I Own a Gocco Machine!

This is so freaking exciting.  I’ve been sitting on this for a week without telling you guys.

I managed to buy a Gocco machine!

For the uninitiated, a Gocco machine is a screen printing machine for paper.  Goccos were made by a Japanese company but were discontinued a few years ago.  I first read about them on Elise’s blog here and here.

Though they were discontinued, Gocco machines have a bit of a cult following in the craft community.  There are lots of Gocco-made items for sale on Etsy and there are websites that still sell Gocco inks and other supplies.

Gocco sets go for around $200 on eBay, give or take.  I’ve always wanted to try Gocco, but, ummmm, I’m not paying that much for something I’ve never tried.

Last week, my local store, the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, posted that they were selling a Gocco machine for $12.  Twelve. Dollars.  It came in the original box with the manuals and all the parts.  For twelve dollars.

I work about an hour from the store and wouldn’t be able to get there until right before it closed.*  Surely, I thought, there’s no way that the Gocco will still be there by the time I get there.  Someone will totally snap this up.

Thanks to a lot of traffic and parking karma, I got to the store 30 minutes before it closed.  I walked in and there it was.  Still for sale.  I couldn’t believe it.

I happily carried it home.  It came with a bunch of ink but no bulbs or screens.  I can get those online, so no worries.

I really have no idea where to start with it and will think hard about a project before I purchase any supplies.

For more information about Gocco, visit this awesome Save Gocco page.

*wherein I told Mr. P he was going to have to take the bus home because I was on a mission and couldn’t pick him up at the train station.  He had no idea what a Gocco was but knew better than to ask questions.  Priorities.

Scrapook Layout: Nurse Pinning Ceremony

This super duper simple layout is from my sister’s first nurse pinning ceremony.

I actually had the invitation and a copy of the program.  I thought about it for a long time and decided to pick one thing.  Yes, including keepsakes is my priority but it doesn’t mean I have to glue down every last thing I save.

I included a small single photo.  My pictures from this event were few and they were not good.  The event was in a dark theater and it was many moons 3 or 4 cameras ago (can’t remember exactly).

I added a headline and then hand wrote my thoughts on the day and my sister’s achievement.

I know, we’re rocketing back and forth from layouts chock full of stuff to painfully simple!

Font: Lavanderia | Tools: Silhouette SD (headlines), Epson Stylus R2000 (photo)

Remembering My Priorities

I was chatting with commenters last week about my page designs and it got me thinking about what’s important to me as a scrapbooker.

These are my priorities, in order:

1. Getting the Memories on the Page and Showcasing Them.  Above all, my scrapbook is about the memories.  The subject dictates how the page is designed.  I don’t start a design because I want to use a new product, I start a design in order to capture a memory.  Everything must work around that.

2. Coming Up with a Cool Design.  Yes, getting the memories on the page is the most important, but coming up with a design is one of the reasons why this is a hobby. I really like playing with paper and gluing it down.  It’s one of the reasons why I’m not a digital scrapbooker – I love playing with paper.

3. Getting it Done / Time.  I want to get more stuff scrapbooked as quickly as I can.  But, I won’t skip scrapbooking something because it’s a huge set of memories that will take forever (like my Wedding Scrapbook!).  I won’t hurriedly glue stuff to a page if the design isn’t working.

4. Everything else.  All the other fun stuff goes here.  I love looking at new papers and using them in my layouts, but only if rules 1-3 are satisfied first.  If the item doesn’t work with the memory or design, I’m not using it no matter how much I want to.

Example: if I’m scrapbooking something and I can’t figure out how to get the design to work with the keepsakes, such as ticket stubs or a program, I will change the design or wait for a good idea to come to me.  The keepsakes stay, they are the priority.  I should not remove them from the page for the sake of the design.  If it takes me a while to get it right, that’s okay.

So this is a blueprint of sorts of how my mind works when scrapbooking 🙂  I can’t say that I will stick to the rules 100% of the time, but I will use this as a guide for myself.

