Fingerprint Jewelry Meets Cremation Jewelry The “Phoenix Collection”

A cherished piece of jewelry is seldom beloved simply for its bling factor. When you talk to people about  their favorite jewels and ask them why they are treasured, they’ll invariably tell you that someone special gave the jewel to them, that they obtained the jewel at a special place, or that the jewel reflects an important event or period in their lives. The idea of a treasured heirloom piece of jewelry is at the heart of our Phoenix Collection of fingerprint jewels. While beautiful in and of themselves, these jewels are crafted with the sole purpose of keeping a beloved someone’s essence close. That essence accompanies you everywhere—to work, to the grocery store, to a far-flung vacation destination. When you wear a memory jewel from our Phoenix Collection, you’ll feel close to your treasured someone.

Introducing the Phoenix Collection

Finger Prints With Ashes Too
Amazing New Designs

Cremation Solutions is excited to launch our brand new line of fingerprint and cremation jewels in the Phoenix Collection. In myth, the rare and beautiful phoenix rises from its ashes into magnificent splendor. Our Phoenix jewels are designed with the precious ashes of a loved one to pay a wonderful tribute to their memory, to their spirit, and to the love you shared as a spouse, family member or cherished friend. While Cremation Solutions offers various lines of jewels made from cremation ashes, this special line also embodies the fingerprints of loved ones or family members if you choose. In appearance, these jewels demonstrate exquisite beauty and outstanding artisan craftsmanship, but their greatest worth is the essence of a loved one that they embody forevermore.

Artisan Quality

Each of our Phoenix Collection jewels is crafted by skilled jewelry artisans. Our artisans have trained specially to craft these precious jewels. Their skill isn’t simply a matter of technique and know-how. Our artisans have thoughtfully undertaken bereavement training coursework because we believe that empathy and reverence for the materials in their possession must govern the entire jewel-crafting process. For this reason, you can trust our professional jewel makers to handle the small amount of your loved one’s ashes with tender care. The jewel-making process is one of patience as well as skill. We do not believe in rushing. We take our time to create your heirloom Phoenix Collection jewel.

Our Line of Phoenix Jewelry

Cross Cremation PendantOne of the remarkable features of the Phoenix Collection is its diversity. You can choose from various jewelry types and colors before placing your order. The Phoenix Collection jewelry is unique in that it incorporates both ash and fingerprints into its creation. The result is always a breathtaking piece of extraordinary workmanship paired with a genuinely eye-catching design. As you peruse this exciting new line of jewelry, you’ll find options that are sure to suit any style.

Our line of Phoenix Jewelry includes the traditional cross design, a stunning pendant that features a central diamond shape where your loved one’s ashes will be placed. You can then choose a color for the protective resin that will be placed atop this section. The Infinity Heart and Family Ties pendants also boast a central resin-covered focal point that features your loved one’s ashes. The Infinity Heart boasts an timeless floral motif, while the Family Ties pendant features a center point surrounded by fingerprints cast right onto the metal. The resin that’s used to protect the ashes comes in a stunning array of hues that include marine blue, citrine yellow, lagoon green, royal purple, and crimson ruby. These resins help transform your loved one’s ashes into a gem-like feature that provides the beautiful heart of your Phoenix Collection jewel.

Pandora Cremation Beads
Pheonix Beads are Pandora Compatible

The extraordinary Phoenix Collection also features Pandora-like bead charms that will provide a dazzling focal point for your jewelry. These Thumbies or Thumb Beads as they’re referred to can also features space to showcase your loved ones ashes under protective gem-like resin as well as fingerprints. We feature Thumbies in various shapes like cylinders, hexagons, and squares. Some customers prefer to get a combination of beads or even a single bead to highlight on a bracelet or necklaces. Owing to the popularity of trend-right Pandora-style beads, our Thumbies have become a permanent part of our collection.

How Do We Create Our Phoenix Collection Jewels?

Phoenix Jewelry
Associated with the Sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor

Our skilled jewelry artisans take pride in each completed memory jewel they create. Through careful procedures and patient crafting, our artisans will create for each customer a one-of-a-kind jewel. Before placing your order, you will need to select a Phoenix Collection style and select options. Jewels can be fashioned with engravings too. When placing your order, you’ll be able to design your customized piece of jewelry.

We will send each customer a special kit for ash placement and fingerprinting instructions. While you can email us fingerprint images, it’s important for you to use our kit for sending in your loved one’s ashes. We require a very small amount of ash and our kit will walk you through the process. Each kit also ensures that no ashes are ever mixed up with any others. Our artisans work only with one ash kit at a time because protecting the integrity of the process is a priority of our work.

If you have questions about our beautiful Phoenix Collection or any of the other jewelry lines we carry, be sure to get in touch with our helpful staff today. We are here to help you in any way we can as you commission your heirloom jewel or jewels. Our Phoenix Collection jewelry is ideal for gift-giving or for commissioning as the gift you give yourself.

See The Entire Selection of Fingerprint Jewelry (Click Here)

 

The Beauty of Cremation

Walking The Line

There are so many reasons that more and more people are now choosing cremation. Here are some of the main reasons that half of all deaths now elect cremation as the final disposition.

