November 2026:
Capsules and Confessions
What does this year need someone to remember - even if that someone is just you?
This month, we're making time capsules.
Not the kind you bury in the backyard. The kind you make for yourself — a small, handmade container that holds the real story of your year. Not the highlight reel. Not the version you posted. The secret victories nobody applauded. The quiet failures that taught you something. The thing that cracked you open that you haven't told anyone about yet.
A time capsule is an act of curation. You're deciding, on purpose, what this year actually was. What deserves to be sealed up and saved. What your future self will need to find to understand who you were in 2026.
Ninety minutes to gather, arrange, and confess — to yourself, which is the only audience that matters.
When We’re Gathering
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2026
Time: 3:00-4:30pm EST/12:00-1:30pm PST
Duration: 90 minutes
Where: Online
(Zoom link sent at registration)
Cost: $20
What We’re Really Reclaiming
Most people don't come for another project; they come for ninety minutes that belong to them.
Some are in a season of transition. Some are reclaiming creativity they set down a long time ago. Some are just reclaiming a Sunday afternoon from everything that wants it.
Come as you are. Leave with something you made and a little more of yourself than you walked in with.
This Month’s Making
Making and conversation go hand in hand. As we gather, arrange, and seal our capsules, we'll also…
Explore
What this year actually contained — beyond the version we performed for others
The difference between what was hard and what was important
What we want to carry forward and what we're ready to seal up and leave behind
Gently Unlearn
That only the highlight reel is worth preserving
That admitting it was a hard year is the same thing as failing it
That your story needs an audience to be worth telling
Practice
Gathering objects, images, and words that tell the real story of your year
Curating them into a small handmade container — a box, a tin, an envelope, a jar
Writing one honest confession to seal inside: something only your future self needs to read
Creative Lineage: Who’s Inspiring Us
Our project this month draws inspiration from:
The Wunderkammer — the Renaissance "cabinet of curiosities," a private collection of objects chosen to represent the known world. Personal, idiosyncratic, utterly human. Your time capsule is your own cabinet of 2026.
Aboriginal Australian tjurunga — sacred objects kept and passed down within communities, each one holding story, lineage, and memory. The object as vessel for what must not be forgotten.
African American memory quilts — fabric scraps carrying stories, coded messages, and collective memory across generations. What gets sewn in is what survives.
Frida Kahlo's diary — kept in the last ten years of her life, one of the most honest self-portraits ever made. A deeply personal confession and proof that private records are often the truest ones.
Lakota winter counts — pictographic calendars painted on buffalo hide by designated keepers, recording the single most significant event of each year. Not everything — just what mattered most.
The Voyager Golden Record — NASA's attempt to capsule humanity into a single object sent into space. What would you put on yours?
These traditions remind us that the act of gathering and sealing is itself a declaration: This was real. This was mine, and it deserves to be remembered.
What You’ll Need
The Usual Suspects: Keep these basics on hand for all Art & Alchemy sessions:
Scissors
Glue stick, white glue, and/or glue gun
Markers, colored pencils, pastels, or crayons
Paper (any kind works)
For This Session
A container: a shoebox, tin, mason jar, envelope, paper bag, or any small box you can decorate and seal
Contents: photos, ticket stubs, receipts, notes, a pressed flower, a fabric scrap, a headline — anything that holds a piece of this year
Writing materials: index cards, small pieces of paper, or sticky notes for your confessions and annotations
For decorating your container: paint, washi tape, collage materials, fabric scraps, stamps — make the outside match the weight of what's inside
Optional: wax or a sticker seal to close it; ribbon or twine to tie it shut; a label for the outside that says what year it holds
What You’ll Receive: A Zoom link, detailed supply list and inspiration guide will be sent when you register, along with a downloadable guide to our favorite craft products.
Your Co-Hosts
Alice Chen has spent years studying how people make meaning from the materials of their lives. She holds the reflective space for our gatherings — asking the questions that slow us down long enough to hear our own answers. This month, she'll guide us through what it means to be an honest witness to your own year — and what you might finally give yourself permission to name.
Megan Rossi creates with Chaparral Made, working with natural materials and the quiet power of objects chosen with intention. She knows that what we choose to keep reveals what we truly value — and she'll help us build containers worthy of the year we actually lived.
You’re inner creative is waiting for you. So are we.
Join Us
What is Art & Alchemy?
A monthly VIRTUAL gathering where we make things with our hands with what we’ve got in our homes while tending to what's happening in our hearts.
Each session weaves together a specific creative project with facilitated reflection on questions that project holds. We're about creative practice as a way of staying grounded, reclaiming time for yourself, and being in joyful company with others doing the same.
No experience needed. No talent required. Just you, your hands, and whatever you've got lying around.