Lee Sagula Goes From Ad Sales to Jewelry Artisan

A Chester County woman has found success creating jewelry, which she sells in niche Main Line markets.

Finding life’s passions isn’t always straightforward. For Lee Sagula, it came rather serendipitously on her morning commute, in the form of a sign for a jewelry making class.

Just the day before, she’d attended an expo in King of Prussia where she’d spotted two necklaces—pendants—that she found striking and eventually bought. “I got home, and I kept looking at them and I thought, ‘I wonder if I could make these,’” Segula says. Coincidentally, the class was for pendant making. It wasn’t long before the advertising saleswoman picked up the craft and was coming up with her own designs, even beyond pendants.

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Sagula is one of many local artisans handcrafting products, from soaps to honey to clothing. The Main Line, with its many farmer’s markets, provides the perfect atmosphere for such endeavors to blossom, and it’s where Sagula has found success with her own business, SilverStone Jewels.

Lee Sagula

Over the past six years, Sagula has turned her passion into a full-time job, working out of her Chester County home, making and selling jewelry. She has sold her designs in a number of Main Line stores, but now sells exclusively in niche farmer’s markets in Chester Springs, East Goshen, Phoenixville and Avondale.

Her products are 60 percent argentium, a hypoallergenic and long lasting silver. Her pieces are all original—some even copyrighted—and have understated and elegant elements, which are artsy and not necessarily of-the-moment trendy. Sagula makes everything from patterned cuff bracelets and bangles to whimsical necklaces and pendants to delicate rings and earrings.

Despite working in corporate America for most of her life, Sagula says that jewelry making is even more competitive. Still, she’s been able to use it as both an outlet to combine a business model and a creative mind. She says she enjoys helping customers, whether it’s a father buying a piece for his wife or daughter, helping pick out the perfect gift, or finding the right piece for an individual shopping for herself.

“Its making people feel good. I like to make people happy,” Lee says with a laugh, “and jewelry seems to make people happy.”

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