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Postcard Book Tutorial

Find out how to create this little postcard booklet from my previous Vintage Music Envelope Collection. Pics included.

Hey everyone! It’s been quite a darn long while since I updated this blog of mine. I’ve been busy with work and well, that’s no excuse right but I’m going to try harder to keep this baby afloat!

In the meantime, here are the photos I used to create the postcard booklet. They are all individual files so when you print them, adjust your windows/printer settings to print 4 to a page. Hope you enjoy this mini tutorial and fingers crossed I’ll learn to fix that darn lighting! .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

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Remnants Sampler [SOLD]

These are from my very own personal saree/boho fabric collection. Available in a variety of sizes for your journaling needs :)

Hello everyone! I’ve decided to do a bit of decluttering today and have managed to put together 4 fabric packs featuring 16 pieces of saree/boho fabrics. 

This is a remnants collection and they come in a variety of colours and sizes ranging from 4 to approx. 12 inches. As these are pretty much grab sets, most of the edges are frayed with loose threads. Majority are embroided saree trims. 

[lunarozu]

Memoirs of a Killer [SOLD]

Another masculine junk journal with a rather dark twist. This time I try my hands & imagination at a vintage crime theme!

It’s been a while since I attempted another masculine theme and thanks to all those addictive crime series on Netflix, I decided that it was time to challenge myself once again.

Initially I wanted to create a journal with 3 signatures- each to represent the 3 story arcs I have in my head to document this crime story. I’d start with his childhood, robbed of its innocence, and then moving on to his young adult which is when his obsessions with death and women begins to develop and finally the finale would be all about his first murder. 

But in the end, I decided that it was probably too much for such a niche subject. I wouldn’t know if anyone would be interested in this particular theme. So I ended up with a traveler’s notebook instead. It was quite a challenge to condense all three arcs into the pages but I think I did alright.. I think.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy the flip-through. If anyone is interested to recreate a similar theme, I have an ephemera pack featuring all the images I’ve used in the journal including ones that didn’t make the final cut here.

Love, Sheena.

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Daddy’s Little Girl [SOLD]

My latest creation - An heirloom envelope collection which I hold Bob Carlisle’s ‘Butterfly Kisses’ fully accountable for. 

I was going through my collection of old black and white photographs when I found one of a father and his little baby girl. It reminded me a lot of my own daddy and the bond that we share. Hence, I decided I would sort of pay homage to the family in that photo. I envisioned in my head of the story of a father passing down these beautiful memories to his daughter- keepsakes from his wedding to the girl’s mother, pictures of them when she was still a child and more.

This collection or rather more of a curation, I would say, consists of 8 vintage envelopes in a variety of sizes plus more. I used plenty of authentic ephemera pieces where I can to really bring the story to life. There’s also printed ephemera for journaling, of course. The style is what I would define as Romantic Grunge.

PS. If you have any questions regarding the papers or what-not I’ve used in this journal, just leave me a comment down below and I’ll try my best to get back to you :)

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[lunarozu]

Pastel Vintage [SOLD]

Finally, after a creative drought, here’s my latest creation -  a vintage junk journal with a sort of vintage children theme...

This particular junk journal doesn’t really have a specific theme in mind but the reason I’m calling it a sort of vintage children theme is because I’ve used patterned papers and authentic photos with this theme in mind. That said, there’s quite a mix of ephemera in there such as French and German postcards, receipts, tickets, book pages and more.

This mini collection also comes with a few authentic vintage envelopes for the future collector to either keep as part of their own ephemera collection or to be creative with.

PS. If you have any questions regarding the papers or what-not I’ve used in this journal, just leave me a comment down below and I’ll try my best to get back to you :)

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[lunarozu]

Wait A Minute Mr. Postman

“Please Mister Postman look and see, is there a letter oh yeah in your bag for me?” - The Marvelettes (1961). Another round of FREEBIES!

Hey guys! To make up for missing last week’s FREEBIES, here’s 5 vintage envelope/floral themed images for you to play with :)

Love, Sheena.

[lunarozu]

Seeds Of Kindness

“Happiness held is a seed, happiness shared is a flower.” This week’s FREEBIE features gorgeous floral illustrations of seed packets.

