A little more detail…

Cambridge Sardines

Long Sardine Earrings Hand Cut from a Vintage Grapefruit Spoon

Some pieces of jewellery begin sensibly with silver sheet and gemstones.

These began with breakfast.

Before they became earrings, they were part of an old vintage grapefruit spoon — a piece of cutlery made for ordinary use, lifted and laid down through daily life until its first purpose was over. Rather than melting it into anonymity, the spoon found its way to the bench.

There, it was opened.

And from that old spoon came a new shoal.

Two long sardines, hand cut and carefully engraved, bright with character and just a little bit absurd in the best possible way.

---

Old Spoon, New Mischief

There is a certain pleasure in giving serious craftsmanship to something playful.

These earrings carry that balance.

They begin in an old spoon with its own quiet history — worn, handled, softened by time — and become something lively, graphic, and full of movement. The elongated fish shape suits the original spoon beautifully, as though it had been hiding there all along.

They are humorous without being novelty.
Careful without being stiff.
Playful, but still properly made.

That tension is part of their charm.

---

At the Bench

Each sardine is cut and engraved by hand using traditional jeweller’s techniques.

The old grapefruit spoon is opened and worked directly, its shaped into long, tapering forms that lend themselves naturally to the rhythm of fish. Scale pattern, fin details, and line work are engraved by hand, giving the earrings texture and movement without losing the clean simplicity of the silhouette.

No casting.
No moulds.
No shortcuts.

Only an old spoon, hand tools, and the patient revealing of what the metal can become.

Every cut is permanent.
Every mark keeps the evidence of making.

---

The Sardine

There is something endearing about sardines.

They are small, familiar, communal creatures — never solitary in spirit, always suggesting movement, gathering, tide, and old coastal life. In these earrings, the sardine becomes both shape and mood: a little silver fish carried close, full of seaside wit and handmade character.

They feel like keepsakes from a stranger, brighter version of ordinary life.

A bit of coast.
A bit of comedy.
A bit of silver story.

---

Cambridge Sardines

The tin is part of the tale.

These earrings come tucked into their own Cambridge Sardines tin, completing the piece with a wink and making the whole object feel somewhere between jewellery, curiosity, and collected treasure.

It turns the earrings into more than adornment.

They become a small world of their own.

---

The Hairy Growler Way

Hairy Growler pieces often begin with materials that have already lived another life.

Old coins.
Lost silver.
Forgotten cutlery.
Objects too full of history to be melted away without thought.

Rather than erasing that earlier life, the work continues it. The material is listened to, and the new form grows out of the old one.

Each piece becomes less a replacement than a continuation.

---

Materials

• Vintage grapefruit spoon
• Hand cut and hand engraved sardine detail
• Handmade silver ear wires
• Cambridge Sardines presentation tin
• Handmade in England

Each pair is individually shaped. No two are exactly alike.

Once, this spoon passed through ordinary life unnoticed.

At the bench it was given a different kind of movement, reshaped not to erase its past but to continue it. Now it swims on in another form — playful, bright, and made to be worn with a smile.