June 2026:
Pocket Altars & Traveling Shrines
What if devotion is small enough to fit in your pocket?
This month, we're making altars out of Altoid tins and matchboxes — tiny sacred spaces you can carry, or tuck on a shelf, or slip into a drawer where only you know they live.
A pressed flower from a walk you don't want to forget. A photograph the size of a thumbnail. A feather. A fortune. A stone from a place you loved. A scrap of fabric from someone who mattered, all brought together.
Ninety minutes to gather the small things, make something with your hands, and build a sacred space that nobody else needs to understand. To remember that the holy is portable — and that you get to decide what deserves your devotion.
When We’re Gathering
Date: Sunday, June 14, 2026
Time: 2:00-3:30pm EST/11:00-12:30pm 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 build tiny sacred spaces, we'll also…
Explore
What deserves our devotion — and who got to decide before we did
How altars hold both grief and gratitude in the same small room
What it means to tend to something privately, with no one watching
Gently Unlearn
That the sacred belongs to religion, or to someone else, or somewhere else
That rituals have to be explained to count
That big feelings require big containers
Practice
Gathering the small objects that already hold meaning in your life
Making a space — with your own hands — for what you want to keep close
Sitting with what it feels like to say “this matters” without justifying why
Creative Lineage: Who’s Inspiring Us
Our project this month draws inspiration from:
Día de los Muertos ofrendas — the Mexican tradition of building altars to the beloved dead, where photographs, food, and marigolds keep the ones we've lost in conversation with the living.
Buddhist traveling shrines — portable devotion for pilgrims and wanderers, a reminder that practice doesn't require a temple.
Jewish mezuzot — small scrolls fixed to doorframes, turning the ordinary threshold of a home into a sacred one.
Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes — the American artist who spent his life gathering scraps, feathers, maps, and small toys into boxes that still feel like whispered prayers.
These artists and traditions remind us that the act of gathering & arranging small things is itself a declaration that says: this is holy, because I've decided it is.
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
Something to frame: a photo, letter, ticket stub, recipe card, child's drawing, fabric scrap, pressed leaf, journal page — anything that carries meaning for you
A frame: thrifted, dollar store, repurposed, or made from cardboard — any size, any condition
Mat material: cardstock, watercolor paper, scrapbook paper, kraft paper, or even pages from an old book
Cutting tools: scissors or a craft knife for clean mat edges
Optional: washi tape, paint, stamps, or decorative paper to embellish your frame or mat
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 practice devotion as something private, portable, and wholly your own.
Megan Rossi creates with Chaparral Made, working with natural materials and the quiet power of objects chosen with intention. She knows that small things — a stone, a feather, a scrap — can carry more weight than we expect, and she'll help us build containers tender enough to hold them.
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.