Fall Date Night Idea: Make a Time Capsule

this post gives you a fall date night idea – making a time capsule. read on for a FREE printable to help get you started!

Anyone else getting into the fall spirit already?! 🙋 Cooler weather hit Vancouver this past weekend and just like that I am in the mood for all things fall. As you guys know Alex and I love doing monthly date nights (or date days as the case may be) where we do an activity or have an experience we haven’t had before.

One really cool date night idea (and since it’s September I’m calling it a fall date night idea now lol!) is to make a time capsule! When we celebrated our 1 year anniversary earlier this year we decided it would be a fun idea to make a time capsule about our first year together. If you have an anniversary coming up it would be a cool idea for that, or, you can just make a 2020 time capsule of things from this (crazy) year.

Below is a “How To” guide to get you started on your time capsule. Be sure to read the full post for a FREE printable you can include in your time capsule!

Ps. if you’re looking for other date night ideas, check out this post on 15 at-home date night ideas and my post on doing an at-home carnival date night!

Fall Date Night Idea: Make a Time Capsule

What You’ll Need:

• A box, jar or other container to serve as your time capsule
• Goodies to put inside the time capsule (ideas listed below)
• Pens
• FREE time capsule PDF

Time Capsule Ideas – What to Include:

• Photos
  – Relationship Time Capsule: Include your favorite photos/memories from over the years, but also go around and take photos of significant places to you. Examples: the first apartment you lived in together, your favorite place to go after work, etc.
  – Time Capsule of 2020:  Include your favorite photos from the year but also go take photos of places you went to a lot during the year. Examples: your go-to coffee shop.
• Trinkets
  – Relationship Time Capsule: Get sappy and romantic here! Do you have an old movie stub from one of your early dates? What about a plane ticket from your first trip together? A favorite CD? These will be so sweet to look back on in a few years!
  – Time Capsule of 2020: It’s been a CRAZY year. Think of things that you would look back on and reminisce or at least laugh! Examples: a disposable face mask, your go-to banana bread recipe, a newspaper from a significant date in 2020.
• Time Capsule PDF
  – Of course you can simply write letters to include but these fun work sheets are a great way to get started and get your creative juices flowing. You’ll see there are two worksheets to fill out – “This Year’s Events Guide” and “Goals and Predictions in __ Years”. The _ is there so you can fill in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, whenever the date you’ll be opening your time capsule is!

Filling & Storing Your Time Capsule:

• Burying It
  – We decided to actually bury our time capsule! Clearly this isn’t necessary but it seemed like it would be fun and it worked well for us since my parents live in the country and have been on the property since 1972 so they don’t plan on leaving any time soon! If you plan on burying your time capsule we recommend you place on all your papers and photos in a vacuum sealed bag to ensure they stay protected. We used this vacuum sealer  (highly recommend & affordable) and I also found this $37 one which would work great too.
  – We then placed the vacuum sealed papers and photos along with our trinkets into a large Tupperware container. Pro tip: Go with a shallow rectangle one  since it will mean you don’t have to bury it as deep! We went with a medium size to fit some of our trinkets but if you don’t have anything large this shallow Tupperware is your best choice.
  – We wrapped our time capsule in a garbage bag to add one extra layer of protection from dirt / the elements!
  – Make sure you do your research on where you’re burying it: ie. ensuring you are allowed to bury things there, ensuring there are no pipes or anything you could hit and think about ground freeze if you live in a cold climate!
  – Finally, make sure you mark where you buried it so you don’t forget! For us, my parents have 10 giant trees lining the driveway right beside their barn. We buried it right underneath tree 1 so it would be easy to remember and marked the spot with a giant rock.
• Storing It
  – Storing your time capsule clearly takes less work so may be a better option for you! If you’re not burying it you don’t need to worry about a perfect seal so you can use a shoe box, mason jar or any other ‘vessel’ that you want. When everything is packed it just pick a shelf or place to leave it where you won’t forget it!
• Set a Reminder!
  – Life gets busy so let’s be real, the chances of you remembering when to open your time capsule are slim to none lol. Think about ways you can create a reminder. For us, we’re opening ours in 10 years so we set calendar reminders in iCloud Calendar (… hopefully it still exists in 2030!?)

That’s it! I hope you like this fall date night idea! We had SO much fun making ours and I can’t wait to look at our goals and predictions page in 10 years and see what we were right and wrong about! Some of the fun predictions we included were:
– There will be (or will have been) a female President and a female Prime Minister
– At least one of our nieces / nephews will be married (crazy thought!!)
– We will have 2 or 3 kids
– People will be going to the moon for leisure travel