The window of Isabelle's Bead Shoppe, 109 S. Pugh St., is cluttered with handmade ornaments -- necklaces, earrings, bracelets, glass beads and broaches. Through the bright purple door are tables and cases of beads from all over the world. Readymade bead and hemp necklaces hang on the walls toward the back of the shop. And sitting in an old embossed chair, concentrating on a delicate bead-wiring debacle, is Kathy St. Martin.

St. Martin opened the South Pugh Street shop nearly two years ago as "a low-key place where people can come to make gifts and create their own pieces."

"This place is fun," she said, patting an exotic necklace. "We make everything on the premises. People come in and are elated because they create things that they just can't buy. The environment of the store gives people the confidence to make things themselves. It's a make-it-yourself emphasis."

John Schoof, a local bead artist from whom St. Martin buys many of her handmade glass beads, is coming to Isabelle's tomorrow to create and sell his glass lamp beads and ornaments.

PHOTO: Mike Bencivenga/Collegian Kathy St. Martin, owner of Isabelle’s Bead Shoppe, works on a necklace.

"I'll be setting up my torch in the shop window," Schoof said. "I might even be taking custom orders because it's well before Christmas. . . . I generally sell my beads for between $10 and $25, depending on the amount of time I spent working on them.

"What's best about the beads is that I can leave them and come back to them and work more -- unlike glasses and ornaments and things like that -- and if you don't like how it comes out, it's not that big a deal. Somebody might even like it; there's a leeway with beads."

St. Martin personally selects all the beads in her shop, which range in price from $0.05 to $20 depending on the material, craftsmanship and origin. She said that while selling the "standard stuff that people expect in bead stores," she's always "searching for that one elusive bead."

Many of the beads in Isabelle's come from other parts of the world, like the trade beads her friend Linda Crane brought back from South Africa last June. Crane brings St. Martin both foreign beads and ones she's created herself in her own small glass studio, finding inspiration "from scuba diving and the beautiful sea."

"My beads are called Mutant Beads," Crane said with a chuckle, "because when I make glass beads I make them very odd shapes -- they're not always circles like you'd expect. . . . Beads are simply a case of pleasing with shape, texture, color. They're such a unique medium. Kathy always laughs when I bring my work in, but lately she's come out with some pretty strange things herself! I say, 'Ah hah! Now you're getting funky!' "

Besides choosing beads and crafting some of the readymade jewelry for her shop, it's St. Martin who personally helps everyone who comes into the shop, either by repairing old jewelry or fastening new pieces.

"Can't count on help from that bum," she joked, pointing at Patina, a furry gray Persian dozing behind a chartreuse chair.

"But really," she said, "I want people to feel confident coming back here because they know I'm fair and I stand behind everything I sell. It's so much fun for me to watch people creating with beads. You see a smile on their face when they're done. I like that."