  • More Economical
  • A Greener Earth Friendly Option
  • Less Time Sensitive (Freedom of Time)
  • Easier, No Cemetery Required
  • Endless Memorialization Options
  • Don’t Want To Take Up Space (Land)
  • Like The Idea Of Scattering Ashes
  • Religious Freedom
    Cremation Growth Rate

Funeral CostCOST: When you get down to the basic cost of a funeral, cremation can be significantly cheaper. The average traditional funeral these days can cost $8,000.00 to $15,000.00 or more. And a basic cremation is $1,000.00 to $2,000.00. Why such a broad range in price? Simple, it depends on who you call! And of course the choices that you make. Over the years, I have noticed something about how the general public describes the cost of a funeral that I would like to clear up right now. I noticed that when people quote the cost of a traditional funeral they tend to group all of the related costs together! For example “Mom’s Funeral Cost $18,00.00”… but the actual funeral costs might have been $8,000.00 and included the cost of a cemetery plot, digging the grave, flying in certain relatives, putting aunt Millie up at the Hilton and a $6,000.00 reception at a catering hall. But when quoting the cost of cremation people tend to just quote the basic cost “Instead of having a funeral Dad was cremated and it only cost $995.00”. They don’t mention the $10,000.00 memorial catering cost at the country club, the band and the travel costs! So this is one reason the difference in Cremation versus a Traditional Funeral seems like a huge difference in cost. In actuality Cremation is just a disposition like burial is a disposition and all the related costs depends on the CHOICES THAT WE MAKE. “The cremation cost $995.00”. The burial including the purchase of the plot and digging the grave might only cost $2,000.00 but people never just quote this cost, they lump it all together with the choices that they make. These are the conversations that really annoy funeral directors and instantly put them on the defense of the funeral costs.

What really annoys this particular funeral director is the general consensus that cremation means there isn’t a funeral. “There’s no funeral…he’s being cremated”! The truth is just the opposite. With cremation you can have any kind of funeral you want, even a traditional funeral! The only real difference is that instead of the body going to the cemetery, it goes to the crematory. Remember that cremation like burial is just the final disposition. The word “Funeral” simply means that the body is present at the funeral service. If you have a service without the body present because it was already buried or cremated then we use the term “Memorial Service” or other phrases like a Celebration of Life or a Going Home Ceremony. But if the body is not there it’s not a funeral.

Green AshesGREEN: The general public perceives cremation as a greener alternative to burial. A traditional burial takes up land permanently. And the chemicals that are used for embalming are cancerous and could leak into the water table. Here in the US an outer concrete burial vault is used and requires the manufacture of 1.6 tons of concrete and steel, leaving a large carbon footprint through the process of manufacturing. The caskets are often made of steel and many are shipped here from China (not green). Wooden caskets that are made from unsustainable sources like mahogany destroy the rain forest. BUT cremation isn’t exactly green either! Cremation involves burning fossil fuels (not green) and can release mercury from dental fillings into the air. What’s really green is called “Green Burial” and is only permitted in a natural burial site. More and more of these types of cemeteries are becoming available. Green burial is a burial in a naturally biodegradable casket or shroud with no embalming and no burial vault in a shallow grave. Green burial is the most natural and greenest disposition of all.

TIME: Because we usually want to get people buried in the ground before they rapidly begin to decompose, a burial requires a time frame of urgency that demands some fast leg work and usually having the funeral with in a week! And if you are Jewish then you’re supposed to have the burial by sundown of the day after death! With cremation you have nothing but time. Of course if you’re going to have public visitation with the body present you are back on a time line. But once the cremation is complete the ashes have no “shelf life” and you can plan a memorial celebration of life at your convenience. (WARNING) There is still such thing as waiting too long. Sometimes to meet the schedules of so many, the services are put off for months. For example, when someone dies in the Fall and the family elects to wait until the Spring and make the services part of the family reunion at the club. TOOOO Long! Remember that funerals are to support the living in their grief and loss. A proper memorial services lays the foundation for the healing to begin, just like a wedding provides a platform of support to the joining of a couple for life. With too much time in-between, the months leading up to the service can create more unnecessary grief for the survivors due to a lack of support.

Easier: Planning a funeral with the disposition of cremation can definitely be easier. You have the freedom of time on your side and don’t have to feel rushed about getting the person in the ground! You don’t have to select a casket, a vault, a cemetery plot, and other related items. You have the time to involve family members in the planning process and hopefully can create a memorable experience that will showcase a life well lived. Hire a certified celebrant and put some thought and time into this once in a lifetime event. You have one chance to do it right, so take your time and plan a Celebration of Life that people can connect with and relate to. This is why I promote Celebrant funerals and not some old 2,000 year old ceremony that an uninformed clergy member throws together! (Insert Name Here). Use the time to write down stories to share, collect pictures for display or better yet turn the pictures into a memorial video. Play the perfect music and serve the food that the deceased would be proud of! There are so many services available through your local funeral home that can add to the memorial ceremony experience, so use the time to learn about them. And do some research via the Internet on how to create a special and memorable memorial event.

Memorial Options: There are so many options available when you choose cremation. Like a Traditional Burial you can still have visitation with the body present for the final goodbyes and support for the family. You can also have an event in just about any public location that you desire. Consider a place that can handle the anticipated number of people who will attend. Choose a place where people are comfortable enough to join in and share a ceremony that will shine a spotlight on the life lived and the many ways that this person has affected the lives and the fabric of life. Use pictures, objects, belongings and stories to help those attending connect. The spirit of the deceased will often convey what would be appropriate for their personal celebration.

Cremation CasketThe money saved by choosing cremation can be used to purchase goods and services that will further personalize the experience of joining together to commemorate a life well lived. First, select a casket. This can be as simple as a cardboard box, a simple wooden box or an ornate cremation casket. They call these things alternative containers and by law you need one for cremation to take place.

If you are having a traditional viewing before the cremation then you should get a casket with a fabric interior that is suitable for public viewing. Most funeral homes rent caskets for this purpose and then a cardboard box is used for the actual cremation.

