Colleen Lappe
Colleen Lappe is a fine jeweler based in Pittsburgh. Her journey into jewelry began over a decade ago when she took her first metalsmithing class. It immediately stole her heart. Since then, she has spent her time honing her craft across three different states. She earned a graduate jeweler certificate at the Gemological Institute of America, a Fine Arts degree at the University of Illinois, and spent three years as a stone setter in the Chicago jewelry industry.
Using her artistic eye and craftswoman’s hands, her mission is to create wearable art that can withstand being adorned for generations. Each piece is crafted to showcase the natural world’s beauty, whether that be by incorporating patterns from nature or using a beautiful fairtrade stone. At the heart of each Colleen Lappe Jewelry piece is the intent to show off the radiance of our perfect earth. Every piece is made with recycled metal and the highest quality gemstones, allowing it to be a token of Earth’s beauty and a little treasure to call your own.
Colleen Lappe Jewelry strives to make ethical, sustainable jewelry.
That means each piece is handmade using 100% recycled gold. Recycled gold is of equal quality to mined gold but better for the environment because no part of the earth is newly mined to retrieve it. Recycled gold only uses gold form circulating items such as outdated jewelry and electronics. Due to the fact that gold is often illegally mined in the rainforest using high pressure water and mercury to extract it (which destroys the surrounding environment and the lives of everyone who drinks the water), it’s good practice to use recycled gold in an effort to stop feeding illegal mining business.
Now for ethically sourced/conflict free stones. Stones get the title of ethically sourced or conflict free when the stone does not put anyone along the supply chain into unsafe conditions to retrieve them. No children or slaves are used to mine or cut any of the gemstones that have the ethically sourced label. Ethically sourced stones cost slightly more since the laborers are given a fair wage. It also means that practices are put in place to mine for the stones with as minimal harm to the environment as possible. We like that too.