Speaking of “sticking to the rules,” I just found out while writing this post that What Not to Wear is ending after 10 seasons.  Sad face.  I’m going to have to stick with Stitch Fix to retool my wardrobe then.

Scrapbook Layout: Baseball

Ah, my favorite boys of summer, the San Francisco Giants.

I took all my Giants-related stuff for that year and put it together on two pages.

It’s a mix of tickets, other keepsakes and photos together to make one unit.

The left page has tickets and keepsakes from Until There’s a Cure day at the ballpark.  The Giants were the first professional sports team to host an AIDS benefit game and have been doing so annually since 1994.

Also on the left is a picture of the front of the ballpark.  The park has been through many name changes, so I wanted to capture what the name of the park was at that time.

The right page has tickets and items from when Barry Bonds hit his 700th home run (hint: we were there!).  I added some text on the bottom right of the page to tell the story of that game.

I love sports layouts, it’s so easy to pick a color scheme!

Fonts: Chunk Five (headlines), Calibri (body text) | Tools: Silhouette SD (headlines), Epson Stylus R2000 (photos)

Scrapbook Layout: San Francisco Skyline

I’m starting to get more practice with single-photo layouts and I really love them.  It gives me a chance to keep the design really simple!

I printed the picture 4×6, added some printed text beneath, then capped it on each end with some dark green cardstock.

I experimented with putting the headline directly on the photo like Cathy Zielske tends to do, but I couldn’t get it to look right to me.

What do you think?  I love it!

Font: Century Gothic

The Value of Information

In my ever-abundant spare time, I moonlight as a master’s student.

Yep, I’m getting a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science.  I’m focusing on archives and information organization.  I’m a little over halfway done with  my coursework.

What does this have to do with memory keeping?  Everything, actually.

It’s really interesting to see how my experience as a memory keeper affects my opinions on information management issues.  Conversely, I’m learning a lot of concepts that really apply to scrapbooking.

Here is something I learned in my Records Management class this semester:

The value of information is directly related to its accessibility. 

I couldn’t agree more.  Consider photos locked away on your phone or hard drive.  Keepsakes in a closet.  They mean so much more if people can look at them.

On that note, I just finished my finals for this semester.  I can’t wait to have more time to scrapbook!

Pictures on Business Trips?

Do you take photos on business trips or other non-vacations?

I’m on a business trip and the scenery is gorgeous (see photo above).  I didn’t think toting a camera around was practical since I’m not on vacation.  I thought I would rely on my phone camera, but I haven’t snapped as many pictures as I thought I would.

What are your thoughts here?  Do you try to capture these trips?  What if the scenery is really neat?

Theatre Scrapbook Layout

All keepsakes, not much imagination here?  You might think that but rest assured I labored over every detail.

This layout shows a weekend I spent in San Francisco seeing shows with my future sister-in-law.  And I didn’t take any pictures.  It’s so weird to see how my habits have changed!

I still kept keepsakes for my scrapbook back then and I love saving Playbills in particular.  Playbills are  huge though and it’s tough to work them into a layout.

I really considered cutting them up.  But in previous scrapbooks I always included the entire Playbill.  I struggled over this a bit but decided to keep them.  You can add Playbills to the same category as National Park Service maps.

For the headline, I decided to try mixing fonts.  Not bad for a first try, I think!

What would you do with the Playbills?  Would you cut them up?

Fonts: Impact (large font), Mission Script (script), cut with Silhouette SD.

Recycling Pre-Printed Envelopes

I’m in love with how this very simple project turned out!

Remember my recycled wedding response card notecards?  These are the envelopes that go with them.

I had a stack of return envelopes pre-printed with our address leftover from our wedding.  What to do with them?  It seemed like a waste to throw them out.

I used a frame design that came pre-loaded with my Silhouette software and cut labels that fit over the pre-printed address.

I used these for the first time the other day.  I wrote the address and glued it to the front of the envelope.  Simple!

If you’re keeping score, I’ve been married for almost seven years.  I held onto these supplies for that long waiting for the perfect idea.