Frequently Asked Questions

You send photos — ideally three or four from different angles, showing the face and any markings clearly. An artisan sculpts the figurine by hand from those photos, then paints the details. Before firing we send you a photo of the raw sculpture so you can ask for changes while the clay is still soft.

One straight-on shot of the face, one from the side, and one full body. Daylight is better than flash. Photos where your pet is looking at the camera help most with the eyes. If all you have is a handful of blurry phone pictures, send them anyway — we work with what exists, and we will tell you if we genuinely cannot see enough.

Yes. We have made rabbits, guinea pigs, birds and reptiles. Smaller animals actually suit our size S urn very well. Send photos and we will tell you before you order whether we are confident of getting the likeness.

Yes, at no extra cost. The name is cut into the clay with a stylus before firing rather than painted on, so it becomes part of the object and cannot wear off. Glaze pools in the cut letters and darkens them, which is what makes them readable from across a room.

Usually. Cherry blossom with an engraved name, or a night sky with a sculpted bow, are both straightforward. Two heavily sculpted designs at once — mushrooms and angel wings, say — tend to fight each other visually, and we will say so rather than take the order.

Yes, and many people do. The same hand-sculpted figurines go on treat jars, food bowls, mugs and keychains. Those are in our gifts collection.

Size is based on your pet's weight before cremation. Size S (8 cm) suits pets up to about 10 kg, size M (10 cm) covers 10 to 20 kg, and size L (13 cm) covers 20 to 40 kg. The industry convention is one cubic inch of capacity per pound of living body weight, which leaves comfortable headroom.

The larger one. An urn slightly too big is invisible; one slightly too small is a problem you cannot fix afterwards. If you are unsure, send us the weight and we will tell you which we would make.

Size S is almost always enough, whatever the breed, if you are keeping a portion and scattering the rest. Our smaller keepsakes — plates, pendants — are made for exactly this and hold a token amount.

Not as standard. For pets over about 40 kg, message us before ordering and we will quote for a one-off larger piece. It costs more and takes longer, but it is possible.

Sculpting, drying, glazing and firing take 21 to 35 days, and international shipping adds 7 to 14 days. Plan on 4 to 7 weeks in total. Clay cannot be rushed — a piece that goes into the kiln before it is fully dry will crack.

Sometimes, but not often, and we will not promise it lightly. Message us before ordering with the date and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable. We would rather turn down the order than miss the date.

By early November. With a 4 to 7 week lead time, anything ordered after mid-November is a gamble. For Valentine's Day, order by early January.

Everything is made and shipped from our studio in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We ship worldwide with tracking. Most of our orders go to the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Possibly. Import duties, taxes and customs charges are not included in the price and are the buyer's responsibility where they apply. Most personal-value orders to the US, UK, Canada and Australia clear without charges, but we cannot guarantee it.

Yes. Firing at 1200°C vitrifies the clay — the particles fuse and the material stops being porous, so moisture cannot pass in or out. High-fired ceramic will outlast almost any other material you could choose for this.

Firing temperature, mostly. A lot of decorative ceramic is earthenware fired at 1000°C or below, which stays porous underneath its glaze. It is fine for a plant pot and less good for something meant to sit sealed on a shelf for decades.

The ashes normally stay in the sealed bag supplied by the crematorium, which goes inside the urn. The lid sits flush and can be sealed permanently with a small amount of clear silicone or epoxy if you prefer — we can include instructions.

Dust with a dry or slightly damp cloth. Avoid dishwashers, sudden temperature changes, and shelves where it can be knocked. Vitrified ceramic will not fade in sunlight or absorb damp, so beyond avoiding impact there is nothing to maintain.

No, and it should not. Every figurine is sculpted from a different animal, glazes move differently in every firing, and hand-painted detail varies. The photographs on this site are real commissions, shown so you can see the standard of work — not a template yours will be copied from.

No. Each piece is sculpted for one specific pet and cannot be resold, so we do not accept returns or exchanges on custom orders. This is why we send you a photo of the raw sculpture before firing — so anything you want changed gets changed while it still can be.

You can cancel for a full refund within 1 hour of placing the order. After that, message us: if sculpting has not started we will refund you, and if it has we will tell you honestly what stage the piece has reached.

Send us a photo within 14 days of delivery and we will remake and reship it at no cost. You do not need to return the broken piece. Everything ships in three layers of shockproof packaging, but ceramic travels a long way to reach you.

There is no checkout on this website. Orders go through our Etsy shop, which handles payment and adds Etsy's own buyer protection — card details never reach us directly. For anything not listed on Etsy, such as an unusual size or a design we have not made before, email the studio and we will arrange it.

Because we would rather sell through Etsy than build a checkout we cannot yet back with a registered company. Etsy already handles payments, currency conversion and dispute resolution, and for a memorial piece costing over a hundred dollars from a studio you have never met, that protection is worth more to you than the convenience of a cart here.