Mayosodesigns

Welcome to my shop!

In my shop you will find beautifully handcrafted jewelry made of vegetable ivory and other organic materials. I LOVE JEWELRY and all things cute and beautiful. I personally have a tonne of them and still collect more. You just never get enough jewelry. I love designing and making jewelry. I enjoy every step of the creative process. My inspiration comes from a lot of things including nature, fashion, tv, travel and more. I make jewelry with Tagua nut- a sustainable substitute to animal ivory.
I hope you love my creations. Thank you so much for stopping by!


My store logo
I love the Mayosodesign logo because it says it all. It is a happy elephant playing with a tagua nut.

Tagua Nut
Vegetable Ivory ‘Tagua nut’ is the dried seedpod of the Tagua palm tree which grows commonly in the tropical rainforests of South America. It is a sustainable ecofriendly substitute for animal ivory. When the Tagua nuts ripen, the husk or Mococha falls to the ground where it is harvested. Tagua fruit, also known as corozo nut, is edible when fresh - It tastes like coconut water. Left to sun dry for 6-8weeks, it becomes very hard like animal ivory. It can be elaborated into a lot of products (jewellery, figurines, buttons, chess pieces, piano key, guitar picks and more) replacing animal ivory in all of it’s uses. It can be cut, pressed, heated, burned, laser engraved, bleached, tinted and polished to extraordinarily bright finishes. It is less porous than animal ivory but bears impeccable resemblance. It is similar in hardness, color and turns yellow as it ages. Tagua nut is produced mainly by the female palm tree which produces the same amount of ivory in one year as a female elephant.

The history of Tagua dates back to the mid 1800′s and the explosive growth of trade routes between Europe and South America. Wooden boats were used to carry supplies and passengers along the pacific coast line and it was common practice to stabilize the boats by filling the bottom of the boats with sand or dirt as weights. As the ships collect goods on these routes, some of the sand was taken out to balance for the added load. Over time, the wooden boats corrode allowing water in through leaks and the sand got soaked increasing the weight which could cause the ship to sink. So, there was need to look for an alternative that will not absorb water like sand. The sailors found Tagua nut which was plentiful on their route and provided the weight needed to stabilize their ships. The ships travelled far and wide and ended up in Hamburg, Germany where an artist tried to carve some and realized the potential in Tagua nut. He started to sell his creations with great success and these inspired German businessmen to import the nuts into Germany. The Tagua nut trade grew quickly and the Germans soon built a Tagua company in Ecuador where they found the nuts in abundance. The German businessmen started to export the nuts to Italy to have them carved. The Italians became interested in Tagua nut and soon found the source in Ecuador where they later built the Tagua House to support their Tagua nut business. In the late eighteen hundreds up through World War II, before the invention of plastic, ivory nut was used to make some of the finest buttons in the clothing industry. Some were used on United States Army uniforms at the time. Other common items such as jewellery, dice, chess pieces and cane handles were made out of Tagua nuts as well.  In fact, some expensive "ivory" pieces from the Victorian era were actually made from Tagua nuts. The Tagua nut popularity dwindled with the discovery of plastic in the many years leading up to the World War II, but is making a comeback with the killings of the elephants and other wildlife for their tusk.

In South America where Tagua nut is predominant, it signifies harmony and bears romantic energy which makes it popular with ladies. It is used as worry stones as it is very feels very smooth and soothing. Most importantly, Tagua nut plays a vital role in conserving wildlife and preserving the tropical rain forest.