When my mother-in-law died, the family decided to have her ashes, her husband's ashes and one of their daughter's ashes placed together for burial. My brother-in-law gave me some eastern cedar from the family farm about 3 years ago. I sawed the cedar into slabs and built a cremains box from the cedar. I had about 2 weeks to do the project.
The box is mitered together and the lid and bottom are glued and screwed to the box. I am not good enough to carve around knots in wood, so I cheated and used basswood for the lid. The pattern was drawn freehand and was carved with a straight blade knife and a small gouge - I don't know the size as there are no markings on the gouge - about 3/8" wide.
Doug