For the ceremony you can use things like memorial folders or prayer cards and custom programs that follow the services and can then be saved as a memory keepsake. Large photos, custom blankets and a video tribute can add to the memorial service. And a tree seedling or seeds that can be taken home and be planted in memory and will continue the circle of life.

Art Made With Ashes
Glass Art Made With Ashes

Cremation UrnIf an urn is used to hold the ashes, many put it on display at the service on a table or alter that is set with candles and flowers. When selecting an urn you should first know the final disposition of the ashes. Will they be kept at home on display, buried in the cemetery, placed in a niche, or scattered to the winds. Cremation urns are specially designed to suit all of these different destinations. Even floating biodegradable urns for scattering in lakes and oceans. One new style of urn converts into a birdhouse following the scattering of the ashes! With the new “Loved One Launcher” ashes can also be blasted 70 feet into the sky along with confetti and streamers. Talk about going out with a bang! When it comes to ashes there is no right or wrong way… just personal choices and family traditions. Often family members will use small keepsake urns to divide the ashes up between family and friends. These keepsake urns allow those who choose to scatter to retain a small amount of the ashes forever.

Ashes Jewelry
Jewelry To Hold Ashes

Cremation JeAshes inside Jewelrywelry serves a similar purpose and can be worn as a lasting tribute and close connection to the loved one. There is cremation jewelry that has an inner chamber to hold the ashes inside and also cremation jewelry that is custom made with the ashes.

Assorted Cremation Monuments

 

 

Even monuments are made that will hold the ashes inside as an alternative to burial. Some are styled like traditional monuments and many look like natural rocks and boulders that can blend right into the family garden. The advantage of cremation style monuments is that they can be moved as well as serve as a memorial focal point.

Scattering: The decision to scatter ashes is no longer unique. With more than half of all Americans and Canadians now choosing cremation.

Clem's Ash Scattering 2005.09.19 016Scattering is NOW the #1 disposition of cremated remains in the United States and Canada and continues to grow. Funeral professionals are the only ones that aren’t catching on. Most funeral professionals consider scattering a dirty and unprofitable choice of final disposition. They will help you get buried or interred. They will help you create funeral and memorial events. But when the choice is to scatter the ashes, they will help you as far as the door! Some of the more progressive funeral homes now offer special urns for families that choose to scatter the ashes, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Cremation can be an exciting and beautiful way to celebrate the deceased and bring together their friends and family for a positive and memorable experience. It provides an opportunity for the departed to bring together those that they leave behind and touched most during their life well lived. Cremation: it can be more economical; it can be greener; it allows for more time and planning; and it has infinite options only limited by the creativity of the living!

Cremation Jewelry Going Mainstream

Ashes Jewelry
New Pandora Styled Cremation Jewelry

Funerary art and jewelry have played a strong role in commemorating the loss of a loved one throughout history. Memorial jewelry initially gained popularity because there weren’t many alternatives for remembrance; photography didn’t exist and there weren’t a lot of options for tangible mementos. While many technological advances are available to our society today, memorial or cremation jewelry continues to be popular as a very personal and meaningful way to hold on to connections to those who have passed. As this ancient tradition continues and even grows in popularity today, Cremation Solutions is happy to offer a wide array of cremation jewelry and customized services that turn a small amount of your loved one’s ashes into an heirloom creation that you can wear close to your heart forever.

Preserve Your Connection

During the Victorian period it was common for people to save small locks of their loved ones’ hair within jewelry like lockets. This practice has never gone out of style and it likely never will. People will forever mourn the loss of a loved one just as they hope to celebrate the wonderful aspects of their loved ones’ lives. Cremation jewelry helps people remember that connection, and helps to reinforce that the love shared will never truly be gone from their lives.

Types of Cremation Jewelry

There are various types of cremation jewelry that suit a wide range of budgets and style preferences. From colorful beads and charms to elegant pendants and more, we’re sure you’ll find something special to commemorate a loved one. We even often a selection for pets who have passed on. In addition, commemorative jewelry makes a meaningful gift for family members, who will appreciate having something to treasure that reflects the pure essence of their loved one.

Cremation Solutions offers three primary types of cremation jewelry:

  • Custom-made jewelry (such as glass and ceramic pieces) where the ashes are infused into the material during creation to become a permanent part of the piece.
  • Cremation crystals and diamonds actually made from the natural elements of the ashes.
  • Jewelry designed to be easily filled by the customer directly. Each piece has a hollow chamber into which a very small amount of ashes can be added.

Cremation Glass Jewelry

Ashes inside Jewelry
One of a Kind Glass with Ashes Infussed

Cremation glass jewelry is colorful and makes for a lovely medium for preserving a small amount of your loved one’s ashes. Cremation Solutions offers a dazzling array of styles and colors. Each pendant is handmade by an artisan who specializes in glasswork and glass-making techniques. Choose religious motifs like crosses or sentimental designs like hearts. You’ll find lovely glass designs to consider such as infinity symbols and abstract geometric shapes. Glass jewelry is durable because it’s formed as a solid, so you don’t have to worry that it will be more fragile than any other type of jewel, which makes it an ideal consideration as a cremation jewelry item.

Cremation Crystal Jewelry

Crystals made from ashes
Choose The Cut and Color of Crystal

To create a dazzling keepsake, consider ordering a crystal infused with your loved one’s ashes amidst beautiful sparkle and shine. The ashes are infused into crystal during its creation, using a patented process. Our crystal design gallery is filled with colorful pendants, rings, and earrings. Each crystal has an innate and radiant glow, perfect for reflecting the beauty and the timeless essence of your loved one.

