The Ultimate Cottagecore Bucket List for Every Season (Spring, Summer, Autumn/Fall, and Winter)

Living a cottagecore inspired life isn’t about perfection, it’s about making sure you slow down, enjoy the little moments that happen each day, and being sure to notice the magic that’s woven into everyday life. To help you embrace the seasons inside and out, we at Doki Doki Hollow have come up with a list of cozy, wholesome, and magical bucket list ideas for every season of the year.

What Cottagecore Seasonal Living Means

Cottagecore seasonal living is all about being able to reconnect with the natural rhythms of the world any time of the year. Instead of rushing through the entire year, each season becomes an invitation to slow down and notice the small details that each individual season brings us. It allows us to embrace and appreciate the quiet changes happening in nature. In spring, that typically means celebrating new growth as well as fresh starts. Summer is more about embracing warmth, abundance and long afternoons meant for relaxing and self care. Autumn brings us coziness, grounding, and the magic of vibrant color changes. Winter encourages rest, reflection and indoor rituals.

Cottagecore seasonal living focuses on mindfulness through nature. It’s choosing to embrace the moods, the atmosphere, and the energy of each season rather than resisting it. It’s about letting the outside world inspire the things you do. Let it inspire your crafts, your home, your decor.

In the Hollow, the seasons aren’t just a backdrop, they shape the entire flow of life, creativity and the small magical moments that make the days feel whimsical and special.

Why Seasonal Bucket Lists Help Us Slow Down and Reconnect

Seasonal bucket lists work as suggested guidelines, not strict checklists. They remind us to pause, to be intentional, and to savor our experiences instead of letting the weeks just pass by and blur together. In a busy, chaotic world full of technology, vehicles, and deadlines, it’s easy to get lost in a routine of just going and not noticing the seasons fully and how they offer something different. They each give us special scents, color palettes, mood changes, and energy shifts.

Writing or following a seasonal bucket list helps you break that autopilot cycle. It encourages you to look for opportunities to enjoy the small things like a warm drink on a bitter cold night, a walk during the first crisp fall breeze, or the excitement of spotting new flowers blossoming at the start of spring. These lists are a way of reconnecting with yourself, your environment and your creativity.

Instead of feeling pressure to “do more”, seasonal bucket lists help you experience more intentionally. They help you turn ordinary moments you might just pass by into meaningful memories and invite you to craft a year filled with cozy rituals, simple pleasures, and magical moments, one magical season at a time.

These are some simple, low-pressure activities that are meant to spark joy in your life, inspire your creativity and help you connect with the world around you.

At the bottom of this post, I’ll provide a free printable bucket list checklist!

Spring Bucket List: Renewal & Soft Beginnings

Spring time is the perfect time to focus on renewal and soft beginnings. The winter has been quiet, everything has been hibernating and now everything is starting to emerge and bloom again. And you can be a part of that! Here are some things to check off your spring bucket list to refresh and rejuvenate your mind, body, and soul:

• Forage for wildflowers (or buy an inexpensive bouquet) and press them into a journal
• Give your crafting space a nice spring cleaning. Tidy it up, open the windows, put out some spring scents, and decorate with some springtime seasonal decor
• Start a tiny herb garden. If it’s still too cold outside or you don’t have a yard, you can always start one in your window sill! Grow things that you enjoy the smell of and that have flavors you enjoy using in your cooking, baking, or drinks!
• Go on a “color walk”. Take out your phone or camera and snap some photographs of all the spring colors you come across: pinks, greens, yellows, pastels, etc.
• Create something spring inspired in the kitchen. It could be floral inspired like lavender cookies or rose tea, personally for me, I like to bake sugar cookies cut out into flowers and decorate them with pastel colored icing.
• Handwrite a letter to someone and decorate it with some floral sketches or some cute spring time stickers! If you’re feeling really creative you could even seal it with wax!
• Create something whimsical and pastel. I LOVE to create resin sakura charms around spring time but you could create anything! Crochet or knit a lightweight, fashionable scarf that can be worn in spring full of pastels, create some floral mini prints to hang up around your home, use some pressed flowers that you’ve made, or even create yourself a nice floral, springtime-y wreath.

