There are many different topics, hobbies, interests we all have. What would you make a time capsule about for future generations to learn more about what life is like now?

With Christmas coming and the new year approaching, what would you put in a time capsule to represent 2014?

There are many different themes or ideas you could make a time capsule for. Basically, anything you see pictures for on your cell phone you could probably create a time capsule for. See the suggestions below. Then read on about ideas of what to put in some of these topical time capsules.

Different Time Capsule Ideas

1. College years
2. School (elementary and high-school)
3. New Career
4. Business
5. Housewarming (Welcome Home)
6. Family
7. Pets
8. Clubs (boys and girls club, academic club, social club, etc)
9. Vacation
10. Youth Group
11. Military
12. Church
13. Anniversary
14. Seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter)
15. Memorial
16. New Years
17. Christmas
18. Easter
19. Thanksgiving
20. July 4th Independence Day
21. Valentine’s Day
22. Hanukkah
23. Any hobby
24. Farming
25. Sports
26. Any holiday
27. Baby Shower
28. Bridal Shower
29. Relationship or Dating
30. Bucket List
31. Cars
32. Music
33. Movie
34. Outdoors or Camping
35. Science
36. Nature
37. Eras (80’s, 90’s, or whatever you want)
38. Social Media
39. Best Friends
40. Adoption
41. Sweet 16
42. Quinceanera
43. Bar Mitzvah
44. Birthday
45. Over the Hill
46. Weight Loss
47. Inspiring Life Quotes
48. Self Help
49. First Car
50. Baby
51. Wedding
52. etc. (Other or anything you can imagine). The sky’s the limit.

What to Put in a Time Capsule

So what would you put in these “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsules? What items from your time period, are important to you? Make sure to include modern things and heirlooms of the past. If you include any digital or electronic items, make sure you also include the media to play your videos or audio recordings in the future as well.

•  Daily local and world newspaper
• DVD of family, friends, social events, etc.
• Television guide
• Favorite magazines
• Event programs, ticket stubs, or passes
• Pictures
• Receipts from events, or daily life (like the cost of gas at this time)
• Popular toy
• Items (heirloom and new) that show significance to your for a specific subject or event.
• Floor plan or first key to your home
• Popular music recorded
• Menu from a favorite restaurant
• Daily calendar showing your life in just one month
• Drawings or messaged from friends and family sent by cards, email, text, etc.
• Current currency
• Year in Review worksheet filled out
• School, work, or club rewards and certificates.
• Message to the Future letters from friends and family
• Bottle of your favorite candy or drink.
• Fashion Catalog
• Travel pamphlets
• Current ads
• Papers written
• Party trinkets
• Souvenirs
• Favorite quotes or sayings
• Cards
• List favorite books, authors, etc.
• Top 10 movies or actors
• Future goals
• etc.

Talk with your friends and family for other ideas of what to put in your “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule. Get your time capsule today at http://www.timecapsule.com/product/milestone-collection-any-occasion-diy-time-capsule/. Also check out the other helpful ideas from Mashable listing 13 Must Have Items in Your 2014 Time Capsule.

What are some other items you can think of to put in a time capsule?  Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post What to Put in Any Occasion DIY Time Capsule appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

Growing up in a family with little money, meant making the most out of the few vacations we had. My husband’s family went on several vacations growing up. When we married, it was like bringing two different, beautiful worlds together.
My mission is to inspire people to care about family, bonding moments, preserving memories, and helping you pass on traditions as keepsakes. One way to make memories, is taking family trips together, whether it be close or far.

Take a Vacation to Places your Ancestors Lived

My parents were all about creating “teachable moments.” Growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the Allen County Public Library holds the world’s second largest family-research collection, it is a no wonder why I would encourage the use of time capsules and preserving family. One great “teachable moment” would be to take your kids on a vacation visiting all the places where your ancestors grew up. This would be a great to have lessons on heritage, and taking pride in where you come from as a family. Read our previous blog to help you build a family tree as you visit these vacation spots, at http://www.timecapsule.com/time-capsule/how-to-create-a-family-tree/. This blog will also help you find out where your family ancestors came from, and therefore know where to travel.

Preserve your Souvenirs

While you are driving around preserve your family fun souvenirs you find in a time capsule. What a great way to pass on these road-trip memories to your children’s children. You could even make a game out of it and put together a geocache container to leave as a mini time capsule near one of your past relative’s properties, for others to find and get to know your family. What a great legacy to leave behind. Leave behind your family motto in the time capsule container. Again for more geocaching ideas, check out our blog at http://www.timecapsule.com/creative-baby-ideas/time-capsule-baby-shower-game/.

