Scarab London

The creative process

Great session this afternoon deciding how to set this beautiful tourmaline and then designing the mount for it.

Can’t wait to see the finished piece.

The versatility of silver.

Silver is a lovely metal - it has a softness of appearance but lends itself to edgy designs - think Lapponia and the other great Scandinavian jewellers and the great British designers and jewellers. Visit the Goldsmiths Fair and Goldsmiths North to see some of the best of British jewellers and jewellery and see which metal is represented most - yep silver!.

Many jewellers start their journey working with silver and many never end that journey. Whilst you can’t ignore the cost factor it isn’t the main or only one. .

Silver is versatile it’s tactile and it’s timeless.
Its showcases gemstones beautifully.
It looks great combined with other metals.
It ages beautifully acquiring a lovely patina.
It lends itself to innovation.
It’s been used in jewellery for centuries.

Silver jewellery was my first love and it’s a love affair that has endured.

Here are a few of our silver rings - one might not look silver but I promise you it is!

Which one is your favourite?

Uncut gems have a beauty worth setting in jewellery.

Don’t get me wrong we love polished gemstones and as Alan is such a wonderful lapidary it would be daft not to use the beautiful gems that he cuts.

But every so often I open up one of those little white lapidarist’s parcels known as brifcas (I always call them rifkas much to Alan’s exasperation) and there’s a piece of rough that just needs to be set as is - rough edges flaws and all.

It may be a piece that Alan just hasn’t got round to cutting or it may be one that’s he’s decided not to cut.

So with the earrings the two slices of watermelon tourmaline in the drops are partially polished whilst in the pendant neither the green nor the pink tourmalines have been cut.

The pink tourmaline drop in the pendant is a piece of crystal - you can see its growth structure and the flaws. The green tourmaline was probably found in a river as it is water worn which gives it a less sharp finish - think of sea glass.

I find this natural look really interesting - it reminds me that these gems were formed by heat and pressure over millions of years. I think sometimes you forget that when looking at a polished gem.

These uncut pieces lend themselves so well to being set in yellow gold particularly in an organic (we call it gloopy!) setting to echo their ancient yet timeless beauty.

Hoping you like these and hoping to do more - been looking at some unpolished diamonds for ages but I can’t decide if they are in fact too beautiful to set - probably not!

Sweet suite…

We don’t often create suites of jewellery but we had the matching rubies and we loved the tiered design so much that we decided to do it three times!

The diamonds have the most amazing scintillation and ✨ beautifully.

These pieces were originally sold as a suite as the client loved all three.



Now back with us they are being sold separately so you can have one two or three!

Hope you love them as much as we do.