Summer Bucket List: Warmth & Wanderings

Summer is an interesting time depending on where you live. Sometimes the weather is perfect and not too hot so you can really take advantage of some great outdoor time to refresh and ground yourself with the earth. Take a moment to step out, take in your surroundings and just relax for a little bit. Here are a few items you can check off of your summertime bucket list:

• Have a picnic with a friend. You can use some thrifted or mismatched cottagecore dishes that you’ve found.
• Make some homemade lemonade infused with some fresh berries or herbs that you picked up at the local farmers market or even grew yourself!
• Collect some interesting leaves or stones during a walk. Set them up around your home as decor for the season.
• Create a sun-themed craft using warm colors. It could be a sun catcher, a painting, some bead work, just as long as it uses warm colors.
• Do a “digital detox day”. Leave your phone inside or on silent in your pocket and go read a good book outside.
• Get out your journal on a nice day and go sit under a shady tree and write in it for a while.
• When it gets hot out, if you have a place to do it, go get your feet wet. A lake, a river, the ocean. Let yourself connect with nature and the earth via water.

Autumn/Fall Bucket List: Cozy & Witchy Vibes

Autumn is my favorite season, quickly followed by spring. There’s just something about the way the crisp air smells in the fall and the view of the bright reds, oranges and yellows as the leaves change on the trees. It’s my favorite time to just sit outside and enjoy nature. And Autumn scents are my absolute favorite! Give me a crisp apple or pumpkin candle and I’m as happy as can be. Here is your list of Autumn/Fall bucket list items:

• Brew a cozy tea or even a simmer pot by including something Autumn themed like apple, cinnamon, or pumpkin.
• Decorate some of your home with warm or earthy toned cottagecore pieces. Gourds are a good option once they’re in season!
• Carve or paint some pumpkins when it’s that time! If you want to keep it cottagecore themed you could always do something whimsical or forest-y like a scenery with mushrooms, a fox, a forest, or even a cottage itself.
• Create an autumn inspired design. Something crafty. It could be another wreath for fall, a scarf that’s perfect for Autumn, a print stamped with something you foraged or for me, I like to create mushroom jars like this one!
• Go on a mushroom spotting walk and take pictures or sketch out your favorites! And because I’ve lived in a city and I know it can be hard sometimes to find that kind of stuff, they don’t have to be real mushrooms. You can walk your downtown and see what people have used for decorations. It’s all about the mindset, don’t forget that!
• Start a cozy night ritual: light a candle that you enjoy, put on some soft music that soothes your soul, get yourself a warm beverage and sip on it while you journal or read.
• Bake something cinnamon-spiced and comforting. I LOVE baking banana bread with cinnamon in it during the fall. It’s always so worth the effort when I can have a nice warm slice in the morning for breakfast or for a snack.

Winter Bucket List: Quiet Magic & Soft Light

Winter is the hardest for me. I hate going out in the cold, and I’ve fallen on ice more times than I care to admit. But just because it’s a rough season doesn’t mean that we can’t still do things to bring ourselves some peace and comfort! Here’s the list I’ve managed to curate for keeping the cottagecore vibe in winter:

• Once a week, make yourself a nice warm drink and write your thoughts down in your journal while you’re sipping on it and meditating.
• Decorate your space with frosty woodland themes. Things that work great for this are pinecones, soft lights, winter themed pillows and throws, maybe some winter plushies too!
• Do a slow crafting night with some ambient music and gentle lighting.
• Create something winter themed. This is the perfect time to try your hand at making your own ornament! Shops always have blank ornaments for sale and there are all sorts of things you can do with them. You can use it like a snow globe and create your own winter woodland, you can cover it in glitter, you can paint it, there are so many options for this.
• Bake or cook a comfort recipe. You could do something that’s been passed down by your family or you could create your own! Just make sure it’s something that’s comforting to you.
• If it’s not too cold, you can go on a winter nature walk. Document the details you see. I had a blast doing this last year. I walked around in the snow and found footprints of all sorts of creatures! It’s also really fun to check out frost patterns on windows. I’m always mesmerized by those and snowflakes when they’re big enough to see actual shapes.
• Write a letter to yourself to read in the spring time that’s full of hope and aspirations to give you encouragement when springtime comes around again.

Each season brings its own kind of magic and wonder if you look closely enough. Just like the seasons, the Hollow is always changing too. No matter what time of year it might be, I really hope these bucket list ideas for each season can help you slow down, meditate, reconnect with the beauty of nature and create a little bit of wonder in your everyday life.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope this helps you be able to embrace the cottagecore vibe in every season and remember, show the world your magic and whimsy and be the you that you really want to be.

Seasonal Bucket List Printable