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Okay, so it’s not quite fall yet – but the vibes are incoming!
While cold weather approaches and shorter days are imminent, it’s the perfect time to embrace new hobbies and build out your Fall Bucket List of must-do activities to fully immerse yourself in the Autumnal season.
Whether you’re looking to unwind with a fulfilling creative project you can actually use, or just want to explore new interests that capture the essence of autumn, this is a fun list of hobbies and crafts to try this autumn!
Hobbies play a crucial role in our lives, offering not only a creative outlet but also a way to relax and enrich our well-being. From the soothing art of bookbinding to the delightful process of digital coloring, these activities offer a wonderful blend of relaxation, creativity, and seasonal spirit. Let’s get into it!
Bookbinding and Custom Book Covers
For all the dark academia fans out there, try creating custom journals and notebooks for an activity that merges creativity with practicality. The process of bookbinding (which has recently made the rounds on booktok) involves cutting, folding, and sewing paper to bind your own, or recover books, which can be both meditative and rewarding.
It’s a moderately challenging craft if you really want to challenge yourself, and one that enhances fine motor skills and offers a satisfying way to organize your thoughts and reflections.
I really love the vibes of this YouTube tutorial that gets you started in a beginner friendly intro to bookbinding.
Pumpkin Spice Candle Making
Crafting candles with autumnal scents like pumpkin spice can bring warmth and coziness to your home, and it’s oddly satisfying to create something both beautiful and luxe, while also being functional.
It seems intimidating at first, but once you have all of the materials and get the process down, it’s such a rewarding end result! You’ll be able to enjoy the therapeutic scents while creating the candles, and enjoy their warm ambiance while enjoying a nice book and cup of tea when they’re done!
You can get an easy, all in one kit or purchase various materials separately. For an extra aesthetic candle experience, put your candles in a dark, amber glass for an extra special Autumn touch.
(These ones also make great Christmas gifts for loved ones!)
Knitting or Crocheting Cozy Accessories and Home Decor
Your grandma’s favorite cold weather activity might require some practice to start but is relatively easy to pick up with some patience and focus. Knitting has been shown to reduce stress and increase mindfulness, providing a calming escape from daily routines.
If you’re not a fan of the traditional scarves and beanies, you can create functional items and gifts like book sleeves, coasters, wall art, tote bags and more! You can really showcase your personal style with the designs you choose. You can find lots of free and paid tutorials and patterns online.
If you want something with a little more structure and a little less pressure, you can also try these crochet kits specifically made for beginners from Woobles to create adorable animal themed plushies!
If you’re a plant lover, these crocheted hanging planters are absolutely adorable!
DIY Leaf Pressing and Framing
Preserving and framing fall leaves allows you to bring a bit of autumn’s beauty indoors.
The best part about this hobby is, it’s two-fold! Not only will this get you outside to wander, forage and collect various trimmings and leaves, it’s also a beautiful end product you can display or give as gifts.
This simple hobby craft involves pressing leaves between heavy books and then arranging them in frames, or simply keeping them within journals and books. It’s an easy and inexpensive project that can improve your focus and create a lovely seasonal decoration for your home.
Digital Book and Personal Journaling
While coloring and journaling with various colored pencils, paints and pens is an obvious choice, we also wanted to give an option to those interested in some of the many amazing apps available on tablets like the iPad.
There are lots of benefits to digital journaling: it’s easy to do on the go, you have endless creative options and you can erase any mistakes you make as you go along!
Track your reading or journal your thoughts in one of the many apps available for iPad and Android tablets.
Baking Spiced Treats
Baking is the bread and butter of cozy fall hobbies. There’s nothing like the scent of a fresh pumpkin loaf coming out of the oven with a warm cup of chai tea!
Fill your home with delightful scents and yummy rewards. For fall specifically, try the traditional fall flavors like pumpkin, apples, and spices like cinnamon, clove, cardamom, bergamot and more.
For an extra special touch, you can use special fall shaped cookware like cookie cutters and loaf pans to really up the cozy experience!
One of my favorite recipes to make in the fall is a Starbucks copycat pumpkin cream cheese muffin, it’s absolutely divine!
Scrapbooking and Memory Keeping
Scrapbooking is a creative way to preserve and showcase your favorite memories, using photos, decorative elements, and personal notes.
This hobby involves arranging and embellishing pages, which can range from easy to moderately challenging depending on your design. It’s super easy and affordable to get started with this hobby, because you can collect various scraps and paper memories from your everyday life to take something from simple trash to an aesthetic memory!
If you really want to up your dark academia vibes and start collecting various stickers, paper sheets and more, Amazon and Etsy are great place to start, as you can find both affordable and some more unique, handmade items with the latter.
