Daily Inspiration: Meet Katelyn St John

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katelyn St John.

Hi Katelyn, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
We are both Kate and we are Found and Forged Colorado. Everything we do is either found or forged by us – handcrafted jewelry designs and mineral prospecting.
We met in summit county where we both currently live and have been together for 9 years now. I myself (Kate/Katelyn St John) came to Colorado in 2013 all the way from Vermont. Kate Jones, my partner, was born in Summit County and grew up there/Castle Rock area of Colorado.
We both have always had a passion for all things rocks, nature and geology which got us to start rockhounding and wire wrapping about 7-8 years ago. From roaming around at random in the woods or the desert to dedicated digging at estabished mines, our passion has led to us digging all over the country – wherever the crystals grow we’ll go. The dogs certainly love it as well. The creative side as gone from working at the coffee table with whatever we found to building a whole work shop for everything we have grown to work with – lapidary, metalsmithing, epoxy work, wire work, upcycling – you name it. We have a large number of minerals and fossils hand mined by us from all over the country and a large selection of hand crafted jewelry in all kinds of styles and mediums. Creating jewelry designs and uncoving earths treasures all of which we get to bring to others to enjoy themselves is our true passion. We love to educate people, make sure people find what they want or need, or create something special for them.
Currently we sell our finds and goods at pop up events all over the state, at the Country Boy Mine in Breckenridge Colorado, and through social media as we work of buildingour website. Our next couple of events will be in Evergreen for the Elk and Art Festival September 27th-28th and at the Cheesman Park Art Invitational in Denver October 4th-5th. You can find us on social media under found and forged co on Instagram, Facebook, tiktok, and YouTube. You can see some of the behind the scenes of our digs and jewelry making process as well as products.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road but thankfully we tend to be pretty good at off roading and we have met some of the most amazing people along the way.
We both work as well – Kate as a territory sales manager for a distribution company and I work in retail at a gem and jewelry store in Breckenridge.
Finding time has always been our biggest challenge. We have often times found ourselves leaving straight from work to go dig all weekend and get back just in time for work the following week, or getting caught up in a jewelry project and staying up far past bedtime. We do our best to manage our time but we are always finding that we just crave more and more time digging or creating.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We have both been artists our whole lives. Kate knew far more than myself as far as jewelry making goes having studied it a bit in school and I had to play a catch up. I have a art background of my own originally majoring in fine arts before switching to environmental sciences.
We will always love wire work and will always have some of that as our body of work but we have also branched out into the world of metalsmithing and lapidary work as well. Recently we have been working on cutting and polishing petrified wood that we dig to set into jewelry and have as specimens. We love to work with materials that we have dug whenever we can but also use things from all over the world as not everything can be found here unfortunately. We are very passionate about the earth in every way so we have included many ways of upcycling in our work as well like the reuse of materials such as old car paint (aka fordite), surfboard resin (aka surfite), donated or trashed materials from business, or bullet casings found while out in the middle of nowhere. All of these we make into something beautiful that can be used again.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Just keep digging.

Kindness is the best quality.

You might not always find the biggest or rarest rock, but you’re still out there, usually in an incredible place, so just enjoy every second of it.

Pricing:

• Kids items – under $20 always
• Jewelry can be anywhere from $15-$100s
• Stones we have as low as $0.50-100s

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foundandforgedco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kates.creations.1300/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@foundandforgedco
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@found.and.forged

Image Credits
Katelyn St John