About Us
Hi, I’m Jax. I turn cremation ashes into ornamental keepsakes you’ll actually want to look at.
If someone you love has been cremated and their ashes are sitting in an urn or a box that just doesn’t feel like it represents them, you’re exactly who I make these for.
Each piece is handcrafted with care and reverence, using a blend of specialised plaster and a small portion of their ashes. The result is a personal memorial: subtle, beautiful, and full of personal emotional depth.
I have one of these on my lounge wall of my late son. I feel a big sense of peace having it to look at. It is so much nicer than looking at an urn.
Harry, Amberley
How Remains To Be Seen began
My Mum, my brother and my stepmother all passed away in quite quick succession. So, within a short space of time, I found myself and my family with ashes at home in various pre-made containers.
My Mum wanted her ashes divided between her four daughters. We each went out and bought a nice box. One night, a few months after she had passed away, I was lying in bed thinking about that box on the shelf. She’d never seen it. Never touched it. It had no representation of her as a person at all. I felt like I wanted something that represented her more than a nice box I had picked.
My brother Isaac’s ashes were sitting at Dad’s place in a plain cardboard tube with a silver fern on it, provided by the funeral home. Dad perched Isaac’s hat on top to give it a personal touch. I just thought: this is going to keep happening as we all get older. There has to be something a little bit different.
When someone you love is cremated, most people immediately think of urns as the main option, but urns are just a thing, a container. I started wondering about something more like an ornament. Something that sits in your home, or hangs on your wall, and lets you keep a piece of them with you in a gentler way.
So I started experimenting. I knew nothing about plaster or silicone, this was all just my busy brain trying things out. It took about a year and a half of testing to get it right: a plaster that sets without needing to be kiln-fired or physically heated, and holds together for generations.
The flecks of colour, different textures, and gentle variations in tone are individual fragments of a life lived and loved. The piece exists because they existed.
And this is the part I love. When you look at one of these pieces, you can see little flecks of your loved one’s remains throughout it. It literally wouldn’t look the way it does without them. Hence the name: Remains To Be Seen.
Once I got the base recipe right, the first heart I made with Isaac’s ashes went to my dad. He’s the most stubborn, old-school bloke you’ll ever meet. He hung it up high above a window, so Isaac’s looking down on him. And he tells me that when it catches his eye, he feels a sense of calm. I’d never heard my father talk like that.
That’s when I knew: what started as something personal had become a way to help others find comfort too. Since then, I have made every piece to honour life, memory, and the unbreakable connection that continues after loss.
We only use a small amount of ashes
If your loved one’s ashes are sitting in a box or an urn that doesn’t feel right, there is another option. And you don’t need all the ashes to do it. A small amount makes a piece, so you can still scatter or bury the rest, or share pieces across the whole family.
How I look after your loved one’s ashes
I make every piece myself, one at a time, in my workshop in Christchurch.
Treated like my own Mum’s. Every order is labelled and kept in its own space from the moment it arrives until it leaves. I follow the same 18-step checklist every time.
Made in shaped moulds. Each piece is individually made in your pre-selected mould, so no two are ever quite the same.
Every last bit comes home. Any ash left over from your measured amount is returned to you, down to the last grain.
Never reheated. The plaster sets naturally, without kiln-firing.
Made with care. Tell me one of your loved one’s favourite songs and I’ll play it while I make their piece.
Built to last. These pieces are made to be handed down through generations, like a stone.
Available across New Zealand. I’ll send a kit with everything you need to safely return the ashes, and your finished piece arrives carefully packaged, ready to hang or display.
An absolute great way to remember loved ones, very innovative and brilliant item to have on my wall.
Dean Wilson, Christchurch
Let’s make something for your loved one
Maybe your loved one’s ashes are still in a box in the garage, or in an urn you avoid looking at. They can become something beautiful instead. Something that’s there because they were here.
If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, I’d love to make a piece for your loved one.