Finally! I have photographed (Thanks, Dustin!) and added these two notecard sets to my Etsy shop. I designed and printed these back in November for my first craft show. These are sold in sets of 5. They are blank inside, perfect for any occasion. These are original designs, printed in my home studio using my Gocco printer. I’m hoping to use the “Robots Unite” design for tshirts soon! We will see how that goes. Also, I was toying with the idea of using the blue swirls for a fabric design via Spoonflower. I have never designed fabric before, so that could be fun! My Etsy Shop. Enjoy! 

CLICK HERE TO VISIT MY ETSY SHOP >>>

Well, this past weekend was my (our) first craft show. I would not call it a complete success, however it was a great learning experience and proved to myself I can do it! In that sense, I would say we were successful. First off, the show was only about 30 vendors in this Ukrainian Catholic Church. Most of the people that came (all 150 or so) were quite older, and just didn’t seem to be interested in purchasing anything! Not from me, not from any of the vendors. It was beyond slow, but like I said before, the experience was a good one. I am now prepared to take on another show, to put myself out there again and again.
 

Dustin was incredibly supportive through the whole process, telling me how proud he was of me over and over… especially during the two days we sat behind our completely dead booth listening to what sounded like Ukrainian Ska music on one side of the room and Carribean Steel drums on the other… yes, it was interesting to say the least. So, again, we’ll chalk this one up on the side of experience. 

Here are some photos from the weekend. And oh, did I mention? My cousin got me into a show this Friday at an Art Gallery, hopefully more of our crowd. We will see how that one goes! Enjoy! 

My “wibits” and a tshirt pillow. We sold one of the plaid guys.
Made from an old pair of Dustin’s pants. The others are made from
thrifted or donated old fleece blankets.
 

Close up of the Wibits.
My little sister wants this one. 

My $5 Display rack from local thrift shop.
Gave it a quick coat of white, looks good as new.
I think it was originally used to house sewing patterns. 
 

Detail shot on the display rack and cards. 
 

Extra Gocco cards for sale. Picked up the blue metal container
for .69 cents at my local thrift store. I have another matching
SUGAR one that is quite larger for .99 cents. I love the color.
 

One of my new designs I created for a Gocco Swap.
I love this one so much. I think I’ll make it into a tshirt!
 

Make these from glass chips and magazine/junk mail clippings and a little felt.  

Detail of one of the shirt designs.
 

 Tiered Dessert Tray I made from thrifted and donated vintage items.
 

This is what I first saw when I walked into the church. LOTS of sausages.
 

LUNCH! Those potato ravioli type things were SO YUMMY! Pyrohys? 
 

Dustin thoroughly enjoyed every bit of his food. 
Isn’t his hat great?  
 

I’m excited for the next show. I hope things pick up. I did get a lot of great feedback from other wonderful vendors at this show, so that was very encouraging. Oh, did I mention, we definitely spent more at the show than we made! But that’s ok. We found some great vintage items. I’ll share those next week. Until then… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! 

Hallelujah! EndureLife’s etsy shop is finally up and running!! We’ve been printing like crazy for the past 3 days. And I will say, we have been having a BLAST! It’s so rewarding seeing your ideas and dreams finally becoming a reality!

We really wanted to actually screen print our designs ourselves. However, we are renters right now with NO WHERE to get messy and dirty and properly expose screens, etc. So, our 2nd choice is this transfer press method. We send off our ORIGINAL designs to be screen printed onto transfer sheets. Then, we use the press to transfer our designs onto tshirts, etc. The great thing about this method. We can make them as we receive orders! 

I am excited to one day do the whole screen printing thing. I love that process, but for now… we must show our transfer press some love. He is certainly getting the job done! 

Here is a little photo spread of our printing adventures for you! Oh, and check out our shop! Enjoy!!

Dustin at the transfer press…
waiting for results on our patches!
 

Peeling back the transfer sheet. This is so fun!
 

Dustin modeling our first shirt!
What a hottie!

Girlie version! Love it! 

Peeling back the transfer paper on some small patches. 

Yes, unfortunately, I had to be a model too.
I do like this photo though!
 

Love these hats, but I have no clue how to wear it.
My cousin, Lynsey, would look great in it. She looks perfect in any hat!! 
 

Our 2nd shirt design! Dustin’s idea. Love it! 
 

Yes, totes too! I told you we went crazy printing!!
 

Dustin’s idea to print this on the bottom. I love it!
However, it doesn’t always print well, still working out the kinks. 
 

Alright. Now go check out the shop!! We will be updating it regularly! Hmm, my SewTrashy shop is feeling neglected. I must get my new items up! I can’t wait to show you what I have been working on. 

I am so excited for this swap, my very first! I want to keep my design a suprise for the others involved so I can only give you this little sneak peek. Can I just say I LOVE my metallic gold ink. I didn’t think I would like it, but I DO! I’m so pleased with how the print turned out. Can’t wait to show you!

However, I am not happy with the paper I ended up using. I could NOT for the life of me find good quality heavy BLANK postcards… ANYWHERE! GR! Not even Kinko’s would sell me their postcards unless I had something printed on them. Oh well. Can’t change it now. I’ve printed about 70 of them in addition to over 50 notecards. Yes, shop update after the 1st!! 

