In August of 2004, Leetie Lovendale’s sister company The Beadin’ Path purchased the entire warehouse contents of a Rhode Island plastics company. It included over 40,000 pounds of Vintage Lucite jewelry components that were manufactured between the 1960s-1980s for companies such as Avon, Coro, Trifari & Monet. Beads made up for ½ of the stock, but the other half consisted of these strange & sculptural hoops, loops, buckles & parts that did not lend themselves well to the bead market. For fear of the cost of hauling & housing this extra stock, the extra ‘weird parts’ were almost left behind for the local dump. When (Leetie-designer & co-owner of The Beadin’ Path) Heather DeSimone’s hoarding instincts took over, we found ourselves with 20,000 lbs of raw vintage plastics.

After a year of playing & designing and more playing, Leetie Lovendale was born.

Leetie is sustainable because we use vintage parts & are not having pieces made for our line of jewelry.  Each set of earrings is set by hand using a machine my husband built which will safely electro-set the surgical steel post into the vintage plastic.  This makes for sturdy, light-weight, and sustainable earrings that are current & fashion forward.

I’m designing & coming up with new ways to expand my line all the time.  We hope to add necklaces to the website very soon!  Stay tuned & thanks for your time!