Albina Manning

Jewelry designer and instructor Albina Manning was born in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, a small town not far from Volga River. Ever since she was a child, Albina has loved doing anything by hand, especially knitting and sewing. She graduated from Mari State Pedagogical Institute and then worked for 9 years as a certificated elementary and physical education teacher in her hometown. "Although I really loved my work as a teacher of young children, in 2003 my life changed a lot! I met my soul mate Peter and moved to Arizona where we were married, and a year later our beautiful daughter Anya was born. Then a Russian friend living in Japan sent me a beautiful, red beaded rose as a Christmas gift. I thought, ‘is it possible to make something as lovely as Mother Nature creates? Probably not, but sometimes copies can be worth that of the original.’ That is when I fell in love with beads and wire. My first experience was to make a beaded Money Tree. In spite of the fact that it looks like an old untrimmed tree and has a lot of ‘technical’ mistakes, I still love it." Albina has taught at The Bead Museum, and at the J.O.G.S Gem & Jewelry Show, (where she and Dale ‘Cougar’ Armstrong became friends). Her work Bonsai Shakkan has been used by Fire Mountain Gems both as a back cover advertisement and inside their catalog. In 2009 Albina won the 1st Place Gold Medal award with her piece titled ‘Inca’s Gold Necklace’ in FMG’s wirework category. She presently teaches private classes and at The Beaderie. Albina has written several E-books and has been published in ‘Art Bead Circle Magazine’ as well as the book Mixed Media Jewelry Techniques, a collaboration with Dale “Cougar” Armstrong and eight other talented jewelry artists. Learn more about Albina on her website: http://www.around-beads.info Albina’s latest success is her Coiling and Weaving Wire Jewelry Designs Series, a 3-DVD series devoted to working with round wire to create beautiful designs, released in April 2011 through Wire-Sculpture.com.