Life Trees: A Green Friendly Remembrance and Memorial

Throughout history, people have planted trees to commemorate a loved one’s life and have used nature as a way to connect with the natural cycles of life. With their impressive stature, strength and endurance trees are the perfect symbol of a living memorial that lives on after our loved ones have passed.

Life Trees provide an environmentally friendly way of remembering loved ones that will last for years and imbue their memory with natural beauty and strength.

Introducing Life Trees, an affordable, green friendly sympathy gift. A more natural way to remember and share the memories of a loved one with those attending the funeral service or who are unable to attend.

Trees not only mark a life well lived, they also create a space of comfort and healing. Recent studies have shown that patients in hospital rooms with a view of trees heal faster and school children learn better when exposed to green spaces. Trees help us to experience our natural heritage and connect with our deeply held spiritual and cultural values.

The Life Tree Farm professionals have now taken the concept of living memorials and created an easy way to get the tree seedlings in just the right style to suit your needs. Both for families and to share with those in attendance, Life Trees are a way of remembering and memorializing the decedent’s life. When a living tree is not practical, alternatives are available like seed packets or a tree planting program. With the tree planting program the Life Tree Farm does planting for you in the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. Families are given a letter of appreciation and a handsome certificate of acknowledgement to commemorate the tree planting.

Life Trees are available in every state, year round. The tree seedlings come in five tasteful styles, nurtured in its own earth within a beautiful keepsake bag. The keepsake bags are available in a large assortment of rich fabrics and colors. The trees are further personalized with ribbons and a custom message, or select a message card with a poem or quote in our catalog. It also includes the name and dates of the decedent. On the back of the card are planting and care instructions. Hundreds of combinations of the tree memorials are available to meet a wide variety of styles and budgets for families to choose from.

Life Trees are affordable. They can cost as little as a sympathy card & have far more value.

Funeral homes can now offer Life Trees. The families you serve will be able to honor a life with a beautiful tree that will live on in the decedent’s memory. The trees are customized and usually shipped within 24 hours of the order.  The Life Tree program includes all the marketing materials needed to start offering the Life Trees in your facility. Synthetic tree samples are included to display in your facility.

If you are interested in a different way to remember a loved one’s life, be sure to check out our wide selection of cremation urns, keepsake jewelry, and memorials at Cremation Solutions.

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Cremation Urns for Ashes at Cremation Solutions

Cremation urns come in all shapes, sizes, and styles from classic ceramic designs to more modern motifs to completely personalized urns like the Barack Obama one above. This urn can be customized to be shaped like anyone's face.

Purchasing a cremation urn is not something most people do many times during their life. When contemplating the perfect vessel to hold our loved one’s ashes for eternity, there are many factors that come into play. One of the first things to consider is where the cremation urn for ashes will be placed or kept and will they be kept at all or divided between family and friends. Today most people are choosing to scatter the ashes in one or more especially meaningful locations. In this case you may wish to use an urn that is specially designed for scattering the ashes. The location and method of the scattering will further influence the style of scattering urn needed. When the choice is other then scattering you should consider where the urn will be kept. We are always just a phone call or email away if you have any questions.

Some popular choices are:

  • Scattering the ashes back to nature in a place of natural beauty or special meaning.
  • Burial in the family cemetery plot or on a home site.
  • Placed in a columbarium niche in a cemetery or other location.
  • Kept at home indoors or outdoors, i.e. in the garden.
  • Placed inside a cremation monument.
  • Turned into cremation jewelry, art or an ocean reef

Once they have decided on the disposition of the ashes most people try to match the design of the cremation urn with the style and or personality of the person or pet. Sometimes you just see a design and say that’s it that’s the one. Certain designs somehow remind us of the life and how it was lived, what they wore, how they decorated, hobbies, careers, etc. Many cremation urns can be further personalized with engraving, photos, or a nameplate. One of the reasons Cremation Solutions offers so many cremation urn styles and designs is because we are all unique in this world and we consider urns to be sacred as life itself. Picking an urn for cremation is not a choice to taken lightly, so we endeavor to provide you with a wide selection that includes cremation urns both small and large made out of bronze, wood, biodegradable material, glass, marble, and more. Whatever style of urn you are looking for, we have it.

Cremation Urns in the Home: Whether the urn is to be placed on a mantle, shelf, cremation urn stand, in a cremation urn cabinet , or in a “Life Alter” at home you may want to consider the matching an existing décor and taste. Do you want the cremation urn to look like an urn? Some people prefer the urn not look like an urn at all. Many choices of urns blend into the décor or can be a piece of art with inner chamber to discreetly hold the ashes while serving as a center piece of art.

Cremation Urns in the Yard: People may choose to keep the ashes outside of their home. This is a nice option for those who might be considering to scatter the ashes in the yard, but because scattered ashes are not recoverable and people move and properties change hands, there are outdoor options that can be moved. First of all you can bury the urn in your yard. In this case you should use a cremation urn vault. An urn vault is a protective box that holds the urn inside that is sealed to be air and water tight. They are made to stand the elements and can always be dug up and moved if needed. A memorial stone marker is placed above the urn vault as both a memorial and location marker. Another favorite of Cremation Solution customers is our natural stone memorials which are large stone and boulders that have a special inner chamber to hold the ashes. These natural markers can be placed in gardens and along walkways and paths. Some simply look like a stone and some have the options of adhering a memorial nameplate.