Cremation Diamonds 

Diamonds from Ashes
Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Cremation Solutions offers certified, high-quality, custom diamonds infused with the ashes of your loved one to stunning effect. These high-end jewels will truly become breathtaking heirlooms for you and your family to treasure. Each diamond is inspected, authenticated, and graded. These are true diamonds, created with the same chemical makeup and properties as mined diamonds. Choose from an array of colors, including elegant white, enchanting blue, or regal red to create a jewel that you’ll want to wear every day, for its beauty and for the ashes within its sparkle.

Cremation Jewelry Galleries

When you visit Cremations Solutions, you’ll find we have a myriad of galleries devoted to cremation jewelry designs. We invite you to peruse each one to discover your favorites. Within our traditional collection, you’ll find crosses, hearts, stars, and other meaningful symbols. Our modern collection boasts attractive and sophisticated styles that gleam with precious metals. Our nature collection features natural elements like seashell designs, birds, butterflies, leaves, and acorns. We even offer memory beads and charms perfect for Pandora-style bracelet systems. You can choose a design that reflects your interests or your loved one’s former interests, or contact us about creating a custom piece for something that is truly unique. Our artisans are happy to hear your ideas and collaborate with you to achieve the design you are after.

Ordering Your Cremation Jewelry

Ashes Jewelry
Jewelry To Hold Ashes

Once you decide on a jewel or jewelry, Cremation Solutions will send you a kit with detailed instructions on sending us your loved one’s ashes. In most cases, we only require a small amount. If you send us more than we need to create your jewelry, we will return the excess to you along with your beautiful piece of jewelry. We assure you that we take exceptional care of each order. Ashes are scrupulously labeled, contained, and tracked. Our process ensures the integrity of each order.

As Cremation Solutions is a well-respected New England-based company that specializes in cremation memorials and creations. You can trust our artistry and impeccable customer service. Every piece of jewelry we undertake to create is precious and we honor the role we play in creating this meaningful commemorative jewel that preserves your loved one’s ashes and memory.

If you have questions about our ordering process or our patented creation process, please contact us so we can share more information with you. We hope you’ll get to know our collection of jewelry and that we may be of service if you ever desire to honor your loved one with the timeless tradition of cremation jewelry.

Cremation Solutions

Cremation Glass Orbs and Jewelry

Cremation Glass Globes


At Cremation Solutions, you’ll find a wide array of top quality cremation gGlass Beads and Jewelry For Asheslass orbs and jewelry for ashes. These keepsakes are the ideal way to commemorate a loved one’s life and hold them close to your heart. These glass memorials are all made by American artist and offer a unique one of a kind keepsake that holds the precious earthly remains of your loved one. Our Glass cremation jewelry is also ideal for your cherished pets. After all, pets are family too. Our talented artists handcraft the cremation jewelry and create an attractive one-of-a-kind piece that you can treasure forever. Not only do you receive a quality piece, you can feel confident that your loved one’s ashes will not be mixed with others, as each order is carefully tracked and our strict process does not allow for any intermingling of ashes.

How Glass Cremation Glass Orbs are Made

Depending on the selected design, ashes are arranged on a metal table in a specific pattern. A steel rod known as a punty is placed into molten glass in a bowl. The design is created as a small ball of molten glass is rolled into the deceased’s ashes. When the design is complete, the small ball is dipped again to cover the ashes in the glass. Each order is completed separate to ensure that no ashes are mixed. Once the desired design is complete, the glass cremation jewelry piece is placed in a kiln to slowly cool off. The piece is stored on a numbered grid, and the location is recorded on an invoice. When the piece has cooled off, it is returned to a secure location with the specific vial of ashes.

Cremation glass orbs are available in a variety of styles, including swirls and galaxies. Also known as glass orb memorials, the orbs can be placed on mahogany lighted stands. Depending on the style orb that you choose, you can select from up to 16 colors. The swirl glass orb is a classic design that displays three lines swirling upward. You can also opt to add a decorative wrap of colored glass along the base. All of our orbs are crafted from top quality crystal glass and use just a small amount of cremation ashes. This way, you can scatter or use the remainder cremation ashes for memorial urns.

The LED lighted stands are crafted from Honduran mahogany, and a cluster of LED lights illuminate the cremation glass orbs. With high quality metal plates, each lighted stand can be etched for personalizing. The LED lighted stands are the perfect accompaniment for these exquisite glass orbs.

Cremation Jewelry
Capture the memory of loved one with one of our cremation jewelry sets. Cremation earrings, pendants and bracelets can be matched, mixed or purchased separately. Choose from classic, vintage, quilted designs and more. The vintage designs are inspired by the diversity of colors found in nature. They represent the timelessness of forever memories and are comprised of stunning glass beads. All sets are perfectly matched for a uniform look. The rings are crafted of quality sterling silver and are open in the back for easy adjustment.

Dichroic Glass with Ashes
Dichroic Glass Tiles Are Vivid As Can Be

The unique line of quilted cremation pendants features the style of a traditional patchwork quilt. The glass strips are fired at lower temperatures to create a bold and brilliant texture that you can actually feel. These pendants are available in a variety of vibrant color combinations. You can also choose to have the ashes hidden or visible. With two secured sterling silver balls, these pendants are the ideal match for any omega chain. The pendants also come with black silk ribbon. They are high quality pieces of jewelry for ashes.

Glass Cross Pendant Holds Ashes
Three Colors Available

Our fine line of glass cremation jewelry also features beautifully crafted cross pendants.

