Hand Carved Shaped Monuments

There's a world of difference between a design pressed out by machine and one shaped by human hands, and hand-carved monuments carry that difference in every line. A rose carved in deep relief you can almost lift off the stone. Praying hands with real dimension and shadow. A lamb resting atop a child's memorial, or drapery that seems to fold and fall. None of it comes from a stencil. It comes from a carver's eye and skill.

At Monuments By Parise, our craftsmen still practice this increasingly rare art, carving granite by hand to a depth and detail that machine work can't match. Look through the designs below, and tell us what you'd like sculpted. If it can be carved in stone, we'll bring it to life.

Want to talk through a design? Call now for more information.

Blakely: 570-382-3558 · Carbondale: 570-282-3088 · Clifford: 570-222-3100

Explore Our Monument Styles

Hand-carved artistry is one of many ways to honor a life. Browse the full range and see what speaks to you:

Traditional Monuments — Classic upright designs that have marked family plots for generations.
Distinctive Shapes — One-of-a-kind silhouettes designed around a life, a passion, or a story.
Christian Monuments — Crosses, praying hands, and sacred imagery for families of faith.
Celtic & Irish Monuments — Celtic crosses and knotwork honoring Irish heritage.
Jewish Monuments — Memorials designed in keeping with Jewish tradition and custom.
Hearts — Single, double, and triple hearts, the enduring symbol of love.
Laser & Glass Art Etchings — Portraits, scenes, and fine detail etched into polished granite.
Hand Carved Monuments — Sculpted stone artistry shaped by hand, not by machine.
Classic Shapes — Timeless forms with clean, quiet lines.
Bronze & Gold Leaf Lettering — Rich lettering and accents that catch the light for decades.

Not sure where to begin? Our memorial options page lays out everything side by side, or you can view all our memorials at once.

Why the Carver Behind Your Monument Matters

Here's something most families don't realize until they start looking closely: the large majority of monuments made today are cut by machine and sandblasted through a rubber stencil. That's fine for lettering and simple designs. It is not the same thing as hand carving, and true hand carving has become genuinely rare. Fewer and fewer shops still have anyone who can do it.

That scarcity is exactly why the shop you choose matters so much for this work. Real relief carving, the kind that gives a rose its curl or a set of praying hands their depth, takes a trained sculptor and years of practice at the stone. It can't be faked with a deeper stencil. When you work with a shop that still carries this skill, you get artwork with dimension and life. When you work with one that doesn't, you get a flat imitation of it, no matter what the sample photo promised.

Working locally also lets you be part of the process in a way that matters for sculptural work. You can review the drawing, talk through the depth and detail with the person who will actually carve it, and see the granite in person before anything begins. And because hand-carved relief calls for the right stone and enough stock to carve into, we choose materials suited to the design from the start, then set the finished piece with our own crew. One shop, from the first sketch to the final seal.

Hand-Carved Work We Create for NEPA Families

Families across the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys come to us for:

Relief-carved florals, including roses, lilies, and other flowers sculpted with real depth
Religious sculpture, from praying hands and crosses to angels, lambs, and sacred figures
Carved emblems and symbols that reflect a life's faith, work, or passions
Children's memorials, including gently sculpted lambs and cherubs
Ornamental detail, such as scrollwork, drapery, ribbons, and borders carved by hand
Combined artistry that pairs sculpted relief with laser and glass etched portraits or bronze and gold leaf accents
Custom sculptural designs shaped around your own idea or drawing
Foundation work and installation, set and sealed by our own team
Restoration and matching of older carved monuments that have weathered over the decades

Sculptural work rewards planning, because there's real design and craftsmanship time involved. If you're planning ahead, preplanning gives your carver the room to do their finest work. If you've recently lost someone and need guidance now, our at-need page walks you through the next steps. And if a plot is still to be arranged, our cemetery plot checklist covers what to confirm before you buy, including any limits on carved and raised designs.

A Family of Craftsmen You Can Trust

Hand carving is a craft you learn only from someone who has mastered it, and that's exactly how we came to it. When we opened our monument company in 1997, we trained under a memorial specialist with more than 40 years at the stone before we offered a single piece for sale. That apprenticeship, in a trade our family has served since 1941, is why we can still do work that many shops have quietly stopped attempting.

Our own craftsmen carve, shape, and letter every memorial by hand, drawing from one of the region's largest selections of granite and bronze. Nothing sculptural gets shipped off to a distant factory and hoped for. And when the carving is finished, our own crew sets it on a foundation we build, so the artwork you approved is the artwork that stands in the cemetery.

Our written guarantee protects it for the long term: the granite is certified free from defects and won't chip, crack, or disintegrate, bronze is cast by quality foundries with lettering hand chased and highlighted, and any defective part is replaced at no expense to you or your heirs.

You're welcome to see hand-carved detail up close, year round, at the area's only all-inclusive indoor monument showroom in Blakely, where the difference real carving makes is plain to the eye and the touch. Learn more about our family and our guarantee, or read what other families have shared on our testimonials page.

Proudly Serving The Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Area

We hand-carve monuments for families throughout Northeast Pennsylvania, including Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Blakely, Carbondale, Pittston, Dickson City, Olyphant, Jessup, Archbald, Dunmore, Clarks Summit, Peckville, Throop, Taylor, Old Forge, Moosic, Avoca, Duryea, Forest City, Honesdale, Tunkhannock, and the surrounding communities.

This is a region built by skilled hands. Miners, masons, machinists, and tradespeople raised these towns, and people here still know real craftsmanship when they see it. You can find it in the older cemeteries too, where Victorian-era angels, lambs, and carved drapery have watched over family plots for more than a century. That heritage of carved stone is one we're honored to continue, both in the new memorials we sculpt and in the careful restoration of the old ones. When a family wants a new monument to sit naturally beside a beautifully carved older one, we know how to make that happen.

Contact Us For Hand-Carved Monuments in Northeast PA Today

A hand-carved monument is a work of art meant to last for generations, and it deserves a true craftsman's hands. The team at Monuments By Parise will help you shape your idea into a sculpted design, carve it with the depth and detail it deserves, and set the finished memorial with care.

Call Monuments By Parise at 570-382-3558 or contact us online today to learn more about hand-carved monuments in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Northeast Pennsylvania.