OUR HISTORY
My uncle founded the Lapid Art over 30 years ago in my grandparents shed, he began with craft shows selling his handmade crystal jewellery and the business really grew from there & his love of lapidary (hence the name lapid art)
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He opened Lapid Art early in 1995 in Lincoln when I was just 3 years old, I remember so vividly visiting the shop on Steep Hill (where we still are today) throughout my childhood as I know many of our customers do too!
He devoted half of his life to his craft & the shop, when he sadly passed away suddenly in December 2019 I knew I had to carry on the business, there was no way I could let his life's work close down, so I took over the business in 2020 & haven’t looked back!
O U R E T H O S
At the heart of everything we do are our ethos that haven’t changed since we opened & we will continue to work hard to stick by these. It is so important to us that all of our pieces are ethically sourced & we have continued to work with the same suppliers that we have for the last 30 years to guarantee this.
We love to create a little haven of unique, refined & exciting pieces which is why we update our items all the time, keeping it fresh & interesting for all of our visitors.
Most importantly we want everyone to be able to share in our passion for crystals & fossils which is why we work hard to find affordable pieces for everyone, even the little ones that are just beginning their collection.
E T H I C A L T R A D I N G S T A T E M E N T
For us it is super important that all of our natural products are ethical & its not just a stamp we add to the business to ‘make ourselves look better’, it’s something we genuinely care about & work hard to ensure.
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We only work with a really small selection of suppliers, keeping our circle small gives us more control when it comes to checking the quality & building trust with our supply chain.
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Ethically sourced refers to the way crystals and fossils are mined & processed, as with all products but especially crystals, there can be a risk that products are not holding true to the values of a business during their journey to reach their final destination & this is something we work hard to ensure doesn’t happen.
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All of our suppliers prioritise human rights & environmental sustainability but what does that actually mean?
Prioritise human rights – no exploitation of the workers mining our pieces, they are able to work in a safe environment, are treated with respect & are paid fair and reasonable wages.
Environmental sustainability – areas are not overmined & mining is undertaken with respect for the environment, ensuring areas are not destroyed & animal habitats are also respected.
This is achievable as our suppliers have close relationships with the mines & visit them multiple times a year to not only maintain a personal relationship but also ensure that standards & ethics are abided to. They work directly with small scale mines, often family run, with the money going directly back in to the small communities.
In our 30 years of business, we have turned down a huge number of suppliers simply because they cannot prove they have the ethical standards we expect. Most of the time these suppliers are cheaper than our existing ones, resulting in higher profits for us, but its just not something that we are willing to compromise on as it’s so important to us.
Sustainability is also important to us & we try to be as sustainable as possible in store. We use as little plastic as possible, with recyclable paper bags & tissue paper as our preferred option however of course, with the nature of our pieces this isn’t always possible. To keep as close to our values as we can, we use biodegradable plastic bags for heavier items & 95% of our bubble wrap is reused from our stock deliveries to give it multi use. We keep waste to a minimum & reuse what we can, everything else is recycled where possible.