What does it mean to you to be independent, or to be free? We want to wish you a Happy Fourth of July by taking you back and reminiscing about your times of freedom. Celebrate life and how far you have come. This is what a time capsule is all about. Celebrating life or a specific milestone moment that changed your life or helped you feel more free, or independent.

Let’s reminisce. Remember when:

1. You first learned to walk.
2. The first time chose your own clothes to wear.
3. The first time you took your training wheels off your bike.
4. The first time you took a drink of any pop (soda for those in the south).
5. You held your first car keys to drive.
6. You went on your first date.
7. The first time you went ice skating
8. The first time you kissed a girl or boy
9. The first child you had
10. The first child you gave away in marriage or the day your first child went off to college.

Sometimes our firsts do not seem like freedom. Sometimes freedom or independence can seem hard. It is all a matter of perspective. Sometimes you do not feel the sense of freedom, until years later and then realize it was for the better. It is then, when you realize this that you have the true feeling of what “independence” is.

Even though we may experience several times of independence while growing up, we are never too far away from loved one’s hearts and minds. Make sure you spend this fourth of July building milestone moments and have fun watching each other grow and become more independent. Make it a family event this holiday by participating in an activity you will never forget.

Make a Fourth of July Time Capsule to Reflect on one year on July 4, 2015.

Reminisce or think about what exactly has changed in your life since last year’s Fourth of July? Many times life goes by so fast, that we often forget the special and regular days in between each year. This time capsule is an activity is something you do to look back and say, “Oh that is really cool that we have this.”

Favorite 4th of July Activity to Do with your Kids – Time Capsule

Put things that mean something to your family from the year. Create a time capsule quiz about your favorite sport, movie, song, food, restaurant, tv show, shoe size or anything that has special meaning in your life this year. Personalize the quiz. Also create a family scavenger hunt for your family to do throughout the 4th of July day, before watching the fireworks together in the evening as a celebration wrap-up of your fun-filled and memorable day together. Make sure to take pictures throughout your day, and collect a few other photos from your year so far to put in your time capsule. Have fun and save your funny or meaningful family quotes in the time capsule on slips of paper to read a year later, or whenever you choose to open the time capsule. This is such a great family activity to bond you all closer, especially if one of your children are about to leave for college or become more independent.

The Family Scavenger Hunt – Stroll Down Memory Lane

Make the Fourth of July Time Capsule activity fun, by using a scavenger hunt for the kids and adults to find items hidden in your town and house, to collect and put in your time capsule. What a fun way to experience the past year all over together. Have one item with a clue that leads to the next. For example, set it up so you have to visit the houses of several people or friends you already visited this past year for special events, birthday parties, etc to collect or find an item to put in the time capsule. I remember doing fun things like this in our youth group and it was a blast. For other ideas of what you can collect to put in the time capsule, check out this website for 100 scavenger hunt lists and ideas at http://www.diva-girl-parties-and-stuff.com/scavenger-hunts.html

Baby’s First July 4th Craft Ideas to Save in a Baby Time Capsule

If it is the first Fourth of July for your baby to see, why not collect items to put in their decorative Baby Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com? Then, let your child open this time capsule years later at another Fourth of July in the future, as a way to re-celebrate what life was like when he or she was born. If you are looking for fun crafts to make for your child’s first Fourth of July, check out these at http://redtri.com/no-fire-required-10-easy-fourth-of-july-crafts/

Happy Fourth of July everyone! What are your plans for this July 4th? Comment below please.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

The post 10 Ways to Reminisce & Remember your Freedom on the 4th of July appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

21 Creative Ways to Use a Time Capsule to Connect with Teenagers

You know, I remember asking my mom and dad when I was a teenager, “If life is like this now, what is it going to be like when my children are teenagers?” It was a rhetorical question, one of the many that came from my random thoughts as a teenager. I have always been one of those kids who was told, “you are wise beyond your years.” My parents made it a goal to consistently make sure they were bonding with us in positive ways. When I worked as a counselor in my own private practice, I heard many different life stories from young kids and teenagers. It is vital, to find anything and everything you can to communicate to teenagers about their world, even if it is a time capsule.

