Fireworks, kadomatsu, pancit, biko, pan dulce, eating grapes or 12 round fruits, and mochi pounding are among the many cultural traditions to celebrate the new year. These earrings were inspired by the kagamimochi found in many Japanese homes...learn to make these at the store demonstrations...or join us at the Pearl City store for a make/take on Thursday, December 30th from 10:30am-12noon and 2:30pm-3:30pm! Great to give as a gift or wear them yourself! Thank you for your support, it was a very fun and creative year! 2011 is sure to bring more creative ideas and inspirations!
Happy Holidays! One of Santa's merry elves visited us earlier & brought the seasons favorite candy canes which we are sharing with those of you who come to the store. We still have kits for gift giving...scrapbook kits, build-a-bear and, a favorite for kids & adults alike, shrinky dinks kits! There are many more kits to chose from for future crafters! Of course, your favorite crafters may love a new paper trimmer or another die design for their Big Shot! If you can't decide, we have gift cards too! Be on the look out for our January calendar...we have a few new classes and the "ole" favorites too! The staff at the Pearl City store wishes all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! 
Here is a quick and easy gift idea. First I started with the metal base. They come in a pack of two with designs like hearts, stars, angels and Christmas trees. They are only $1 for two! Great price! I cut the card in 1/2 so I would have two gifts. I wrote "To and From" in the corners. Then I made some marble magnets to stick to the metal base. So easy! 
A customer came in to the Kailua store today and told me about this cute decoration in her home. She used all different sizes of glass bricks, tied a bow around them and plugged in some Christmas lights. She was so excited about it, I had to try it. I love it! It's a great way to use up the ribbon on the end of the bolt too! I think you could use it as a table centerpiece (with battery lights) , around the base of your Christmas tree or even as a night light in a kids room. There are so many possibilities with the glass bricks. Come visit us in Kailua! I would love to share these ideas and more.
Hi Gang! It's Lynn from the Mapunapuna Ben Franklin Crafts Bead Shop and I just wanted to show you how I added a little bling to my beader's tool kit. These kits contain most of the essential tools you would need for most beading projects and they come in a variety of colors like pink, blue, brown, and green all in a color co-ordinated case. To make my kit a little more personalized I glued on Swarovski crystal flatbacks with Beacon 527 glue. I just squeezed some of the glue onto a piece of scratch paper, used a tooth pick to draw a design onto the case and then applied the flatbacks with the pair of tweezers that just happen to come with the kit. I did a leaf design for my green kit but wouldn't it be cute to do a cupcake design on a pink kit or maybe a coffee cup with steam on a brown kit? So many possibilities!
As you can see in this picture, I also applied some bling to the tools themselves. You can use the same Beacon 527 for this, just clean the area first with a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol. The kit comes with round nose pliers, chain nose pliers, flat nose pliers, tweezers, a split ring tool, wire cutters, nylon jaw pliers, and a bent nose pliers.
