The first step is burning the screen. I felt fairly confident after all of my preparation, but I was still nervous about doing this for real.
After seeing this burned screen, though, I thought I was in like Flint!
I cut out and placed the ink separating boundary thing-a-ma-bob. One nice thing about the Gocco is that you can print with multiple colors at the same time.
Oooh! Look at the pretty inked screen! I couldn't wait to see what it looked like printed out. I decided (again following advice of those who'd gone before me) to do a practice print first.
::Insert game show loser song - wah-waaaahhh:: Failure!That was not only anti-climactic, it was terribly disappointing.
Luckily, I was able to develop a working theory as to what went wrong. The template has to contain carbon for the heat-sensitive image process thingy to work. That means it has to be a photocopy. But if it is too carbony, the fibers stick to the screen. The solution is simple:
Iron the template! I don't know what it does, I just know it was supposed to work. So, I ironed a second template copy I had made, and burned a new screen.
And it worked!!!
The final result!Now, this certainly was not even close to perfect. It wasn't even really what I wanted it to look like. See how the "Beautiful" and "Lake Tahoe" are all faded at the edges? And the arrow after "Reno?" And the tree? And the blue lake is all square-y? I think this has something to do with me making the template too big, and the lake too solid. I ended up being happy with the way the letters were faded, though - it really gave it a vintage feel. The square-y lake I decided to just ignore. Or pretend that the texture made it look like waves on the lake.
The only thing that I wish I had done differently was the colors. I think I used too much ink, so the colors ended up bleeding into each other, especially in the later ones I made. What was done, was done, though, and I picked out the ones that looked least crazy to send. And, of course, I used a corner rounder to round the corners, cause I'm like that.
I used a removable glue dot to stick the magnet to the card. I like the way the magnet and the card look together. It's like we're standing on the shore of Lake Tahoe.
Finally, I got some generic envelopes at Michael's (40% off!) and some address labels at Goodwill ($0.99!) and some "Celebrate!" stamps at the post office (no discount there).
Here they are, all grown up and ready to go out in the world:
Total cost break down:
Magnets $0.24 each = $19.20
Copies for Gocco template $0.98
Envelopes $0.12 each = $9.60
Card stock (1 pound stack from Joann's Fabric, 40% off) $2.39
Glue dots $2.00 worth of box used
Mailing Labels $.50 used
Postage $0.44 each = $35.20
For 80 total STDs made = $69.87
or $0.87 per STD!
Of course, if I add the cost of the Gocco (I used less than half the screens, bulbs and ink that came with my original purchase) the cost goes up to $2.41 a piece... But I plan on using the Gocco for other things, too, so I'm not counting that!
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