My bleeding hearts are popping. So sweet to see.

How about some heart-shaped memorial stones for your Spring garden?

Weather-proof and durable, and best of all:

Snowdrops and daffodils are strong and beautiful.  They survive  harsh weather conditions, neglect, and continue to multiply.

City planners and developers love the Bradford Pear tree and it’s always an early bloomer.

The Bradford Pear has a distinct odor. Lately? I’ve been smelling a strong cat pee odor.  Turns out?  It’s the Bradford Pear trees!

Forsythia brings the explosion of early spring color. My neighbor sculpts and manicures his bush, trying to keep it contained. Personally, I think it looks better on the wild side, like fireworks.

What I learned today:

For 10 years one of my clients showered and shared her bed with a cockatoo named Elvis.

Cockatoo

Elvis liked to ride in the car and eat cheeseburgers and ice cream at the DQ.

He would hold up a foot and scream “Raspberry!” and want you to blow on his toes.

Client has nine other birds in the parrot family, and Elvis was never really part of the bird population. He preferred to perch on the shoulder of his master. He was kind of an attention whore, and had to be near (or on) when master was in the house. Folding laundry, watching tv, or going to the bathroom, there he was. Evidently, it’s not uncommon for the cockatoos to live to be 70 or 80 years old. Even with all that love in the room, Elvis only made it to 10.

This is the bird urn his owner selected. While my client prefers a traditional burial for herself, she has instructed her kids that Elvis’ ashes will be placed in her casket when the time comes.

A Home for Elvis

Rest in peace my cheeky little cockatoo.

Other posts on our bird loving families.

Isis is usually shown with her arms spread, always ready to receive. She covered a lot of territory. I was first introduced to Isis as a kid through the magic of television.

My favorite was Wonder Woman, who always prayed to The Mighty Isis.

Lynda Carter

Check that wingspan:

Powerful? Isis was the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, law, and funeral rituals. One of the most popular goddesses in Egypt, she had her own priests and many temples were built in her honor.

We’ve commissioned several styles of urns in the image of Isis for families to use as a keepsake urn for small portions of ash, flowers, or jewelry, or for smaller pets. We’ve had several cat owners purchase these for their cats named….Isis.

Isis Pet Urn

One of our newer urn styles is inspired by one of the oldest images: The Arc of the Covenant.

Ark of the Covenant Urn

We’ve created a cast metal urn to honor St. Francis and bless the sweet creatures he protects, and has become one of our most requested pet urns. This urn can serve as a pet urn or keepsake urn for animal lovers, holds pets weighing up to 55 pounds.

Saint Francis of Assisi is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment, and Italy. It’s customary for Catholic churches to hold ceremonies honoring animals around his feast day of October 4.

St. Francis statue urns are available in a satin bronze finish, as well as pewter and copper finish. Lined bottom to protect furniture. Urn can be personalized with a brass nameplate on the base.

Sculpted by an award winning artist, our “Best Friend” pet urn captures the love and companionship a true friend can offer. This pet urn has the look and feel of bronze sculpture, but is cold cast in designer resin and sits atop a hardwood urn. Your choice, cherry, walnut, or oak finish with personalization available. Two sizes to accommodate breeds 35-110 pounds.

Thank you for letting us serve you.

Today on our Meet the Artist series we are talking with Val Grinshpan of Carvax Incorporated. Val is the creator of our popular bronze angel dog and kitty pet urns.

We’ve also just added his horse keepsake urn.

Val is a sculptor who came to the USA from Russia in 1989 during the collapse of the Soviet Union. His training in Russia was with wood, ivory, stone carvings, folk art and small gifts and custom jewelry settings. In 2002, he started Carvax Inc. and began sculpting his own designs in wax for custom orders, and later started building prototypes for furniture hardware and kitchen and bath pulls, which has become the core of the business.

The urn line was pure accident, Val had received a custom order from a client who wanted a pet urn sculpted. Happy with the results, he then created one for his own beloved German Shepard, Timber.

Later, he worked up the kitty and dog design and started calling around to find distributors. Timberland Urns was launched in 2005 and is now 30% of his business and growing.