This blog is a continuation about who can use a time capsule. These priceless and treasured gifts can also be used by teenagers. During a time of great confusion, a teenager is trying to discover his or her identity. The following is a list of 21 ways to use a teenage time capsule to connect with with adolescence on a deeper level.

1. Write a “Message to the Future” letter to yourself about where you see yourself after you graduate or get married.

2. Use the time capsule as an anonymous container in your youth group, for kids to put questions or comments on slips of paper to leave for staff to read once per week, or have teachers from your teenagers high-school, fill out a letter about predictions of where they see him or her in the future.

3. To put your nostalgic memorabilia in, from childhood, to open years later and reminisce about what life was like during that time in your life.

4. To save love letters from your first boyfriend, to review later when you meet “the one.” What a fun day that may be when you read those old letters from your “first” official boyfriend. A time capsule will help you remember this “first” or milestone moment in your life.

5. Adolescence is an adventure in of itself, of which includes many exciting events that need to be preserved in a profile book of yourself that you can include in your time capsule.

6. For a teenager, giving them the privacy they so desperately want, is connecting with them. Let them develop their independence, as they learn skills of how to make it in life on their own, by encouraging them to keep extra money in their time capsule like a savings bank with emergency money.

7. For a teenager, a time capsule is similar to diaries, journals, or saved emails to yourself. Time capsules can be a place to work out difficult life questions, as you write about your feelings and changing relationships.

8. Connect with your teenager by using the time capsule to teach them about what to hold on to and what to let go. Let them put those emotions on pieces of paper or in a letter, put their old favorite shirt or toy in a time capsule, to bury or put away for years, helping them forget about it and let go.

9. Leave your teenager a letter, in the time capsule, about what life was like when you were a teenager. Then have your teenager open the time capsule with the letter in it and other significant items you saved from his or her life so far.

10. In the time capsule, leave a list of positive words that describe your teenager. Make it look nice on special paper, that maybe he or she will want to frame and hang on the wall.

11. Show you listen to your teenager, and put something significant in the time capsule and then give it to them to open as if a present. For example, put a favorite book, movie, or music, etc in the time capsule.

12. When you feel your daughter is of age to wear make-up, put a set of different colors of eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, etc in a time capsule and have a special party as she enters adulthood. You could even invite her friends over for a make-up party.

13. Write a love letter to your teenager, and say how proud of them you are. Leave it in their time capsule, telling them when they can open it, for their special surprise.

14. Let your teenager use the time capsule as a place to write out the full story of what happened (during a problem in their life or if he or she made a bad life decision). This helps your teenager get the whole story out, before you react or jump to conclusions.

15. Create a favorite, new, recipe together and save it in their time capsule for years so they have it for when they get married.

16. Keep a souvenir from your fun vacation together, in their time capsule.

17. Take great photos of moments with your teenager, or their friends, and preserve them in a time capsule for years. Then, at their graduation, open the time capsule and reminisce about the “good old days.”

18. Keep a gift or memorabilia from a shared hobby or passion, you have spent time doing with your teenager, in the time capsule. None of us really truly understand what a special time in our lives meant, until it is gone or your teenager has left for college far away.

19. Put the keys to their first car, in the time capsule, then let them open the time capsule when they receive their driver’s license.

20. Make a college survival gift basket kit, with the time capsule holding many significant items from their childhood, you feel he or she would want to preserve and take to college.

21. Make a bucket list to keep in your time capsule, to see what all you have accomplished by the time you open the time capsule.

I hope this list of ideas is just a start for you to connect better with your teenager. A time capsule is a gift that keeps on giving and giving. Pass on your life lessons, and preserve your teenager’s milestone moments in a time capsule. Help your adolescent tell his or her own children what life was like when he or she was a teenager, with the use of a decorative time capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com. For other ideas of what to put in a teenage time capsule, check out http://www.education.com/activity/article/Make_High_School_Time_Capsule/

What is one thing you would put in your teenager’s time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

The post 21 Creative Ways to Use a Teenage Time Capsule to Build Relationships and Bond appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.