Holy Moly - My 3M Thermofax is on it's way!

Yes, I love my Gocco, but sometimes I want a more consistent screen burn or yearn for a larger printing area.  I have invested in a 3M Thermofax machine and it could be in my hands as soon as tomorrow!!!  A Thermofax machine is an old school predecessor to the copy machine.  Copy machines were more reliable for making copies, so these machines were cast aside, often stored in closets and storage rooms for years.  They are now super popular with tattoo artists for creating stencils and for screen printers which has driven the price up on these vintage machines, but they're built like tanks and should last a long time.

The Thermofax, like the Gocco, burns carbon based images onto mesh screen, but does not use flash bulbs that much be discarded after each flash.  The per screen cost should be much lower than that of a Gocco, though eventually the Thermofax's bulb also needs to be replaced.  I believe that the image size can be as large as 8x11 or something close to that, so it's about double the size of a Gocco B6 size image which opens the door to a lot of new possibilities - larger format prints and maybe t-shirts or tote bags with larger images.  Any water based silkscreening ink, which is cheaper than Gocco inks can be used.  Finally, the screens can be cut and mounted onto frames that can be inserted into the Gocco machines or you can use the squeegee method which is sort of leaving the Gocco world behind and entering the more general screenprinting area.

I'm so excited!!  All I need is to find myself a little more time in each day and hopefully I'll be able to come up with new ideas and projects.  =)

Thanks a Million

Baby CP just turned two and celebrated with a much smaller get together this year than last.  Regardless, it was the perfect reason to design and print these new Marquee Light Thank You cards. I'm not sure if I was foiled by old batteries or bad screens, but it took a few attempts at burning the screen to get it just right.

I'm thinking a Yippee or Yay card in the same style would work really well.

Happy Birthday with Confetti

Long weekends tend to be the times when I print new designs and the 4-day July 4th weekend was no exception.  I wanted to design a new birthday card and thought confetti would add a nice touch.  It was a bit difficult to work with the designs because they were so spread out all over the screen.  The gold came out really well, and the blue has that vintage Gocco touch.

Confetti Birthday Card

 

Father's Day 2013

Great news! I received a wholesale order 2 weeks ago from a local shop called Press Works on Paper right here in the Mission.  A good portion of the order was for Father's Day cards and I didn't have enough in stock, so I mixed a beautiful dark metallic blue color to print a new batch.  Unfortuantely the metallic shimmer doesn't show up very well in these photos.  I printed on my more popular cardstock colors, yellow, orange, white and gray. 

Hey Good Lookin'

I was in a funny kind of mood the other day and wanted to create another card in the same style as my Thanks So Much Card - focusing on color and words rather than graphics.  For some reason, I had a flashback to a scene in a Ghostbusters cartoon where Slimer the ghost was cooking something in the kitchen and singing to himself.  I know...totally random...The song is a country song by Hank Williams, so I started with a western style font.

I love how this came out - I particularly like how the purple pops out against the gray.

The Stargazer

I like how this card makes you feel like you're walking into the middle of a scene.  You have a telescope for a stargazer on one side and you have the stars that he would be admiring on the other - quiet, peaceful and awe-inspiring. 

Mother's Day 2013

I created a pretty floral design and used it both for a Mother's Day card and for a general greeting card.  The floral design runs over to the back of the Mother's Day card which is a little unique feature.  Unfortunately, it took me forever to get these designs up in our shop and Mother's Day is only a week away!  If you haven't found the right card for your mom yet, if you order soon you might still make it!