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Crossover Crafting.

…related trend niche is documenting the lives of heroes, spurring a wealth of scrapbooking supplies for police officers, firefighters, rescue and medical professionals and all branches of the military service.

6 Knitting, crocheting, fabric arts. It's not your granny's quilting bee. Since yarn crafts are generally portable, fabric artists can exercise their craft on train and bus rides, while waiting in line, or at a coffee-shop, where groups gather to Stitch N Bitch as the title of one popular book calls it. These knitters are hip and edgy, and make colorful statements with the newest textures and stitching techniques, sharing craft and camaraderie. Research from the Craft Yarn Council reveals that the fastest growing segment of the yarn market is 24-to-35-year-olds, showing an incredible 150 percent increase in the most recent 12-month period. This age bracket alone accounts for 6.5 million active knitters and crocheters.

7 Extending the rainbow palette with inks, paints and color. The six major color companies offered more than 1,500 ink choices in 2005. Ten years ago, there were only dye and pigment inks to use on flat and coated papers. Today, paper artists are lured into mixed

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…said, noting that she launched the business with a $100 investment and began selling the jewelry at fairs. Today the inventory is more than $30,000, she said. "We did pretty well, but we eventually got too old for fairs,'' she said. "I'm a good salesman, and I knew we had fabulous products, so I went to wholesalers to show them what we could do, and they liked it.'' Ms. Powers and Ms. Frazier each have beading studios in their homes. Their inventory includes mostly natural stones as well as some vintage beads. Ms. Powers, a self-taught beader, said her favorite beads are Swarovski crystals, which she orders in bulk from companies in Europe. "I also like handmade furnace glass beads," she said. "It's clear on the outside with color on the inside. It's quite a process to make and the colors are brilliant.'' "I do all the buying but Gail picks out the colors -- she's good at putting different colors together,'' she said. Jeanette Kinney, 43, owner of Beadazzled on East Brainerd Road, said she got into the hobby of making beaded jewelry nearly six years ago as a means of therapy. "I had a disabled daughter and it was something I could do at home,''…
…as addicted as I am," Coutre said.

The 18-year Cary resident was a stay-at-home mom before deciding to open a bead store. Husband James gutted a former bagel store near the Cary Jewel to make way for beads, while Coutre had thousands of beads delivered to her home, where she spent hours weighing, stringing and packaging them.

When Bead Boss opened in 2002, it held eight work tables where customers learned how to make jewelry. Today the tables are gone and the store consists of 1,600 square feet of beads and stringing material. Customers are mostly local, but many come from Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio.

Coutre is excited about a new opportunity for Bead Boss customers. Every month, the store will hold a two-week trunk show where a company will deliver a large quantity of a specific type of bead. The shows will enable customers to choose from a greater variety of items than Bead Boss is able to stock.

The first trunk show begins March 16 and will feature pearls, while April's show will include Czech glass.

When not minding the store, Coutre enjoys visiting bead shows and shops to get new ideas. But she gets most inspired by her customers.

"I'm always interested…