Don’t you just love the illustrations of yester-years? Boy, I wished that they still did those now but I guess it would take a lot of effort for companies to create them like it was. Hope you love these free downloads! 

To download: Right click and Save.

Love, Sheena.

[lunarozu]

Q&A : Saree / Boho Fabrics

Answering one of the most asked questions I get on my YouTube channel - Where do I purchase my fabric bundles?

1. AmourFabriQues (Etsy)

Shop owner, Lena offers wonderful and super affordable fabric bundles including saree / boho, floral and even vintage in her Etsy store. She usually does flip-throughs on her bundles via her YT channel so you can check out the variety before purchasing them. Do note that these sell like hot cakes so best to bookmark her sites to make sure you don’t miss out! 

*I personally haven’t purchased from her but she ALWAYS has amazing selections & deals :)

2. Punitabh (Ebay)

If you live outside of US, you might want to check out this Ebay seller. I have personally purchased from here and the selection is lovely especially for the beaded trims and international shipping is FREE. You can purchase them through their Buy It Now listings but I recommend bidding or try the Best Offer option because the prices can get pretty high. 

One thing to take note is that they usually list both an auction and Buy It Now listings for similar items. Make sure to check out the prices for the latter so you don’t overbid in the auction listing. 

3. Junk Journal Junkies Boutique and Junk Journal Junkies Boutique (Facebook)

Both are closed Facebook groups with similar names that I think most of you are already members of. You can find not just journals and kits here but also the occasional fabric bundles. To filter out listings, you can try typing fabric bundles in the Search This Group search box located on the left side of your screen.

4. Search Your Local Thrift Stores Or Seamstress

If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, hit your local thrift stores or sometimes what I do is drop by local tailor shops to ask if they have any leftover fabric that I can purchase. 

I know there are perhaps more sources out there that I may not be aware of so do drop me comment down below if you’d like me to add those to the list. I do occasionally sell fabric bundles myself and these will be located under Shop.

Love, Sheena.

[lunarozu]

How I Started My Website

It took me about 3 days to get LunaRozu.Co finally up & running. This is how I did it without spending more than a dollar.

I think like many who migrated from Etsy, I myself decided to create my own website because of Etsy’s fees. I was paying about a minimum of $40 each month and that wasn’t including Paypal’s cut.

I sought inspiration from many other junk journal creators, mostly on FB who had their very own online stores by using e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WIX, Wordpress and even websites powered with Etsy. 

My only issue with this is that I didn’t want to pay so much outright when I honestly didn’t know if I could generate enough eyeballs or interest for customers to actually put my address in their search box and click through a page or two to finally purchase an item.

And so I made a promise to myself that I would try and find the cheapest solution to create this. Most of the online shopping platforms take cuts from sales and to me that was pretty much the same thing what Etsy does AND I would be better off staying on with Etsy because my customers are there, my reviews are there, my whole LunaRozu.Co world is there!

I also thought about purchasing my own custom domain and webhosting to create a fully customized site on Wordpress but again, when both these added up, I still couldn’t bring myself to spend that much (re: dilemma in previous paragraph).

Finally I decided to explore FREE blog-hosting sites such as Blogger and Tumblr. Both were pretty decent choices considering the available FREE themes you get if you searched hard enough online. In the end though, I settled for Tumblr and that’s only because I prefer how the HTML and CSS (things you tweak when you want to edit your website layout design) sections are laid out for customization. Tumblr is so much more user-friendly as well and their helpdesk is top-notch!

Here’s a step-by-step (kinda) of what I did:

1. Register an account at Tumblr.com

2. Create blog.

3. Browse FREE themes and click Install. Yes, it’s THAT easy.

4. Choose Edit Appearance and tweak website. Here’s a screenshot of my editing section. It’s super easy to work with plus, no coding experience required. Your options will differ according to the theme you select.

5. Purchase custom domain.

Now you might be wondering: You bought a custom domain but you said you spent NO MORE THAN A DOLLAR?! 

