Tap the Skills of Your Funeral Director for Some Halloween Fun!

Halloween can be a time for me to have some fun with some of the skills I have acquired over the years working as a funeral director. One of the many hats worn by funeral directors and embalmers is what is called restorative art and cosmetics. We use these skills all the time to make the deceased look peaceful and natural. Death has a negative effect on skin tone as well as blemishes, and dis-figuration from disease or accidents. Learning these skills is part of our education in a college curriculum called mortuary science. The real learning goes on over the course of our careers and if you’re lucky you get to work alongside of a funeral director experienced in such an art. It can be very rewarding to be able to give survivors a chance to view and say goodbye when without your skills it would not be pleasant or possible at all.

So back to Halloween and a time to bring my skills to the dark side. No! I don’t dig up bodies to practice my craft. I don’t embalm road kill for lawn decorations either! But when the kids need face painting it’s time for me to shine. Peaceful , huh! Ten years younger, noooo. That’s not what they want is it. I always joke with them that I need them to lay on their backs and stay very still. This Halloween I began to wonder about how many other funeral directors have been called upon when it come to fun cosmetics. I’m sure I’m not unique . My two girls are getting older now 11 &13. My oldest, Jena told me she would do her own face this year, she did a great job! for the school dance last week. But today she asked me, when she saw a really creepy mouth on the internet. We got up early so she could be painted for school. It’s the first picture below.

Here are some of the faces we have done

Red Heart Queen

Heart Eater!

Bride Not To Be

Edward Scissor Hands

Join The Author Jeff Staab On Google Plus

Personal Cremation Urns

Every Detail is Captured

We have been getting a lot of press about our Personal Urns For Ashes, so I thought I would write a little about them myself. As many of you may or may not know I was a funeral director for over twenty years before starting Cremation Solutions. I attend the industry trade shows and read the trade journals. The industry has been trying to help make services and products more personal for some time now. In the urn department, urns with photos and engraved personal information has become popular. Even urns with digital slide shows are popular. I thought what about an urn that looks just like the deceased, what could be better than that!

The company called “That’s My Face” was the solution to the latest technology capable of producing such an urn. That’s my Face was founded by a PhD from the University of Cambridge (England) computer lab. ThatsMyFace.com specializes in patent-pending technologies around facial reconstruction, facial analysis and in transforming 2D portraiture into 3D sculptures. They make mask’s and action figures that look just like you! The best part is that they can do it from just a photo or two. They digitally create a three dimensional image from a two dimensional photo. The software can adjust coloration and fix blemishes and so on. I suggest people use images from their mid-life era to capture themselves in their prime. One recent customer wanted his own urn created in black and white and wanted his hand on his chin like Rodans famous sculpture “The Thinker”.

So we have been selling the urns now for two years. Sales are not as good as I had hoped for. I call it personalization gone too far! It seems that the Personal Cremation Urns just plain look too real. Creepy is the term that most used for their description. So they are not for everybody but most people do find them fascinating to say the least. At least the people that have purchased them are very pleased with the resulting urn. They rest on a handsome Verde marble base. A threaded plug is removed from the bottom of the base and the ashes are poured directly into the urn for all eternity. For a very personal one of a kind product that is selling well for Cremation Solutions, check our our selection of fingerprint jewelry. Fingerprint jewelry is jewelry that is made from an ink print of anyone’s fingerprint. Our fingerprints are like our one of a kind signature that nature has given each to us. No two fingerprints are alike.

I think in the near future I will offer them with the option of coming in a bronze tone. Casting of heads and bust have been around as memorials and art for hundreds of years and no one calls them creepy. The natural coloring as they are done now really brings them to life. Even the eyes look incredibly real.

Some of the strange request we have been asked are: Can you make them with movable eyes. Can we add a recording that is motion activated. I would like an Ozzy Ozbourne urn so I can spend eternity riding on the “Crazy Train”.  Lucky I have a sense of humor and am used to being asked strange questions. It’s not strange to me! twenty years in the funeral biz have prepared me. Ask away!!

Join The Author Jeff Staab On Google Plus