What to Bring to Enhance your Memory Lane Vacation

• Journal to record your family thoughts and feelings.

• Camera to take pictures to possibly put on your family tree later, put in a scrapbook, or keep in your family time capsule.

• Map and highlighter to mark where your family’s ancestors live and you visited.

• Comfortable walking shoes to take hikes and collect seashells, rocks, postcards, or leaves while on vacation, to keep in your time capsule.

• Extra small containers to save sand in, and bring home.

• Jar or Baby Time Capsule to collect your mementos in as you travel from location to location.

Save your items in the Baby Time Capsule, to give back to your child to open when he or she is older and has children himself or herself. It will be like taking that family vacation all over again as you all gather around the time capsule and reminisce about your ancestors. You can get a Baby Time Capsule at http://www.timecapsule.com/product/babystimecapsule/.

We hope you have fun on your trip, and grow closer as you discover more about where you came from. We also hope this blog was able to give you some creative ideas to help you on your trip. You can also make your family vacations memorable by asking fun questions like these at http://mrdarcycheated.blogspot.com/2013/04/50-questions-for-family-road-trip.html.

What would you put in your time capsule from your ancestors? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie
www.timecapsule.com

Note: “Every Summer Has a Story” quote photo taken from http://photoletters.blogspot.com/2013/08/summer-quotes.html

The post How to Make Family Vacations Memorable 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.

As a continuation from my last blog about meeting my wife, I let you in on a little secret while I waited for her to email me back.

I drove to be with my family with a smile on my face.  You see, I was carrying a secret.  I was living in Indiana.  The place where I was heading was in North Carolina.  The day before I left for my vacation, we received a little over 10 inches of snow and the temperature was a very cold 7 degrees as I loaded my minivan.  This really didn’t bother me though.  The day before I had gotten an idea that was sure to make me the hero of my wonderful nieces.  I checked the online weather map and the temperature where I was going would be in the upper 60’s all week.  So, I dug out my cooler from the camping gear in my shed, opened the lid and left it outside to get really cold.  The morning that I left, I filled that cooler with the fresh snow, closed the lid, wrapped it in a blanket and loaded it in the back of my van.  I drove all day wondering if I would receive my email before the snow melted in the cooler.

I Had A Plan

I drove for 11 hours that day and arrived in the evening at my sisters house.  I hadn’t seen them in over a year, so we exchanged the usual hugs and kisses.  We talked for a few minutes, then came the time for my big secret.  I gathered my sister, her husband, and my 4 nieces in their side yard and opened the back of the van.  They were a little disappointed when I didn’t pull out a big box of Christmas gifts and wrapped presents.  They were even a little confused when I removed the blanket from the cooler.  Finally I lifted the lid and they suddenly realized that we were about to have a snowball fight!  With a temperature of 66, we began to grab handfuls of this frozen delight and throw it at each other.  My youngest niece, who was 4 at the time, had never seen snow.

The Neighborhood Comes To Play

As we ran around in the side yard throwing our snow at each other, the neighbors began to wonder what all the screams and squeals of joy and laughter were all about.  They looked out their windows and kids from all around the neighborhood began to come out and join our little snowball fight.  This became an epic battle for survival.  It ended up being my sister, my 4 nieces and myself against the 7 of the neighborhood kids.  No snow was left unused.  We were hiding behind the lawn furniture.  I was using a metal trash can lid as a shield.  We were running around and hiding behind the cars.  Even after a snowball was thrown, it was not out of play.  It was picked up and thrown again.  We wasted nothing.  It didn’t matter that there were pine needles and dirt in the snow.  It took over an hour for the snow to completely melt.

Preserving Memories

When it was over, we were all sweaty, had pine needles in our hair, and mud on our skin and clothes.  The yard was muddy and torn up.  Every piece of clothing we were wearing needed to be washed.  But, it was worth it.  You see, I don’t get to see my family as often as I want.  When we get together, I want our time to be special.  The cleanup was a lot of work, and the time spent having the snowball fight was too short, but, the memories will last a lifetime.  It has been over 10 years since we had our 66 degree snowball fight and we still talk about it. For tips on how you too, can preserve these kinds of lasting memories in 3 easy steps, check out http://familyshare.com/preserving-family-memories-in-3-easy-steps.

Precious memories like this will last a lifetime.  Yet, in the back of my mind I wondered. . . Had she (my future wife) emailed me? Stay tuned for the next coming weeks on our website to find out what happens when I meet my wife.

What is your favorite memory as a child? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

The post Milestone Moment: The Secret to Preserving Memories appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.