History Trippin' 

After visiting Mount Rushmore and learning about the time capsule buried there I started thinking about making a Family Time Capsule of our own!  Maybe you’d like to try it too.  Click continue for the directions:

How do we make a time capsule? Get a fairly large, sturdy piece of Tupperware with a tight-fitting lid and a bunch of Ziploc bags for the individual items. The Tupperware should be about twice the size of a shoebox, or a little larger. If you like, you can get smaller pieces of Tupperware for each child, so they can have their own private time capsules inside the big one.

What do we put in it? This takes a little more thinking. Here are some tips:

• Don't put anything in that you're going to need, want or miss in the next ten or twenty years.
• Make it personal. The point is to remind you of the family when you open it, not geopolitical events that you'll be able to get out of a history book.
• If you're putting in paper, make sure that it's acid-free -- or spray it with paper antacid (there really is such a thing, and you can get it at hobby stores).
• Don't count on being able to use CDs, CD-ROMs, floppies, audio and videotape cassettes and the like when you open the capsule; standards for that kind of thing change quickly.
• If you're going to use recordings, try to get them on as many different media as possible.

• Awards
• Photos
  
• Stories and drawings by the kids
• Report cards (most kids will be pretty glad to see them go)
• Buy 10 shares of stock in a corporation and put the certificates in the capsule
• A list of predictions from each child, for the future in general and their future in particular
• A description of and by each kid
• A letter to all your future selves
• A letter describing your lives for the past year or so
• Anything small of sentimental value
• Favorite toys, dolls and stuffed animals (but make sure they won't be too missed)
• Postcards to the future from the past
• Slivers of skin or locks of hair from each family member (seriously, maybe they'll be able to clone the DNA or something)

Okay, I've got all the stuff. How do I pack it? Put everything in its own individual Ziploc and squeeze out all the air. Arrange in the capsule snugly, but don't cram it in. Try to fold papers as little as possible. Label all photographs with a pencil, or better yet write captions on a separate sheet of paper and just number the pictures with a pencil.

Be sure to include a list of what's in the box. Include descriptions, the more complete, the better: You won't remember a lot of this stuff when you open it (that's the point, after all). Don't forget today's date!

Restaurant supply stores sell little packs of silica gel to control humidity. Get some and throw a few in (but be careful, because they're very poisonous).

Put the lid on and tie or tape it shut. Using an indelible marker, label the outside with your names, current address, phone numbers, email addresses and any other contact info you can think of. If someone else finds it, you want to make it easy for them to find you.

Where do we put it?
This is the toughest part. Obviously, the best thing is to have your own land and bury it in a recognizable (and re-findable) spot. This isn't an option for a lot of us, though, so think of more reasonable spots, like the attic, the basement or the back of the closet.

If you do bury it, make sure it's deep enough not to be disturbed by floods, dogs and the like, and that it's far from trees and other potentially large vegetation with deep roots. Three or four feet is good enough for the depth of the hole.

DON'T bury it on land that isn't yours. For one thing, the land could be sold or developed over the years. For another, it's illegal.

How do we remember that it's there?  Try burying it and opening it during an annual family event, like a holiday or a child's birthday. If you've got one, your attorney will be glad to file the date away and remind you when the time comes. If not, some computer planners and schedulers work that far in advance.

How long should we leave it there?
It's really up to you, but don't do it for more than about twenty years. Any longer than that and you really need professional preservation techniques, and that gets into money.

What should we do when we open it?
That’s up to you.  If you want to know how we celebrate, stay tuned for Part II of this article, available sometime in August of 2019.

(from ivillage.com)