Back in June my husband bought me Lotta Prints as an early birthday present. I was so excited to try making my own stamps. I had already tried my hand at potato stamping an old skirt several months earlier. (I must have remembered the idea subconsciously somehow… from somewhere, who knows?!) Anyway… I was having a lot of fun making my own stamps, but yesterday I finally got around to trying some prints and they just were horrid. Maybe the fabric paint I used combined with the old pillowcase I tried to print on. I don’t know. It was a sad day overall. However, I did manage to make a dress! I will share that soon. 

I’m bummed. I’ve had really great results with my Gocco until today. (Not the Gocco’s fault, mind you.) It’s frustrating that changing factors disrupt your results. However, I get it. I know when you change something you are almost guaranteed to run into a snag, especially with printing.

This first card was supposed to be something to make my husband happy. Instead, he’s lost all hope for his design to EVER be brought to reality. You see, we attempted screen printing this for T-shirts one afternoon with total and utter failure So, trying to be an encouraging wife I suggested we print the design onto some cards since I have had such great success. (He wants to send people encouraging notes.) Hmm, hopelessness soon set in once he saw the design was stuck (more than usual) to the screen. I always get a little stick-age between my design and the screen after it is exposed, but this was crazy… parts of the paper were fused to the screen. So sad. I will try again in hopes of boosting Dustin’s ego. 

Since, I had bad luck with the first print, I decided to draw something with my RISO pen. Some Horse chestnut leaves actually. I thought cropped the right way might look really pretty on a crisp white card. I traced over a drawing I had done this weekend and filled in the leaves with my pen. I, then, laid white paper under the trace to make sure the print would come out well. Hmm, disappointment … again. I’m not sure if the heat from the bulbs reacted with the tracing paper, or if the paper didn’t give me good coverage with the pen. Either way, it did not come out the way I had hoped. And, I definitely inked the screen VERY well. Gr! Do I give up or try again? 

One last shot with the Gocco. Thankfully, I had written out a little something to go on the backs of my cards and burned it into the same screen with the leaves. Hallelujah! It worked. It’s little bit less than crisp (which I have a hard time accepting with my anal-retentive nature when it comes to my designs), BUT I actually am quite happy with it. Maybe it makes it a little more “real”, reinforcing that “handmade quality” that I love. I’m happy to have something to finish off the cards by adding this information and my mark. 

Although I wouldn’t call this a successful day of printing, I’m happy it wasn’t a total bust. Did I mention Gocco printing on your couch results in…. green ink on your couch? 

Two new card designs now for sale in my shop.  

Enjoy!! And, thanks for looking! 

Just wanted to share 2 new Gocco cards with you. Printed these Friday of last week. I’m really happy with how these turned out. They should be up for sale in the shop by the end of the week! (Please excuse the photos, they are not the best)

Here they are, drying on my patio table that is currently in the kitchen… hm, long story… moving into a much smaller place. You know how that goes.
 

“Hello Love” is pretty straightforward. I made this design while flying home from San Francisco.
 

“Tank You” was inspired by my little sister, Amaris. She wanted to draw something that I could use on the Gocco (she thought it was so cool) So, I asked her to make something for a thank you card. She accidentally wrote “Tank You” so I had her draw a tank that I ended up modifying and simplifying to use for this card! I love how it turned out. 

The only thing I want to change is to modify the cards to have rounded corners. I bought a corner punch that I thought would work, but it ended up being more ornate than I realized. I thought it was just a rounded corner… not so! Ah, well, I’ll keep searching. Until then, you’ll have pokey corners!  

I am very proud to sale that yesterday I set up my Etsy shop and made my VERY FIRST SALE!!! HUGE, ENORMOUS THANKS goes out to Jessie for being my very first customer!! She is now the proud owner of my first set of Gocco printed notecards! I just stocked up on more supplies so there will be many more Gocco cards up for sale soon as well as some other handmade goods! Check back for my shop updates.

AHH!! I’m so excited! Now off to make a little something extra to send out with Jessie’s cards!  

My first Gocco print.

For my birthday this year I received my first Gocco machine from my fabulous husband. Honestly, although I was so excited to start printing, I have been very intimidated by that little machine. I have seen all of the wonderful things others have been creating and psyching myself out a bit. Not sure if I would be able to create something I’d be happy with. 
 

The inks. How pretty!
 

Well, I got up the nerve last night to try it out. Armed with a plethora of inks and ready with my photocopied design I had made earlier, I set out to attempt my first batch of note cards. I cannot even describe how excited and pleased and giddy I was as my first print was revealed!! I am so far beyond hooked to this machine! Can’t wait to create some more designs. 
 

Gocco screen after cleaning and cleaning.
 

My question to you seasoned Gocco-ers, how do I get these screens clean!!?? I’ve tried and tried to get this screen clean by using the screen cleaner, windex… blotting and blotting. However, as you can see, I couldn’t get it all off… or even half of it off! Any tips on how to clean these bad boys? Also, can I reuse this as is? I think I got all of the ink out of the design on the screen.
 

FYI: I will be putting a batch of these notecards in my Etsy shop soon! Will keep you posted!