Examples of cremation monuments for the yard or garden. These rock solid memorials will keep your loved one's ashes safe and secure from the elements.

Cremation Monuments are another outdoor memorial option. These are actual monuments like the ones in cemeteries, only they can be opened up to have an urn placed inside a special inner chamber called a niche. They are made of granite and come in many styles and colors and can be sized to hold individual cremation urns and even whole families in estate sized cremation monuments. Names can be engraved and photos can be laser etched to further personalize the monuments and if you move the monument can be relocated as needed.

Cremation Urns in a Cemetery: You may already have a family burial plot in a cemetery. Almost all cemeteries will let you bury urns on your gravesite. Most have regulations as to how many urns can be interred in a single grave and the depth of the burial. Urn vaults and markers are sometimes required. Cemeteries may have other options too. Some have columbariums. These are structures, usually made of stone, where you may purchase space for placement of the cremation urn. This space is called a niche. It’s like a mausoleum for urns instead of caskets. Some are indoors and some are outdoors. Many new cemeteries are also installing what is called a scattering garden. These are gardens or walkways that people can scatter the ashes in. The ashes are usually scattered on the ground and then raked into the earth. A central monument is often in place were the names are engraved of all who have had their ashes scattered.

Cremation Urn Options: Many people who choose to use a cremation urn will also set aside a portion of the ashes for other memorial options. Ashes can be shared among family and friends to create individual memorial options such as cremation jewelry, cremation diamonds or crystals and small urns called keepsake urns. These precious keepsakes are kept or worn by survivors and have become very popular because of the comfort they bring.

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Cremation Jewelry

Cremation jewelry is nothing new, for years people have used lockets to hold a small amount of ashes or hair. The concept of holding onto something personal of a deceased loved one adds special meaning to the jewelry. Although most cremation jewelry can still hold hair or flower petals and earth, most people choose to have the jewelry hold ashes.

Cremation Jewelry comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes; it's easy to find a design that fits the memory of your loved one perfectly.

Cremation jewelry became more widely available in the early 90’s when it was first marketed through funeral homes. Because Cremation Solutions is a web based company, we can offer a much larger selection then funeral homes. Our overhead is lower so we may offer better prices on our cremation jewelry. Cremation Solutions not only carries our own line of cremation jewelry but also work with several US based artist so we can offer our customers with a wide variety of hand crafted cremation jewelry custom made in the USA.

Most of our cremation jewelry is easily filled by the customer. Each piece comes with simple step by step directions to ad a small amount of ashes to a hollow chamber in the jewelry. A small screw is removed and a mini funnel guides the ashes into the chamber. Then just put the screw back in the jewelry piece, a drop of glue can be used for a permanent seal.

We have recently added a cremation jewelry piece to our fingerprint jewelry line. It combines the popular use of a person’s fingerprint on a pendant, but also has an inner chamber for cremation ashes. Some of our jewelry is made with the ashes being a part of the piece. With cremation jewelry beads and glass pendants the ashes are added to the jewelry while in a hot molten state. Cremation crystals and cremation diamonds are actually created with elements of the cremation ashes. When this type of cremation jewelry is ordered, we mail you a kit to safely mail some ashes directly to us.

One of the reasons cremation jewelry has become so popular is the continued growth in scattering ashes. People like the idea of our physical elements being returned to nature but also like the idea of retaining some of the ashes to always hold a part of the earthly remains close to themselves. Cremation jewelry and keepsake urns are the perfect solutions to satisfy both needs. Even when not scattering, cremation jewelry can and comfort and a sense of closeness that survivors need.

Thumbprint Cremation Jewelry lets you remember your loved one by keeping a unique imprint them by you side.

Jewelry for ashes give us a sense of connection that other jewelry just can’t provide. It’s being able to hold something sacred and very personal close to your heart and a sign of our continued love and devotion. Cremation jewelry is something that is often shared among family members that also reinforces the bond between surviving family members. For example a group of grandchildren will feel and be more connected when each is wearing a pendant containing grandma’s ashes. When cremation jewelry also takes the form of a religious or spiritual symbol, it can help reinforce our beliefs as well as ad a sense of being.

When I was a funeral director and cremation jewelry was first introduced in the 90’s, I must admit I was a skeptic and did not think many people would want jewelry that contained ashes. Yes, I thought it was a gimmick to help increase sales. My mind was soon changed after the first few families received their cremation jewelry. When I ran into one women in the supermarket she confessed and thanked me for the now very special piece of jewelry she now always wears as a pendant. Like myself, she too was skeptical even when she made the purchase. Now she says the cremation jewelry somehow makes her feel closer to the memory of her lost son. She picked a dolphin because he loved the ocean and she scattered his ashes in a favorite fishing area. Her two daughters also wear a cremation jewelry pendant in memory of their brother.

Since then I have heard hundreds of similar stories of peoples experience with cremation jewelry. I now have reverted to a favorite philosophy when introduced to new memorial choices, and that is, if it feels right then it is the right thing to do.

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