Each is a unique keepsake. The glass is textured and comes in many vibrant colors, including tie-dyed colored schemes of earthy green, bright pink and soothing blue. These unique cross pendants feature a sterling silver bail that can be worn with any of your favorite chains. Like our other glass cremation jewelry pendants, a fine black silk ribbon is included.

Here is an example video of one of our glass pendants being made.

Ordering is Easy

At Cremation Solutions, we make the whole process of ordering cremation jewelry easy. Our clients can order right online or call us. Once you place the order, we will mail you a kit with all the instructions and materials you need to complete the order. In the United States, shipping is always free. If you do have any questions about your order, you can call us or submit your inquiry right online. Our reps are always on hand to answer any of your questions or concerns. Our goal is not to only provide you with the best jewelry for ashes, but to provide you with A+ customer service.

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Vatican Prefers Burial and Opposes Scattering Ashes

Lord knows Christians are scattering ashes in locations that are both meaningful and beautiful. Favorite fishing holes, golf courses, mountain vistas, parks and beyond. It doesn’t seem to matter where they as far as the Vatican is concerned. no where is good enough!

The second Italian-language edition of the ‘Funeral Rites’, produced by the Vatican Publishing House, was presented recently at the headquarters of Vatican Radio. Among other things, the new edition contains fully revised biblical texts and prayers.

The first innovation refers to the visit to the family, which was not part of the earlier edition. Msgr Angelo Lameri of the National Liturgical Office of the Italian Episcopal Conference, explained how “for a priest this a moment to share in the suffering, to listen to the mourning relatives, to learn about certain aspects of the deceased’s life with a view to a correct and personalised presentation during the funeral”.

Thou Should Not Scatter!

Another change involves the revised and enriched ritual for the closing of the coffin; with a number of different texts for various situations: an elderly person, a young person, or someone who has died unexpectedly.

Other changes involve the pronouncement of words recalling of the deceased at the moment of the committal, and the introduction of a broad range of possibilities for the prayer of the faithful.

However the most significant new departure, contained in the appendix of the book, concerns cremation. Msgr Lameri explained that the issue of cremation had been placed in an appendix to highlight the fact that the Church, “although she does not oppose the cremation of bodies, when not done ‘in odium fidei’, continues to maintain that the burial of the dead is more appropriate, that it expresses faith in the resurrection of the flesh, nourishes the piety of the faithful and favors the recollection and prayer of relatives and friends”.

In exceptional cases, the rites normally celebrated at the cemetery chapel or the tomb may be celebrated at the cremation site, and it is recommended that the coffin be accompanied to that site. One particularity important aspect is that “cremation is considered as concluded when the urn is deposited in the cemetery”. This is because,
although the law does allow ashes to be scattered in the open or conserved in places other than a cemetery, “such practices … raise considerable doubts as to their coherence to Christian faith, especially when they conceal pantheist or naturalistic beliefs”.

The new ‘Funeral Rites’ also focuses on the search for the meaning of death. Concluding the presentation, Bishop Alceste Catella, president of the Episcopal Commission for Liturgy, explained that “the book is testament to the faith of believers and to the importance of respect and ‘pietas’ towards the deceased, respect for the human body even when dead. It is testament to the pressing need to cultivate memory and to have a specific place in which to place the body or the ashes, in the profound certainty that this is authentic faith and authentic humanism”.

Here at Cremation Solutions we understand people are going to do what they want and often for disregard for the the rules of their church leaders. In the Jewish faith for example, cremation is strictly forbidden, yet I recent spoke recently to the owner of a Jewish funeral home in Florida who said he is now cremating 35% of the Jews he serves. He does not promote cremation at all, yet people continue to request it. Next thing you know dogs will be living with cats and watching kitty porn!

Christians now can choose to be scattered in the holiest land in all the world. Funeral homes are now working with a company called Holyland Ash Scattering. The company makes it easy to be scattered in their own private memorial scattering garden in Israel. Right along side the Jesus trail, where Jesus lived and taught his followers. People you use this service to return to the holy land are thrilled to be able to lay to rest the earthly remains of their loved ones on such sacred and protected grounds. Survivors can make the pilgrimage in the future and visit the memorial garden and reflect on the life that was, as they gaze out over the sea of Galilee. A popular trend now for people who choose to scatter, is to retain a portion of the ashes. With so many using cremation jewelry to keep and hold their loved one close to their heart and keepsake sized urns. I wonder what the Vatican thinks of people wearing jewelry that holds a portion of ashes. We may have to wait a couple hundred years to find out.

Scattering Ashes in the Holy Land
Serving Funeral Homes Everywhere

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Cremation Nation

With almost half of all Americans choosing cremation and more then 60% of them choosing scattering as a final disposition, the sky is the limit!  Or the garden, the sea, the mountains, or the golf course depending on people’s preferences.

It’s a good thing so many Americans are choosing cremation for their dearly departed. The new options for memorializing ‘ashes’ would make some of them turn in their graves.

By Tai Moses

Americans are Scattering to The Wind....

WE WERE SCATTERING my father’s ashes. Ostensibly, that’s what we were doing. None of us had ever scattered ashes before, and no instruction manual came with the plastic urn (which in its army-green rectangularity resembled a C-ration box), so we were proceeding at an awkward clip.

First off, we didn’t have adequate ash-scattering paraphernalia. Always have the right tools for the job, my father once told me. I had stopped at a supermarket and bought a sleeve of paper cups. Now we all stood around gripping them with sweaty palms, wondering who would be the first to open the C-ration box and scoop up his or her portion of cremains.

Our lack of familiarity with ritual, especially the rites and ceremonies connected with death, added to our unease, and it occurred to me later that this might be one reason why so many people skip the scattering and keep the box in the closet.

