Halloween/Autumn Dot Journaling

Halloween is my favorite holiday! It’s my witchy side. I love witches- strong women with power who scare people- what’s better than that? I like so many parts of it, sans the graphic violence, which was not originally part of the holiday. And I also love the fall season as a whole! I always say, fall would be my favorite season if I didn’t know winter came next.

I also like journaling and know how it can be very helpful. It help me think more clearly and improves my mental health. In my journal post you can read about my history with journaling from my blog series on ways to take care of your mental health without psychotropic medication.

I have journaled in various ways, and my latest focus is dot journaling, or what is more often called bullet journaling. I explain more about it, how to get started, and some resources in my blog entry Dot or Bullet Journaling for Mental Health introducing it.

For the month of October, I have decorated my dot journal in autumn and Halloween motifs. Seasonal motifs are nice because you can use them for a couple months. And you can start a holiday as early as you like, just like stores put up Christmas stuff in the beginning of October. I had some fun playing with the theme with my trackers and my journal pages.

The majority of people’s dot journal’s that I have seen have some sort of calendar. Some people use it as their primary planner. This one spans two pages so could be used as such.

Or a calendar might just be something to refer to, simply to know the date, like on these pages I have made to record my monthly goals.

I ended up liking this tracking page. The sugar skull is a stamp and I used ink markers instead of regular stamps to get different colors, which I am not skilled at, but glad it turned out okay. On this page and others, I have decided that orange and black aren’t the only Halloween colors anymore. Purple, green, and grey are good additional colors.
Here I am tracking my habits, then my mood, and finally my PTSD symptoms.

This tree idea is both original and not. I have taken the ideas of other people who made dot journal spreads using flowers, balloons, hanging lights, and other decorative items to create beautiful and unique mood charts. While I copied the concept, I did make up this tree idea. The idea suddenly came to me when I was staring at my leaf stamp one day. If you haven’t seen trackers like this before they are fun. I have written a key that has five fall colors that would be on an autumn tree, with brown being the best day and green being the worst. I have numbered every leaf up to 31 (Halloween Day) and it will be colored according to my mood that day, hopefully turning into an autumnal delight at the end.

Even though I can write a lot, I still made a page for what I am calling Weekly Notes and Observations here, that I also call micro-journaling, which is writing a sentence or two which sums up the day. This can be good for people who don’t have time to journal or aren’t used to writing.

Now I’ll show some examples of journal pages that fit with my theme. This page here is very simple, showing two half page days.

I had more hope for this page, but its colorful and good enough. You have to get rid of perfectionist tendencies if you are going to be making many journal pages, so I just have to except that I like some pages more than others. I found these jack-o-lanterns in some sort of ad from my local newspaper as well as a couple other images I’ll be showing.

I liked this image of a skull with purple and black flowers. It looked cheap though, and it should since it was from an ad for the dollar store, because the middle of the flowers all had these tacky blue eyeballs. So, I colored them silver and then added the spider webs above, which I had never drawn before, but gave it a try.

I copied (not traced) these witch shoes from a picture on a google image. They weren’t colored so I made that up. As for the “sexy witch”, which is what I am calling her, I almost completely made her up. In an ad in the newspaper (hey, I really got a good amount of stuff from the ads) I found her dress. It was maybe supposed to be a dress, but the fabric shape was off, so I shaped it, added other “fabric” to it, as well as other embellishments. I made up the rest of the drawing. The background is from a silicone potholder I accidently let fall on the stove burner after I drew the witch. Noticing it made a mark I used it as a background. And honestly, if you want to know, I don’t like her face, but its still a witch, which was all I wanted.

I’ve used some shiny leaf stickers here and a picture of caramel apples which really reminded me of fall. Makes me want to bob for apples. And of course, you guessed it- I did find the caramel apples in an ad.

These pages are different dates, but they go together. In the second page you can’t see very well from the photograph that the gold letters spell Oct., which is okay. This was a printed drawing of fall flowers surrounded by fall leaves. I got it out of a bulletin the other day. I didn’t think it that pretty at first, but I like the result after coloring it, and that day, like some days, coloring was therapeutic.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a very happy autumn, if that exists any longer. Yes, you’ve noticed, if you live in the Midwest, like me, that it seems that spring and fall are getting shorter, and summer and winter longer. And some say there is no such thing as climate change! But that’s a subject for another day.
Enjoy the hot teas, hot ciders, warm cardigans, and hopefully, warm hugs!