What to Engrave on an Urn

Personalizing an urn with a name, dates, and artwork can add meaning and bring comfort. A phrase such as Beloved Mom & Grandma or his favorite quote can create a truly personal memorial. Funny text and art can honor lighthearted loved ones while other icons can show respect for a person's values or religious faith.

The Stardust Memorials engraving staff has put together a helpful list of common phrases and formats to consider when personalizing your loved one's cremation urn.

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Common Engraved Inscriptions

Dates can be written in many different formats from the traditional mm/dd/yyyy format to spelling out the months in full such as October 24, 2016. Before you decide how you would like it engraved, consider the size or engraveable space available on the urn. While urns for ashes such as our Cultured Marble Urns or Wood Urns have a large area to engrave the full month, smaller sized cremation urns like Keepsake Urns would only have room for the years (i.e. yyyy - yyyy).

1/11/1947 - 10/23/2016

1/11/47 - 10/23/16

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At Stardust Memorials, we offer five different styles of fonts. Most people select the very readable and well-known font Times Roman, but Clarendon is another popular choice. Some fonts look more substantial on some urns than others. For example, our engraving staff prefers the look of Times Roman on cultured marble urns, while they prefer Clarendon on metal and brass urns.

At Stardust Memorials, we take personalization a step further with many choices of artwork to enhance your engraving beyond simple text. We know how meaningful certain symbols can be -- such as a flag to honor a veteran or a cross to show religious faith. A engraved sailboat can make a plain cedar urn into a meaningful tribute to someone who loved the ocean. A butterfly can convey the gentle spirit of someone you love.

Why does Stardust Memorials have two sets of artwork to choose from?

We have different types of engraving machines with art unique to each machine. Our Rotary Engraving Artwork is used for our brass and metal urns, while our Laser Engraving Artwork is suitable for our wood urns and cultured marble urns. The artwork for each machine has been carefully selected for the best results. Here are a few of our urns with samples of engraved artwork:

The Top 5 Funniest Engraved Phrases:

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For more information on our engraving and cremation urns, visit our website.