Scarab London

Scarab London 💎Designers, purveyors & lovers of jewellery
✨Antique & Vintage Jewellery
🏛️NAJ
🔨The Guild of Master Craftsmen

19/05/2026

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.

15/05/2026

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?

09/05/2026

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!

03/05/2026

Coming soon!

We also source pre- loved jewellery - 3 are pre-loved and 1 is one of our bespoke pieces.

Can you spot our bespoke piece?

There are also some unusual gemstones - can you spot those too?

29/04/2026

Tantalising Tantalum!

So together with our good friend and fellow collaborator Jesper we are really pleased to show you three new pieces.

Tantalum is extremely hard and has a very high boiling point. So you cannot solder anything to it but you can drill into it. Jesper came up with the idea of drilling and riveting small round pieces of 18ct yellow gold into a dome of tantalum.

Sue loved the domes and wanted to use them in jewellery rather than keep them as trial pieces. Why waste such gorgeous things?

Both pieces naturally lent themselves to a ring and a pendant. The weight of the tantalum and gold together meant earrings were not practical - something ‘the Boys’ (that’s you Alan & Jesper) being unused to wearing earrings didn’t quite understand initially!

So unable to solder anything to the tantalum, how were we going to achieve a pendant and ring?

Heads together and the Boys had the answer- treat the tantalum dome as a gemstone and ‘set it’! Simples!

Sue has a doodle that she has long wanted to use in jewellery and which she thought could be etched into the tantalum.

But Jesper beat her to it! Inspired by cherry trees and boughs he came up with the idea of grinding out the tantalum ring and inlaying it with 22ct yellow gold.

We love the ring - could always add some pink sapphire and white diamond blossoms too! 🤔🤔

Collaboration inspires creativity! More to come!

26/04/2026

Do you have a key moment?

This Key Moment TM pendant is inspired by the antique pocket watch keys that Sue has collected for a little while. You can read more about how this came about inspiration in the blog on our website.

Made for Sue it has an opal cabochon in the front - Sue’s birthstone, her initial on the reverse and her birth sign and a few little diamonds on each side.

You may have some special moment or event that you want to celebrate. It might be an anniversary, a wedding, a birth, an achievement. Whatever it is we will work with you to personalise the pendant to celebrate your key moment.

23/04/2026

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.

21/04/2026

A little postscript…

A client loved the chunky Snekk pendant but was celebrating her ruby wedding anniversary …

🤔🤔…….💡

We set rubies down the centre of the pendant!

Result - delighted and very happy client.

We loved the outcome too - and another element to the Snekk range was born.

Thank you for featuring our beautiful ruby jewellery. However just to say that the necklace featuring the 32.95ct ruby ...
21/04/2026

Thank you for featuring our beautiful ruby jewellery. However just to say that the necklace featuring the 32.95ct ruby is made in platinum with a diamond
set 14ct white gold articulated torque

19/04/2026

The light bulb moment revealed.

Remember the ring that was a mistake and the cradle that we designed to support the top mount with the yellow diamonds?

And the light bulb moment that we had when we saw the unpolished 18ct yellow gold cradle?

The light bulb went on when we realised that the cradle could be used to create a whole new range of jewellery.

The first piece we designed was a waisted more hour glass type pendant in unpolished 18ct yellow gold. Then we realised the pendant needed matching earrings.

Then came the idea of the elongated pendant and matching earrings all in 18ct yellow gold.

Then we thought why not recreate the whole range in silver - - be rude not to!

But what to call the range?
The more we looked at the original cradle the more we were reminded of Viking longboats.

Some research later and we discovered that a ‘snekke’ is a traditional Norwegian motor or sail boat usually 18-24ft long. Perfect!

The Snekk range was born!

jewellery

16/04/2026

From mistakes can come beautiful things.

I hope you wouldn’t call this beautiful 18ct yellow gold and platinum ring with yellow and white diamonds a mistake.

But it was!

The mistake started with the shank - crossed wires resulted in the ridged shank rather than the classic shank that the client had commissioned. Which meant we started again and were left with this wonderful heavy chunky shank.

What to do? Scrap it or use it. I HATE waste but we both loved the shank so we set about designing a centre for it. The honeycomb top set with round and French cut yellow diamonds emerged out of the mists which meant the setting had to be in 18ct yellow gold.

Then we needed to tie in the mount with the ridged shank. The result was a ridged boat like cradle that supported the honeycomb top.

As soon as we saw the finished cradle in its unpolished state we absolutely loved it and immediately had a light bulb moment.

And the light bulb moment was …….

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