Awkward as the aftermath may be, the choice to cremate is becoming increasingly popular as our living reality shapes our dying habits. Families whose members were once laid to rest in the same patch of ground for generations have lost their attachments to the land, as well as to the past. Possibly somewhere in Romania, there is an abandoned Jewish graveyard that holds the ancestors of my father’s family. My father was born in Brooklyn. His mother is buried among strangers in Staten Island and his father’s grave is somewhere in Southern California. His sister’s ashes were scattered near San Francisco. America is our family burial plot. In his book The Undertaking, poet and funeral director Thomas Lynch observes that “One of the obvious attractions of cremation is that it renders our dead somehow more portable, less ‘stuck in their ways,’ more like us, you know, scattered.”

TODAY, Forty Percent Americans choose cremation for themselves or their loved ones. In California, Arizona and Florida, where most of the residents originally came from someplace else, people are cremated at twice the national rate, and among the nomadic population of the Bay Area, more than 70 percent of the deceased are cremated.

Until last year, California was the only state in which it was illegal to freely scatter ashes. State law allowed for cremated remains to be buried or scattered in cemeteries, brought home or scattered at sea at least three miles offshore. The relaxing of the law–ashes can now be scattered on land and at sea as long as they’re 3 miles away from the shoreline–has resulted in a sort of entrepreneurial free-for-all, with people thinking up increasingly creative things to do with human remains.

Karen Leonard was research assistant to Jessica Mitford, the funeral industry gadfly who wrote The American Way of Death. Now executive director of Redwood Funeral Society in Sonoma County, Leonard finds the cremation trend a positive one. Americans, she says, are under less pressure to abide by the manufactured rituals of a funeral home.

“Now people have the freedom to do whatever they want,” she muses. “The nice thing about cremation ashes is, unlike a body, you can do a number of things. There’s only one thing you can do with a body. A lot of people divvy up the remains and everyone gets to create their own rituals, which makes it incredibly individualistic and personal.

“I’ve been to some really far-out memorials,” Leonard continues. “Anything you can think of can be done. That’s all because we’ve been able to break the funeral industry’s stranglehold over cremation.”

Formerly the most no-frills method of committing human remains to eternity, cremation has become the vehicle for some unique procedures from the beautiful to the bizarre, depending upon one’s taste. And as sometimes happens when people become unmoored from convention, their newly fashioned customs take on elements of the absurd. Our ancestors would be spinning in their urns if they knew what was being done with their cremated brethren.

In the past year alone, the U.S. Patent Office has granted 41 patents involving human cremains, among them inventor David Sturino’s football helmet-shaped crematory urn. In his patent application, Sturino argued that even in death, people want their individuality to show: “If given the opportunity, it is believed that many individuals would choose to identify their cremation ashes as those of a football fan for eternity,” he wrote.

The indusrty has gotten creative in their cremation urn offerings. Some “alternative remembrance” urns double as jewelry boxes, picture frames, jewelry to hold ashes and clocks. Others can be fashioned on a customer’s specifications; one customer, whose husband had been a bowling fanatic, asked for an urn that incorporated a bowling pin. Lynch wrote that one of his clients had him place her husband’s ashes in an empty whiskey bottle, which she then had wired as a lamp. “He always said I really turned him on,” she explained.

DEATH IS BY NATURE untidy. It begins and ends with clutter, physical and psychological. The beauty of cremation is that it reduces people to a size positively Lilliputian and makes them eminently transportable. Still, practical problems do arise. This must have been what Douglas Casimir was thinking about when he dreamed up the dissolvable urn (U.S. Patent #5,774,958), which negates the necessity for mourners to have any contact with the ashes during scattering. Relatives can simply heave the biodegradable scattering urn, ashes and all, into the deep and it will dissolve, relegating the remains to the water.

As Casimir commented (perhaps from personal experience?), “When the urn is opened and ashes are sprinkled upon the sea, the wind often causes the ashes to blow about and the ashes sometimes get blown upon the deceased’s relatives who are sprinkling the ashes, thereby causing an unpleasant experience for those involved.”

A dissolvable urn would have been of great help to Dave Eggers, author of the recent memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The sad slapstick saga of what to do with his mother’s ashes is a motif that runs throughout Eggers’ book. He finally decides to throw the cremains into Lake Michigan, all the while torturing himself with the fear that he has made the wrong decision, that this last gesture to his mother–the scattering, the lake–is somehow not enough, is inadequate.

Upon opening the cardboard box, he finds to his consternation that the ashes look like cat litter or “little rocks, pebbles, Grape-Nuts, in white and black and gray.” Then he spills some of them on the ground and tries to kick them into the water with his foot, but, “Should I really be kicking my mother’s ashes? … I stand up quickly and throw, this time some of the cremains sticking to my palm, which is now sweaty … Should I throw them all in one place, or redirect the throws each time? Should I hold on to some for later, to deposit elsewhere?”

Desperately, he empties the last ashes from the bag into the lake, “like shaking a goldfish out of a Baggie. … This is what it’s come to–winging her remains into the lake.” Now with the introduction of scattering tubes, the process is much easier

"Life Tree's"

LIKE MANY PEOPLE who die suddenly, my father had left no instructions for what he wanted done with his remains. We decided to put his ashes under a eucalyptus tree along the Santa Monica path where he had often liked to walk. He would become part of the tree, its soil and roots, its limbs and leaves. Now the people at the “Life Tree Farm” have made it simple for all those attending a memorial event can get a tree to plant as a true living memorial.

