, one of my fellow CatScan-ers recently pointed out that cotton is a dirty industry because of it's polluting farming practices and unfair labor and trade policies. So, a green bride has to find organic and sustainably made cotton for her invites. And that's hard.

But, organic cotton paper is out there. And so is recycled paper. All you'll need is a gocco to print your perfect design.

My wedding-planning friend Laura Dean, who's dreaming about buying her own gocco, is excited about showing off her and her fiance's originality. Plus, the little device will save these youngsters some much-needed money. The gocco is sold by Paper Source for $148. A set of print screens cost about $16 (you need one print screen for each different set of images) and tubes of ink cost $4. Laura said the gocco would save her about $1,500 on her paper goods but she estimates the average savings would probably be about $1,000.

Remember also that wedding invitations contribute to pollution through their use of slightly toxic ink. Making invitations with the gocco uses a very small amount of ink and creates a very small amount of waste, as well.

I’m going to let savegocco.com explain the gocco details:

“In the 1970s Noboru Hayama, a printer and the Japanese inventor of the ‘print gocco’ system, wished to develop a quick and easy household color printing system. Cleverly combining the basic principles of screen-printing and rubber-stamping, ‘print gocco’ is a clean, easy, and fully self-contained compact system that exposes and prints all in one unit. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen. Next, colorful prints are made by pressing the ink-applied master screen against a sheet of paper placed on a sponge pad.”

There are tons of tutorial videos on YouTube that will help you use your eco-friendly craft skills and create gocco-ed invites.