January 2027:
Pocket Altars & Tiny Shrines
What if you made a small home for what matters most, what would you put inside of it?
This month, we're building tiny altars.
Not religious objects — declarations. Small, handmade answers to the question: what in my life is worth tending this year?
A smooth stone. A photo that keeps getting buried. A scrap of fabric from something that mattered. A dried sprig of something you grew. A word you want to keep close this year. An altar doesn't need to be elaborate or explained. It just needs to be honest — a small corner of your world arranged around what's actually sacred to you.
We're starting the new year not with a list of resolutions, but with an act of devotion. Because knowing what you want to tend is a more useful orientation than knowing what you want to fix.
When We’re Gathering
Date: Sunday, January 10, 2027
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 and arrange our objects, we'll also…
Explore
What we consider sacred — and whether that word fits or needs to be reclaimed
What we've been walking past that deserves a place of honor
How intentional arrangement is itself a spiritual practice — regardless of tradition or belief
Gently Unlearn
That altars belong to specific religions — they belong to humans
That tending requires a lot — a corner of a shelf, an Altoid tin, a windowsill is enough
That naming something sacred is somehow too much, too precious, or not for us
Practice
Gathering objects from around your home that hold meaning, memory, or longing
Arranging them into a small altar — a tray, a tin, a box lid, a shelf corner
Naming aloud what you're choosing to tend in the year ahead
Creative Lineage: Who’s Inspiring Us
Our project this month draws inspiration from:
Día de los Muertos ofrendas — elaborate home altars built to honor the dead with objects they loved, food, flowers, and photographs.
Chinese ancestral altars (神主牌 shénzhǔpái) — found in homes across China, Taiwan, and diaspora communities, holding ancestral tablets, incense, fruit, and offerings.
Hawaiian ho'okupu — the practice of bringing intentional offerings to sacred sites and relationships as an act of reverence and reciprocity.
Andean apacheta — cairns of stones built at mountain passes and crossroads by Quechua communities, each stone an offering, a prayer, a mark of passage.
West African Vodun altars — intricate assemblages of objects, colors, and materials that maintain living relationship with ancestral and spiritual forces.
Anishinaabe medicine bundles — sacred objects wrapped and kept close, each one holding story, protection, and connection to ancestors and the natural world.
These traditions remind us that the altar is not a religious object - it’s a human one - a small deliberate act that says: this matters and I am keeping it close.
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 base: a small tray, box lid, wooden board, Altoid tin, matchbox, or shelf corner — any surface you can designate as yours
Objects that carry meaning: photos, stones, shells, candles, small mementos, fabric scraps, dried flowers or herbs, figurines, coins, keys — anything that holds a piece of what matters
Something to write with: for labeling, naming, or writing small intentions to tuck inside
For decorating your base: paint, fabric, paper, washi tape — make it feel like a place worth returning to
Optional: air-dry clay to make small vessels or figures; ribbon or twine; a small candle or tea light to place inside
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 begin a new year not with ambition, but with devotion — and what becomes possible when we tend what we love on purpose.
Megan Rossi creates with Chaparral Made, working with natural materials and the quiet power of objects chosen with intention. She knows that arrangement is a form of prayer — and she'll help us build tiny shrines worthy of the sacred ordinary of our everyday lives.
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.