Breakin in the gocco

I first discovered Gocco (or "Goccinator" as Mr. C calls it) when my friend Tiramisu was designing her invitations. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to come up with enough projects to gocco in order for it to be a worth-while purchase but I decided to give it a shot. So I started really simple with the projects, and decided it would be best to keep it in the family for the first project in case my work looked a bit like a Kindergartner's.

Every year for Mother's day I try to do something creative. Some years it works, others...eh not so much. Last year I downloaded all the CDs of mine I know my mom would love onto her Ipod. Not that big of a deal for me, but she absolutely loved it. So this year, I thought I'd add some gocco action into Mom's present. And actually, after I made these cards I realized that I would be personalizing a lot more from now on... Translation: I lovvvvve my gocco:) This year, I made personalized cards for both my mom and Champ's mom. They were VERY simple (almost embarrasing now), but I felt like it was a good way to break into the DIY world. I didn't want to start with some elaborate project and get discouraged.

My mom is a huge biker (not Harley woman, although that would be cool- more like mountain biker). Champ's mom is big into beach-y items. They have a summer house in Maine, and my first Thanksgiving dinner with his family was lobster Thanksgiving! I loved it

.... and I digress. Ok, so step one was to pick out the designs each Mom would get. The choices were little bikes for my mom, and a little lobster for Champ's mom.

I went to AC Moore and picked out some ivory notecards (25 for $5.00 or 50 for $10.00) : Very simple, yet so easy to make into an artsy personalized notecard.

Next I simply used one screen for each of the Mom's cards. On each screen I included: Mom's name with a fun free font, a Medium sized clipart file, and smaller clipart image for the envelope. I probably could have done both on one screen, but I had nooo idea what I was doing :)

A Yummy Apology Font used for my Mom's card from 1001freefonts
I used the obvious red gocco ink for the lobster, and gold ink for the bicycles. For each Mom's name, I used black ink on the back of the notecard.

Ok so the bikes are a little crooked, but this was my throw-away. And the lobster is upside down on the envelope in the right picture- again, my throw-away. Hey, when you do DIY projects, you're bound to throw away a few mess ups, right?

So I loved the way these looked, and they're great gift ideas for anyone (not just mother's day)- my sister in law is a teacher, so I was thinking little apples- too cliche? Probably... I'll keep thinking...

What was your first DIY project?