How it works
Here’s exactly what happens, from your order to the day your piece comes home.
Turning your loved-one’s ashes into something you’ll actually want to look at is a gentle, unhurried process. We make every piece by hand, on its own. We’ve set it up so the part you do is simple, and the part we do is careful.
Three simple steps
- 01
Choose your piece and place your order.
Have a look through the collection, pick the design that feels right, and order online. Once your order is confirmed, we get everything ready for you.
- 02
We will post you a kit with detailed instructions. You send us a small amount of ashes.
Your kit has everything you need to return the ashes to us safely, with tracking. You only send a tablespoon or so. The rest stays with you.
- 03
We make your piece, and it comes home to you.
We make it by hand over the following weeks and send it back carefully boxed, ready to hang or sit on a shelf.
That’s it. The rest of this page shows what happens in between.
What you send us
You don’t need much, and we’ve tried to make this the easy part.
When your order’s confirmed, we’ll post you a kit containing a small labelled bag, a measuring spoon, simple detailed instructions, and a pre-paid, addressed courier bag to send it all back in.
All you do is:
- Pop 2 full scoops with the spoon provided (that’s about 1 tablespoon, or 15 grams) into the labelled snap-lock bag, and seal it. If you don’t want to do this yourself or need help, you can always talk to your local funeral director to get help with this part.
- Slip that inside the padded bag, seal it and pop it all into the small box that it was posted to you in.
- Place it in the pre-paid courier bag and post it from any NZ Post shop. Posting it there switches on the tracking, so you can follow it all the way to us.
A tablespoon is genuinely all it takes to make a piece. So you’re never choosing between only this and everything else. You can still scatter, bury, keep some in an urn, or share pieces across the whole family. Nothing has to be an either-or.
Full step-by-step details are on the FAQs page.
Mixing the ashes
This is the part we love, so we’ll walk you through it.
When your loved one’s ashes arrive, they go straight into their own labelled space and stay there, start to finish, with your order details alongside them. We only handle one order at a time, and we thoroughly clean all equipment between each order. Nothing gets muddled, and nothing gets shared.
When it’s your order’s time to process, we softly blend your measured ashes through our plaster mix and pour it into the mould for your chosen shape.
Moulding, drying & finishing
Then it’s left to set and dry on its own for about 3 weeks. No heat, no kiln. We don’t rush this part. Once it’s properly dry, we sand it smooth by hand, mount it on a handcrafted wooden board fitted with a sawtooth hanger, and label the back. If you’ve chosen one of the hanging designs, we tie on the leather cord instead.
And here’s the bit that makes each one truly one-of-a-kind: the raw plaster starts out bright white. So every fleck, flaw, swirl, marble and speckle of colour you see in the finished piece is part of them. No two ever come out the same, because no two people ever were.
Adding a name or a few words
The stone itself can’t be engraved. There’s too much going on inside the plaster for a laser to bite cleanly, and we won’t risk your piece to force it.
What we can do is add a small metal plaque to the front of the wooden backboard, size permitting, so the name sits where you can read it at a glance. It holds a name, dates, or a short inscription on up to 2 lines, in silver, black, or gold.
Plaques are available in 2 sizes:
- Standard, up to 55 x 15 mm, 20 characters a line.
- Large, up to 100 x 15 mm, 35 characters a line.
You’ll see which pieces can accommodate a plaque on their respective product pages. It’s an optional extra, added with your choice of colour, size, and font when you customise your design.
There’s also a smaller, no-cost option worth knowing about: an adhesive authenticity ID label, stating the name of the person whose ashes are in the piece. You’ll be asked for the name when you place your order.
Engraving fonts
Here are the 10 fonts on offer, so you can picture your wording before you get to the cart.
When your piece arrives
Your finished memorial comes to you in a sturdy, custom-made box built to fit it snugly, with its sawtooth wall hanger already attached, our own authenticity tag, and your ID label too, if you added one. (Our extra-small Love Token hearts come in a neat wee pre-made square box of their own.)
People tell us opening the box takes their breath away a bit. You’ve seen the photo, but seeing the real thing, finished and sitting there, is something else again. Keep the box, too. It means you can take your piece with you anywhere: on holiday, to a family occasion, wherever you’d like them to come along.
And any ashes we didn’t use are tucked safely back in with it. Every last grain comes home.
We now have a beautiful art work that encapsulates some of my brother’s earthly body for our reflection and remembrance. Jax and the team at RTBS were a dream to deal with and made everything about the process so easy. Their compassion and understanding were such a wonderful experience.
Lisa, Christchurch
Ready when you are
That’s the whole process, from a small amount of ash to something you’ll actually want on the wall.
Whenever you’re ready, we’d love to make a piece for your loved one.