I was in charge of doling out the ashes. Everyone ended up with uneven shares and I noticed people sneaking furtive peeks at one another’s cups. I confess, I was glad of the chance to see my father’s ashes, even to touch and smell them (they’re odorless). They were undeniably his–the box was stamped indelibly with his name–and in the feeling of unreality that followed his death, they provided a much-needed focal point. Sure, I recognized the painful absurdity of the whole procedure. It even got tiresome to keep alluding to how entertained my dad would have been by the bumbling farewell we gave him. One would think our little scattering ceremony was watched over by a grinning Cheshire father, his face etched with a permanent expression of mirth.

One by one we emptied our Dixie cups under the tree. Everyone had a different system. My brother shook the ashes energetically out of his cup; I turned mine upside down and let the ashes fall in a blurred stream onto the ground.

I expected them to sift ethereally away into fairy dust, but they just sat, lumpen and gray atop the leaves. It looked like someone had just cleaned out a Weber. The next day, and the next, the cremains sat there. Finally, a week later, it rained, and they began to disperse into the soil.

MY SON PASSED away four years ago last week and his body was cremated. He asked me before his death to put his cremains into a volcano. This sounds strange but his reasoning was sound. He said he did not want to be put in the soil because worms and insects would eat him and he did not want to be put into water to be fishfood. He wanted a volcano so he could become part of a rock and stay on the earth for centuries. Do you know of any active volcano where this is possible?”

The question comes as no surprise to the discussion list moderator of the website VolcanoWorld (http://volcano.
und.nodak.edu/), who has himself “had similar thoughts about becoming part of a volcanic rock.” He directs the bereaved father to Kilauea in Hawaii, where he believes it would be possible to pour ashes directly onto molten lava, where they could harden with the rock.

For many, co-mingling one’s remains with the natural world brings a sense of symbolic immortality. Volcanoes would probably be more popular among the dead if they were as accessible as, say, the ocean. A majority of people request that their cremains be put in the sea, scattered from private planes like the one owned by Scott Dixon of Ashes by the Bay in Monterey. “It’s an increasingly popular trend,” he says. But for ocean lovers who want their cremains permanently entombed in a lasting monument, there are other options.

A Reno, Nev., company called LegaSEA makes an oceanic time capsule that doubles as a memorial urn. The LegaSEA memorial, fashioned of bronze and glass, is deployed from a boat into international waters. There it descends to the seafloor and rests for eternity, or until it’s discovered by future generations, “making one’s life the subject of archaeological interest possibly thousands of years into the future.”

Another ocean option comes from Georgia-based Eternal Reefs, Inc., which will “turn your loved one’s ashes into a living coral reef.” Eternal Reefs mixes cremains into concrete to create artificial reef modules, made to last 500 years or more, which are placed in locations around the world where the reef could use a little help. Loved ones can be on hand when the reef balls are deployed and can also charter a dive boat and visit the memorial reef later. Once the modules are put in place they’re there to stay, creating new habitats for sea life.

Options like this make the dead not only more interesting, but useful. In some cases they can even be decorative. An outfit called The Ancestral Tree causes the dead to practically rise from their ashes: its “Eternal Bonsai” are planted in a mix of soil and human cremains. The process raises thorny questions, however. What if the tree/person gets sick? Imagine the attendant emotional trauma if the bonsai succumbed to some miniaturized arboreous affliction.

Without tombs or headstones, those mute reminders of mortality, how do we remember our absent, ashen dead? Human beings like dates. They serve to frame a life, the way a picture frame encloses a photograph of a beloved. Undertaker Thomas Lynch recalls how a friend’s widow asked him to scatter her husband’s ashes in a favorite fishing spot. But when Lynch paddles downstream, ashes by his side in a Stanley thermos (less conspicuous than an urn, the widow thought), he finds he can’t fulfill the request. Instead he buries the cremains, thermos and all, under a tree on the riverbank. “I piled stones there and wrote his name and dates on a paper, which I put in a flybox and hid among the stones. I wanted a place that stood still to remember him at,” he writes.

The need to create something to help the living remember the dead inspired Mill Valley architect William E. Cullen. Cullen, president of Relict Memorials Inc., invented and patented a process that turns cremated human remains into granitelike tablets. To the tablets he affixes bronze plaques inscribed with names and dates. The tablets contain the integrated remains for hundreds of years, and since they weigh only 20 pounds or so, can be moved easily from one location to another.

Cullen perfected his technique on roadkill, and eventually made his first Relict for–and from–his son’s cremains. “I needed some sense of my son’s presence,” he explained. “To scatter his ashes would be as though he had never existed.” The younger Cullen’s Relict is in the memorial garden of the family’s church.

Recently the media reported that a Kentucky bookbinder and printer was mixing cremains with pulp to produce the pages of bound volumes called “bibliocadavers.” But when I called Timothy Hawley Books in Louisville, the eponymous proprietor laughed sheepishly and explained that it was a jest that got out of hand. “I’m a bookseller,” Hawley said. “I just put some stupid joke in the front of each of my catalogues.”

Nonetheless, Hawley’s hoax generated enough serious interest to indicate that there’s a real market out there for bibliocadavers. The process was reported in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s. Hawley was also contacted by a woman in Wisconsin who is starting a business doing different types of memorializations and wanted to use him as an independent contractor. She already had several customers lined up who were interested in becoming bibliocadavers. Hawley had to turn her down.

“It wouldn’t even work,” he said, “because of the paper chemistry–the ashes would not bond with the paper pulp.”

