There's a particular kind of happy mail that stops you mid-open and makes you just hold things for a while. This video is that feeling, recorded: I'm unboxing the Give Thanks autumn collection kit from Cheaply Chic's Etsy shop — the final kit from three months on Lynette's design team — and I wanted you to be here for it. If you've been curious about what goes into a monthly junk journal kit, or if you're just looking for a dose of autumn ephemera inspiration before your next project, come and have a look.
What we cover
This is an unboxing of the Give Thanks Thanksgiving-themed kit from Cheaply Chic, plus a quick peek at the two completed design team journals I made over the previous months — an inspiration book and a tag journal — with some honest thinking about what to do with a beautiful kit once you've got it in your hands.
What you'll learn
What comes in a themed monthly junk journal kit — this one being the autumn/Thanksgiving Give Thanks collection, which includes:
- Glassine envelopes
- Small decorative tags
- Napkins (the kind that work beautifully layered into journal pages)
- Stickers and decorative papers
- Buttons and small embellishments
- A handwritten letter from Lynette about the collection's meaning
Why glassine envelopes are such a useful journal supply — they're transparent, they layer, and they hold smaller pieces of ephemera in a way that stays visible. I was genuinely delighted to find some in this kit because I'd been hunting for them.
What a "naked journal" is and how it works — Cheaply Chic's journals arrive with blank interior pages ready for you to decorate however you like. The kit supplies and the journal are designed together, but you can purchase either separately.
Two ways to use a finished kit journal — I flip through the two journals I made in previous months:
- An inspiration book, filled with ideas and layouts I can return to when I'm stuck
- A tag journal, where individual tags are tucked in and left in place rather than pulled out — it doubles as a flip-through source of inspiration
How Lynette organises her monthly kit — she sets up a dedicated section for that month's supplies so nothing gets scattered or lost, then works through it over the course of the month. It's a simple approach but it genuinely changes how you engage with a kit.
Tips & gotchas
The hoarding impulse is real with supplies like these — and I say that as someone who felt it acutely while filming this video. Glassine envelopes, tiny tags, hand-picked napkins: the temptation is to put them somewhere safe and never touch them. The thing is, that defeats the whole point of having beautiful materials. Lynette's approach of setting up a dedicated monthly kit section — one spot, everything visible, a loose timeframe to work through it — is the most practical answer I've found. If it's out and organised rather than tucked away, you'll actually use it.
On a similar note: if you're purchasing kits regularly, it helps to have a project in mind (even a vague one) before the kit arrives. I went into this third month without a clear idea of what I wanted to make, and you can see in the video that I'm already asking for suggestions. Having even a rough direction — "something to sit alongside these two journals as a third sibling" — makes the supplies feel like ingredients rather than collectibles.
One small thing worth knowing about Cheaply Chic's kits: they sell out. The Give Thanks collection was already sold out by the time I filmed this. If you find a collection that speaks to you, don't wait.
Autumn as a theme travels well regardless of where you are in the world. I'm in Australia, where November is spring, not autumn — but warm golds, terracottas, and "give thanks" ephemera don't care about the Southern Hemisphere. Seasonal kits like this one are worth using year-round if the colours and feeling resonate.
The most personal part of this unboxing is at the end: Lynette included extra cards she found while thrifting, specifically because they reminded her of me and of Australia. That's the kind of thoughtfulness that comes through in her kits even when you're just looking at the colour palette. The supplies carry the maker's intention, and that matters when you're deciding whose work to bring into your journals.
Neither one is large or elaborate, but both feel complete and useful in a way that open-ended blank books often don't. That focus, working within the palette and feeling of a single collection, is something I keep coming back to in my own making.