The beauty of Val’s work and the quality is evident. Timberland Urns are made in the USA. He feels that he can maintain quality control better and casts only 35 pieces of art from a silicon mold in order to maintain the great detail.

We’ve just added two of Val’s new creations: a marble urn topped with a golf sculpture and the marble vault style urn, Creation of Man.

When we dug the garden, we did a lot of research but somehow completely did not plan for the pet aspect of the business. Well, we’ve encountered several passionate pet owners the last few years.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

We’re crazy for our pets, but never thought we’d be one of those people that turn music on for them when we’re away (I do), or call and leave messages so the pampered pooches could hear our voice (my neighbor). Until starting this business, I’d never considered keeping the ashes of any of my pets in the home. When the time comes, I plan to scatter my border collie’s ashes and probably bury the ashes of my Bichon.

We recently discovered that an animal lover aunt has saved the ashes of almost every pet she’s owned. Over the years, so many urns have accumulated she keeps them in a plastic storage tub in the closet. She can’t bear to part with them.

The client in New York who had the ashes of her dog’s amputated leg stored in a keepsake, and came back later to buy another urn for the rest of the dog after he passed.

A customer in Texas, complained that the lid on one of our metal pet urns was too hard to get off. We explained that our lids are designed that way, for a secure seal. Most people aren’t opening and closing the urn repeatedly. What’s up with that?

Client explained that one of his other dogs was depressed over the loss of his doggie friend and client’s vet told him to let the grieving dog sniff the ashes to reassure and calm him.

I’d like to have Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer weigh in on this.

And then the words we hear so often, “we don’t have kids (or the kids are gone) and the dogs are our babies.”

Although we’re partial to the canines, cat lovers are crazy for their kittys, and we’ve encountered some ferret lovers. One girl in south Florida who was involved in a ferret rescue, and was so pleased with our service that she told all of her friends about us on the ferret chat board.

I had no idea.

Who knew that some pet owners buy or build homes based on their pet’s needs (Great Danes in New York)? One friend built a house and designed a killer grooming station for her three dogs. This friend has Bichon Frise and even threw a dog party for Bichon owners that was great fun.

My Rock wore a cumberbun with a sanitary napkin to the party, so he wouldn’t pee everywhere.

At a recent visitation I ran into an old school mate that was raising exotic cats in Branson. My friend Soozie has had tarantulas and hermit crabs, now she’s got a couple of rats. Not guinea pigs, not the little white lab rats. These are the sewer rat variety purchased from a pet store. Her family LOVES the rodents! And now my friend Candace is mourning the loss of her pet rat Lennon. Is there a rat chat board?

And then the pet owners that have instructed family members to include the ashes of their beloved pets to be buried with them.

So far, I’ve never had a request for a reptile urn.

Pet owners who favor the larger breeds will often choose our hand-painted ceramic Wolf Urn. Earlier this week, an Akita owner requested this urn style.

The problem? The Wolf urn only comes in two sizes, a large 200 cubic inch and a small keepsake size. We offer a similar style pet urn featuring various breeds with a capacity for larger dogs 85-120 pounds, but the clients are sold on the wolf urn. Recently we added two affordable alloy style urns that will accommodate up to 85 pounds. But for dogs of this size, the choices are limited.

On a side note, a Greyhound owner mentioned that the Greyhound was the only breed of dog mentioned in the bible.

Well, I had to know more. Yes, it’s true the Greyhound is specifically mentioned in the bible, (Proverbs 30:29-31, King James Version):

There be three things which go well, yea,
Which are comely in going;
A lion, which is strongest among beasts and Turneth not away from any;
A greyhound;
A he-goat also.

It’s all in the translation: The Hebrew phrase translated as “greyhound” literally means “girt in the loins.” This probably was considered by translators the most appropriate English term to describe the ancestor of the greyhound. It also didn’t hurt that the Greyhound was popular with the sixteenth century court of King James. (Source: courtesy of http://www.agreyhoundswish.org/hist_bible.htm)

Biblical references to dogs are not favorable, certainly not admired and loved as in our culture.