Maybe not, but what about another element of a book? Mark Gruenwald, the late Marvel comic-book writer, came up with an artistic use for his earthly remains. As per his request, he was cremated and his ashes were combined with ink and used to print a special edition of his comic book series Squadron Supreme. “He remained true to his passion for comics, as he has truly become one with the story,” his widow wrote in the book’s foreword.

Cremation ashes have even joined the ranks of interactive multimedia. Ohio-based Leif Technologies makes a “Viewology cremation urn” that not only holds the ashes of the deceased but is equipped with a flat screen monitor with a video slide show and biographical narrative about the departed.

THE ETERNAL ASCENT Society is one of many companies that have flourished advertising their services on the web. Eternal Ascent claims to hold the only patent in the world “for cremated remains put inside a very large balloon and airlifted to the heavens,” says Joanie West, 62, president and owner.

Three years ago, West and her husband, who own a balloon and gift shop in Crystal River, Fla., began marketing the process she describes as “a beautiful way to enclose a memory.” Cremains, or a portion of them, are deposited inside a biodegradable balloon which is inflated in a specially designed acrylic chamber. Balloon and chamber are transported to the release site, where the mourners have gathered. When the balloon is released, West explains that it ascends five miles into the atmosphere, freezes (it’s 40 degrees below zero up there) and fractures into millions of pieces.

“You look up and you see a rainbow or a sunrise or a sunset or a cloud and you think of that person,” says West. The Eternal Ascent Society has been so popular, inundated with requests for services from people all over the country, that West and her husband are preparing to sell franchises in other states, with California first on the list. “California should be a wonderful place,” says West. “They’re ready for it.”

For many people, even the sky isn’t the limit. In fact, some of the spectacles one can purchase seem to be attempts to bypass the unpleasant business of bereavement. Death doesn’t have to be a sorrowful event, they imply; it can be entertaining–a Deathstravaganza!

Celebrate Life!, in Lakeside, Calif., makes specially modified fireworks shells (patent pending) for cremains dispersal over the ocean, accompanied by a musical theme. You can almost hear a note of pleading desperation in the text of the company’s brochure: “What if instead of a hole in the ground there was fire in the sky?”

Celebrate Life! has all sorts of pre-packaged pyrotechnic celebrations that are customized for deceased individuals, veterans, children and couples. There are even special “ethnic” celebrations. “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” comes with a display of green fireworks and a rendition of the Irish-American ballad.

The ultimate send-off comes from the Houston, Texas, firm Celestis, Inc., “the world’s leading provider of post-cremation memorial spaceflight services.” It costs about $5,000 to have Celestis put your loved one’s cremains–or a vial containing a symbolic portion of them–into orbit around the earth. After several years, the Celestis memorial satellite re-enters Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes, “blazing like a shooting star in final tribute.”

In 1997, Celestis made headlines when it successfully launched a portion of the cremated remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and counterculture icon Timothy Leary into low earth orbit aboard a Pegasus rocket.

BUT SHOOTING STARS, fireworks and gigantic balloons bring only temporary respite from the emptiness of loss. As the writer Richard Brautigan said, death can’t really be camouflaged: always at the end of the words, someone is dead.

Later the day of the scattering of the ashes, I heard myself utter this melodramatic sentence: “I buried my father today.” The inadequacies of language–after all, I hadn’t buried him. We had left him, or what was left of him in his reduced circumstances, somewhere outside in the gathering dusk in Santa Monica. In fact, we had unwittingly violated the part of California law that stipulates scattered ashes should not be distinguishable to the public. I conjured a scene: A jogger kneels to tie her shoe and sprints off with some of my father’s ashes in the tread of her Nikes.

For a long while I toyed with the idea of getting a plaque on a cremation monument bench for him, someplace I could visit, something solid and immutable, with writing on it. A “Beloved Father,” a favorite quotation, some dates. A chunk of real estate. In the end, I settled for a sort of renewable relic: a scrap of the eucalyptus tree. I went back and plucked a leaf, and when time reduces it to dust, I will go back and get another one.

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Cremation Jewelry Provides Thoughtful Keepsakes

Cremation jewelry comes in all shapes and sizes, including traditional style necklaces, dichroic glass, rings, and even custom cremation crystals and diamonds.

Cremation ashes are traditionally scattered, buried or kept in an urn, but sometimes it is helpful to have a small keepsake with which to remember loved ones. Such an object can be very helpful throughout the grieving process and beyond. Our Cremation Jewelry for Ashes is designed so as to preserve the memory of a loved one in a very real and beautiful memento. We offer a variety of necklaces and pendants, all of which either have inner compartments meant for ashes or actually incorporate the ashes into the piece itself. The jewelry only requires a bit of ashes, so the rest of them can be scattered, kept in an urn or buried.

We are proud to offer a wide selection of cremation jewelry keepsakes, with a variety of shapes, styles and materials to choose from. Some examples include Traditional Collection, which features religious symbols, and our Nature Inspired Pendants, which aim to emulate by the beauty and joy found in the natural world around us. We are even able to create a unique diamond using cremation ashes. Regardless of style, all of our jewelry is elegantly and tastefully designed, ensuring a dignified future for a loved one’s ashes.

Since our Cremation Jewelry for Ashes is designed to help the bereaved cope during the grieving process, its functionality is not limited to cremated remains; our pieces can also be used for other items of emotional significance such as hair, flower petals or dirt.

As with all of our products, we hope that our Cremation Jewelry for Ashes provides some comfort to those coping with the death of a loved one. Incorporating ash into the pieces helps to preserve a soul’s beauty, and speaks to emotional and aesthetic considerations simultaneously, all the while giving the bereaved something to remember the departed by. Although the grieving process is never easy, such a talisman can be a helpful touch.

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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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