The answer is yes, I did buy a custom domain and the price was exactly THAT. ONE DOLLAR. I can’t stress it enough to ALWAYS shop around when you’re planning to purchase anything. I almost purchased my domain for $15 but I finally found a website called IONOS (this is not a sponsored post but I wish it was, lol) that offers a custom domain for $1 the first year BUT you pay $15 the following. It’s a special promo price for first-time customers so I figured why not? After all, I was already going to pay the same price initially anyway.

This way, I get to save $14 my first year and if my website doesn’t take off as planned, I don’t have to renew my contract for the second year. Please make sure to UNCHECK AUTO-RENEW when purchasing though.

6. Go to Tumblr’s settings and choose Use Custom Domain. Don’t forget to turn ON the encryption:  Always serve blog over HTTPS

And that is pretty much the what and how I did to finally create this humble website of mine. Another reason why I chose to go with the blogging route for my online store is also because I wanted a place where I could essentially blog about vintage finds, offer free image downloads and kind of explain my thought proccess when creating a specific journal. I still get nervous talking on YouTube so I might not always get all my ideas or points across so this is my way to compensate for that.

I still have plenty to sort out on this blog such as populating my items here and testing out the payment system, etc. but I’ll leave that for another post.

Alright everyone, I’m going to wrap up today’s post. I do hope I had somehow helped you out at least a little if ever you were planning to creating your own webspace be it an online store or what-not. It’s work, definitely but what isn’t right?

Love, Sheena.

[lunarozu]

Bunny Kisses This Easter

As part of my vintage offerings on this site, I will be doing a weekly FREEBIE download of at least 2 images. Hurrah! 

These images are either sourced online or from my own personal collection of ephemera. And to start, this week I’m offering the following adorable Easter themed images free to download and use in your personal and small commercial projects. Enjoy!

To download: Right click and Save.

Love, Sheena.

[lunarozu]

Oh, So Lush! [SOLD]

There’s something about floral or botanical themed journals that are so serene and pleasing to look at. What’s your favourite?

I’ve also been collecting various ephemera pieces, mainly envelopes from my local vendor to which I plan on using for future releases. Exciting times ahead - not so great on the bank account, heh.

In the meantime, while I try and populate this brand new website with more content, here’s a video flip-through of this vintage traveler’s notebook insert. Enjoy!

Love, Sheena

PS. This journal has been spoken for.

[lunarozu]

A New Adventure

It’s been a frustrating but totally rewarding experience but I finally managed to create my very own personal space online.

(Okay, perhaps I will consider purchasing my very own domain but for now, this will suffice.) After considering Wordpress, Shopify and even Blogger, I finally decided on Tumblr. What memories, heh!

I knew I wanted to create my very own online store to sell my journals for a while now because well, Etsy has been so darn expensive and I am truly struggling to keep up with the monthly fees - listing, transaction and on top of that, Paypal fees. 

I know what you’re thinking .. what about all that traffic from Etsy?

Well, I realised that most of my traffic sources either came from my YouTube channel or Facebook. Of course, Etsy’s ease of customer shopping experience and seller’s interface will always trump what I have now (having to do everything manually) but both are things I’m willing to sacrifice because I really just can NOT keep up with the fees!

That said, I’ve managed to make purchasing easy for customers despite not using a dedicated fancy online store platform and that is by utilising Paypal’s very own ‘BUY IT NOW’ buttons which you can create just by logging into your account. It’s so ridiculously easy that I was quite taken aback. It also works for digital products! 

The only downside I find is that customers won’t be able to leave reviews for the purchases - at least not via an automated form anyway. I am still in the midst of searching the internet for a way to do this and the best solution I can come up with is via comments  which I have yet to install on Tumblr. So we shall see! 

So, what happens to your Etsy store (you might ask)?

Well, it would still be up of course but I will only limit my use there for selling digital junk journal kits, papers, ephemera etc. just to keep the fees at the minimal.

Other than that, I am absolutely LOVING having my own space where I can not just sell my journals but also perhaps share the creative process in written words where I might have left out in my YouTube videos. I will also start sharing vintage finds, whether in digital or actual items I find along my creative journey here.

I do hope you’ll stay with me on this new adventure of mine and may it also inspire you to create your very own ‘home’ online - without spending a fortune (I cannot stress that enough!). 

Here’s to a successful year ahead!

Love, Sheena.