If you follow any of my social media profiles, you may have noticed that I am a big fan of spooky season (aka the month of October). With all the craziness and anxiety of this year, I decided to really embrace the season and go all out with Halloween/autumnal activities and decorations. If I’m going to be inside even more than usual, may as well make it spooky, right!? The little things I've done have brought me so much joy, and that’s what I think 2020 has really taught me. You don't need huge lavish events to have fun, the smallest of things can make you happy. Life really is what you make it! So with that in mind I thought I would share the things that have brought me joy this month, and what better day to do that than the climax of spooky season, Halloween!
D E C O R A T I O N S
First things first, to celebrate Halloween you need some spooky decorations! I started collecting things at the start of the month, beginning with a gorgeous smelling autumnal candle from Next and a beautiful pumpkin painting I found on a card whilst in Lyme Regis. Inspired with these small purchases, I decided to turn the whole of the top of my cabinet into a spooky display! My first thought was pumpkins. I picked a few up from M&S, I really can't rate M&S highly enough this year as far as Halloween goes. They were selling an amazing selection of pumpkins and squashes for 95p! I was inspired when I saw these and bought three, as well as some fetching ghost boppers. From this I decided I really needed to go to a pumpkin patch, and so I did! I would 100% recommend going to a pumpkin patch, the atmosphere is so joyful and will get you feeling so seasonal, but they also have really unique and characterful pumpkins. I was overjoyed when we went and ended up taking home 6, I love how each one has such a unique color, shape and stalk (it really is the little things). I also got myself a huge monster pumpkin from Sainsbury's for carving. Sainsbury's is another place that’s been amazing for Halloween this year, I picked up a light-up hanging ghost and a neon Boo sign, both very affordable but look so amazing amongst my pumpkins.
S H O P S P O O K Y, S H O P S M A L L
Another thing I really wanted to do whilst creating my display was support small businesses, as I run one myself I truly know how much they need our support, especially at the moment! And so I had a browse through Etsy and I was not disappointed. I decided to invest in some adorable felt pumpkins from @handmadeforevergifts, I thought these would be great to blend in with my other pumpkins and something I could reuse year after year. I also couldn't resist a tiny ceramic ghost by @bykateelford. I'm going to keep this guy out all year round because he is just SO cute (and it's not like he takes up much space!). I also had to treat myself to some simple but adorable ghost earrings by @jewellery.plasticmoon as I just thought these would be the perfect accessory for the whole of the spooky season. It brought me so much happiness to receive these parcels and feel the love from the shop owners. An order on Etsy really does make someones day, I would know!
With this in mind I also had to of course create my own spooky season products for my own Etsy shop. I have been absolutely loving drawing autumnal illustrations just for my Instagram and so I thought I would get them printed into postcards. I think postcards are the best way to purchase art affordably, you can put them on the wall, pop them in a frame or send them to a friend. The spooky three pack of cards is still available on my Etsy Shop if anyone is interested!
A C T I V I T I E S
So now your home is feeling all cozy and spooky, you need some fun things to do! One indoor activity that I find really wholesome and relaxing is baking, and you can have so much fun trying to make your bakes fit for Halloween. Myself and my friend Lowena spent an afternoon making cup cakes and experimenting with cake dye and writing icing to try and create some spooky characters. Its fun to play around and you'll be left with some tasty treats at the end of it!
Autumnal walks are an absolute must at this time of year. The colours, the lighting, the leaves! It's absolutely beautiful in my opinion, and I love getting out the winter boots and wrapping up in a jumper and a scarf. My favorite walk I've been on this year is definitely through the New Forest. Whilst on a visit to Hampshire we went for an afternoon stroll and the views we're just absolutely stunning. We also visited my old university city, Winchester, which is an absolute autumnal paradise with all the tree's and rivers.
S P O O K Y N I G H T I N
Whilst visiting Hampshire, myself and my friends decided to have a spooky night in. We can't go out this year for Halloween, so why not stay in!? We bought as many spooky snacks as we could find (mostly from M&S) lit candles, displayed pumpkins and watched scary films. We also decided to dress up by painting our faces and wearing Halloween headbands (I truly didn't think the green face paint was EVER going to come off but it did eventually after LOTS of scrubbing!). This truly put me in the Halloween spirit and it was so much fun to dress up even though we were just staying in. Also, spooky nights can be any night! We didn't do this on actual Halloween night, and I think its important to remember that Halloween is a whole season (for me anyway) and you don't have to limit the fun to just one particular day.
P U M P K I N S P I C E
With fear of sounding incredibly basic (let’s be honest, I do own a fiat 500) another thing I LOVE about this season is pumpkin spice. In particular, the pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. I have indulged myself in one of these as often as possible and I have absolutely no regrets. There's nothing like a PSL to get you feeling autumnal. This is an awful segway but I also decided I wanted to go pumpkin spice with my hair, and attempt to go a little bit ginger! I booked in with my local hairdresser and told her I wanted to go full on ginge. However, after talking it through I decided I didn't want to bleach my entire head and so went for a rich chestnut brown root blend into an auburn copper brown - aka the perfect autumn hair! I'm not suggesting anyone needs to dye their hair for spooky season but I just happened to change mine and it has helped me feel even more seasonal and like I blend in with my beautiful autumn walk surroundings.
And that’s about it for spooky season this year! All that’s left to do now is say Happy Halloween and hope you all have a brilliant and spooky day!
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