The Happy Elephant

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The Happy Elephant Look and feel great with colourful vegan tagua nut jewellery while helping Ecuadorian artisans.

19/10/2026

Meet Mira.

Two seeds, one earring. An acai seed on top, a pambil seed sitting underneath. Two textures, one very simple shape.

Light enough to forget. Noticeable enough that someone will ask.

Six colourways. Three of them here. The rest are in the shop.

Which one is yours?

Ps no need to wait... They are already online!

19/10/2026

Meet Mira.

A new earring style, and one I have been looking forward to showing you for a while.

Each one is made from two seeds. An acai seed on top, small and round and smooth, sitting above a pambil seed underneath. Two different natural materials, two different textures, working together in one simple shape.

They are light, as you would expect, and they move beautifully when you turn your head. Big enough to be noticed, small enough to wear with absolutely anything, which makes them the sort of earring you end up reaching for far more often than you planned to.

Mira comes in six colourways. Three of them are in the video here and the others are waiting in the shop.

Have a look and see which one is yours. Just search for Mira on our website - link in bio

07/10/2026

If you missed the drop at half one, there are still a few one off pieces left.

Every one of them is the only one of its kind, either in colour, design, or both. Once they go that is genuinely it, they are unique.

You will find them under Only One in Collections.

Worth a quick look if you have five minutes this afternoon.

30/09/2026

Same blouse. Same five minutes getting ready. Completely different outfit.

This is the thing tagua does better than almost anything else in your jewellery box. You do not need to change what you are wearing or plan an outfit around it. You put on the plain top you were going to wear anyway, add one colourful necklace and a pair of earrings, and suddenly you look like you made an effort.

The necklace is Galapagos. The earrings are Anabel. Both handmade in Ecuador, both light enough that you will forget you have them on by mid morning.

That is the whole point really. Not looking like someone else. Just looking finished.

This little knot is one of the most useful things about our jewellery, and it is the part nobody notices until they own ...
28/09/2026

This little knot is one of the most useful things about our jewellery, and it is the part nobody notices until they own one.

It is a slip knot. Pull the cords one way and the necklace gets shorter. Pull them the other way and it gets longer. No clasp, no catch, no tiny fiddly mechanism that needs good eyesight and two steady hands.

Which means two things.

You can put it on by yourself, in about three seconds, without asking anyone to fasten it behind your neck. And you can wear the same necklace at completely different lengths depending on what you have on. Shorter over a crew neck. Longer with an open shirt or a V neck. Different again over a jumper.

Wendy put it rather well when she left her review: she loves being able to vary the length so easily, and it always gets commented on.

One necklace. Several different looks. And absolutely no wrestling with a clasp in front of the mirror.

This is César's workbench.Everything you can see here is a seed. The little coloured discs, the beads in the basket, the...
25/09/2026

This is César's workbench.

Everything you can see here is a seed. The little coloured discs, the beads in the basket, the pale slices, the green ovals, the swirls of colour on the right. All of it grew on a tree in Ecuador before it was carved, dyed and sorted into these piles.

What he is doing here is deliberate. Every design has been agreed between us first. Colours, shapes, proportions, lengths. He works to that, selecting exactly what he needs from what is in front of him and threading it by hand.

I love this photo because it shows the bit nobody usually sees. Not the finished necklace in a photograph, but the raw materials, the ordinary tablecloth, and a pair of hands that know precisely what they are looking for.

That is where your jewellery starts.

This is where people usually get stuck.Not whether they want a piece, but which colour.We work in more shades than most ...
23/09/2026

This is where people usually get stuck.

Not whether they want a piece, but which colour.

We work in more shades than most people expect. Sunbeam, Mustard, Honeyed Gold, Sahara Sand. Sea Glass, Turquoise, Coastal Teal, Vintage Indigo. Ivy Green, Forest Green, Castleton Green. Chestnut, Espresso, Fuchsia, Deep Mauve Plum. And plenty more besides.

There is a reason for that. Tagua takes colour beautifully, penetrating the by a few millimetres, rather than sitting on the surface, which means we are not limited to whatever a factory happens to produce that season.

If you are wondering where to start, my advice is always the same. Don't pick the colour you think you should wear. Pick the one your eye keeps going back to on this list.

That is almost always the right one.

Which one is yours?

21/09/2026

People often ask us where the name came from.

The Happy Elephant is not just a cheerful name for a jewellery business. It comes directly from the seed we work with.

Tagua grows on palm trees in the rainforests of Ecuador. When the seed ripens it falls to the forest floor, and inside it is hard, dense and creamy white. It is so similar to elephant ivory in hardness, colour and texture that it has been called vegetable ivory for well over a century. It carves the same way. It polishes the same way. It looks remarkably like the real thing.

The only difference is that it grows on a tree.

There is a second part to it too. Because tagua has genuine commercial value, the families who collect it have a good reason to keep those palms standing, and the forest around them with it. Harvesting tagua does not require cutting anything down. The seeds simply fall.

So the name is really about a small chain of connected good things. A beautiful alternative to ivory. An income for rainforest communities. And a reason to leave the trees where they are.

That felt worth naming a business after.

Meet Dewdrop in Lime Grove.Two rings of tagua, one bright lime and one deep olive, sitting one inside the other. The sha...
18/09/2026

Meet Dewdrop in Lime Grove.

Two rings of tagua, one bright lime and one deep olive, sitting one inside the other. The shape is simple, but the two greens together are what make them interesting. Fresh without being sharp.

They are lighter than they look. That is the thing with tagua. You can wear a decent sized earring all day and genuinely forget it is there, which is not something most statement earrings manage.

Green is one of those colours women often say they are not sure they can wear. In our experience most can. Against cream, oatmeal, white, navy or denim, it does something warm and lifting.

If you have been reaching for the same earrings for years, these might be a nice change.

Suzanne found us by accident.She was scrolling through social media, came across one of our posts, and that was that. Sh...
16/09/2026

Suzanne found us by accident.

She was scrolling through social media, came across one of our posts, and that was that. She had never heard of tagua before, had no idea what vegetable ivory was, and was not looking for a necklace when she stumbled across us.

That happens more than you might think. Most of the women who buy from us were not searching for tagua jewellery, because they did not know it existed.

Which is quite a nice thing when you think about it. Everyone who wears one of our pieces has a small story about how they came to find it.

Thank you Suzanne. We are very glad you found us that day.

If you found us the same way, we would love to hear about it in the comments.

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