Daily Wire Jewelry Making Tip
July 3, 2010

Question:

Where on the Wire-Sculpture website is the Free Instructional DVD, with Dale Cougar Armstrong?

-Dusty in Pierre, South Dakota

Answer:

Good question! For our beginning wire artists, you can order this sample free DVD by clicking here. You pay only the cost of shipping.

Answer contributed by Dale “Cougar” Armstrong

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We asked Dale what trend or theme she saw in the Tucson JOGS show this year. Her answer? Labradorite!

Labradorite is named for the Labrador region of Canada, and it’s a beautiful gem, ranging in color and sheen from brown to purple to gold to blue!
You can find a beautiful collection of Labradorite Cabochons and Labradorite Beads right here on Wire-Sculpture.com!

Hi Wire Sculptors! Today, I want you to meet Mint Schlief, our newest member of our Wire Faculty here at Wire-Sculpture.com.
Mint is a native Virginian and has lived there for most of her life. She is a graduate of Stuart Hall School for Girls in Staunton, Virginia and attended Westhampton College in Richmond. Mint also took design and sewing classes at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. Professionally, she is a high-end kitchen and bathroom designer who currently works with Custom Kitchens, Inc., (Richmond, VA), as she has for 34 years.

Although Mint’s journey into wire-jewelry artistry actually began in 2007, she can trace the original source way back! After she met and married her wonderful and supportive husband, Dean in 1977, they visited Mint’s grandson in Italy. While touring Venice, she purchased several Murano pendants, which the locals wore on strands of seed beads twisted into a rope necklace. However none of these were long enough for her neck, and being the crafter that she is, Mint decided to make her own! To pursue this venture she paid a visit to ‘More Than Just Beads’ in Williamsburg to purchase the necessary seed beads.  While there, Mint saw her first piece of wire jewelry; a framed cabochon pendant that was a project taught by the shop owner, Sande Hubbard.

Mint says, “I was fascinated and signed up for her next class. I then attended Bead Fest Wire in Wilmington, Delaware and took every class that Dale “Cougar” Armstrong offered.

“No, I have never finished the necklace for the glass pendants, as wire has consumed my life! And being much too prolific, I have started Mint Spring’s Designs LLC, and I participate in juried Fine Art shows whenever possible. I have been nationally published twice, thanks to my friend and mentor “Cougar.”  Without Sande, “Cougar,” and my beloved husband Dean, none of this would have been possible.”

Mint Schlief and her husband Dean reside in rural Virginia.

A die-hard rockhound, lapidary, and wire jewelry designer, instructor and author, Dale credits her mom for spurring the main interest that led to Dale’s chosen career. Her mother was an avid rockhound and many, weekend family adventures involved traipsing through the White Mountains of New Hampshire in search of abandoned pegmatite mines. This is where Dale’s fascination with, and education of rocks and minerals began, some 40 years ago.

Dale/Cougar, has a diverse art background, training in two-dimensional art with Carl Haskins of Vermont, and William Keyworth of New Hampshire. She also spent several years receiving personalized instruction with Karl Drerupe, renowned cloisonné and repossé artist. Dale attended the University of South Florida where she studied fine arts and geology. She worked as a technical, advertising artist for several years, ‘before the age of computers’.

Under her studio name of Cougar’s Creations, Dale displays her works at juried art shows, where she has taken many awards. As a featured artist, Dale has been interviewed on live television and has works for sale in museums and galleries. Dale “Cougar” Armstrong is a regular contributor to Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry magazine and has been published in The Wire Artist Jeweler, Bead Unique and Art Jewelry magazines. She is a frequent instructor at Lapidary Journals’ BeadFest events, and has made a series of instructional DVDs, produced by Jewelry Television. As an instructor, she conducts workshops in her personal studio and by request, travels to teach classes at beadshops and other events nationwide. She has recently been one of many wire jewelry experts showcased by Wire-Sculpture.com through their tips, articles and other wire jewelry publications.

Dale’s newest success is her recently published book entitled: Wirework: An Illustrated Guide to the Art of Wire Wrapping.

Sherrie Lingerfelt is a native of the Deep South and a full-time, high school math teacher who has always had her hands in one craft or another. Her interest in jewelry making began more than twenty years ago, by mixing macramé with fossils and stones, which progressed into beading. After discovering the Wire-Sculpture website many years ago, Sherrie’s fascination with wire led her to meet and take classes with Dale ‘Cougar’ Armstrong and her life changed forever.

Sherrie is now a wire jewelry artist who combines her Native American heritage with her love of geometry and nature, to create fabulous wire jewelry designs that have taken many awards. Her inspiration comes from various sources, and she is often seen pulling out an ever present, mini-notebook to sketch lines from architecture as future ‘design fodder’. Sherrie and her husband Larry live on their farm in Fyffe, Alabama.