Borrowing Ideas: Gocco Napkins

When I read Miss Cream Puff's post about Gocco-ing cocktail napkins with useless facts about her and Mr. Cream Puff, I knew I had to steal — er, borrow — her idea. I immediately got to work coming up with some fun facts about Mr. Cupcake and me, and bought 600 3-ply cocktail napkins at Party City.


At $2.99 per 50-pack, I spent just over $35 on this project. I already had the Gocco, the screens, and the teal ink that I planned to use, and my labor was free :-)

I printed all of the layouts on one page on a laser printer, and cut them down to size.


I decided to try to get 2 fun fact layouts out of each Gocco screen to get more bang for my buck, and planned out how I would register each napkin before I flashed the first screen.


Once the screen was flashed, I blocked off the first fun fact layout and inked up, and taped the second layout to the screen for use later on.


I set up the layout so that if I placed the napkin flush left and hanging off the top of the sticky mat, the layout would be centered.


This also proved useful, because enough of the napkin was hanging off the right side of the machine that I could hold it while lifting up the top of the Gocco unit so the multi-layered napkin didn't stick to the ink.

This is what happened if I didn't hold down the right side of the napkin after inking, risking a little smearing

Once I finished the first batch of napkins, I blocked off the second design with my ink blocking material at the bottom of my screen, and scraped the ink from my first design onto my second (as to not waste ink) and added a bit more ink for full coverage. I then taped a scrap piece of card stock over the screen-side of the first design so that no ink would come through the screen when I was printing the second design.


It worked like a charm, so I was able to utilize only 3 Gocco screens for 6 layouts.

Even Mr. Cupcake was excited at how great the napkins were turning out!

Alright, not so much, but he had had a long, tiring day....

After a few (okay, several) hours of hard work, all 600 napkins were done, and covering just about every surface of our apartment.


For your entertainment, here are the 6 facts I printed:

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 1:
The new Mr. and Mrs. first met at a Halloween costume party in 2003. They struck up a conversation while waiting in line for the rest room… and the rest is history.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 2:
The first two years of Brooke and Nick’s relationship were long-distance. Over those two years, approximately 23,296 miles were traveled between Lewisberry and Manayunk/Media to see each other.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 3:
The first movie Brooke and Nick went to see together was “Elf,” starring Will Ferrell. It was their second official date.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 4:
Early in their relationship while discussing books that they loved as kids, Brooke and Nick discovered that they shared the same favorite: “Big Dog, Little Dog” by P.D. Eastman.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 5:
Nick proposed to Brooke on February 10, 2007, while sitting amidst the life-sized game pieces outside of the Municipal Building in Center City, Philadelphia.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 6:
Nick’s love of history and Brooke’s knowledge of useless pop culture facts have led them to be a successful Quizzo duo. They go by the team name “Incredicouple.”

Are you "borrowing" most of your wedding detail ideas, or have you been able to come up with anything completely unique?