It's not every day a sales associate can get away with telling a shopper to "stuff it."

But that was the advice Lyle Boyle, 53, of Wall gave customer Ellen Kaplan of Marlboro at The Birds and the Beads Thursday, as Kaplan showed off an unfinished bronze-hued African helix necklace she'd recently begun beading.

"Yeah, take your necklace and stuff it," Boyle joked, as Kaplan and other shoppers at the bead boutique burst into laughter. Boyle had suggested Kaplan fill the spiral necklace with tubing or more beads to keep its shape.

Like other customers, Kaplan had mingled at the store for nearly an hour, chatting up shoppers-turned-acquaintances, perusing beading magazines and even following a staffer's suggestion she dip into a bowl of beads to enjoy the sensation.

"Beading is about being creative, doing my own thing," said Kaplan, an art instructor. "I love the variety, the different finishes, making something unique. It's a bead thing."

The friendly bead banter is business as usual at The Birds and the Beads, where customers can choose from a selection of beads and assemble them in about 40 jewelry-making classes in the store's studios, said bead boutique owner Donna Raskin.

"You get a product you like, you learned how to do it yourself and you can hang out with some fun beading people," said Raskin, 53, of Colts Neck. "Eventually, you start recognizing people, and you'll ask, "Hey, are you going to this class?' There's a camaraderie there."

The shop's inventory includes 10-cent multicolored beads and $100 lamp-worked glass beads by designers including Jeff Barber and Leah Fairbanks. There are also Swarovsky crystal beads and South Sea pearl strings priced at $5,000 and up.

Instructors at the Birds and the Beads include self-taught crafters, published jewelry makers and artisans certified in precious metal and clay work. They teach classes ranging from the wire-bending fundamentals of earring-making to right-angle weaving of one-millimeter beads for more complicated lariat necklaces, Raskin said.

Course prices range from $15 to $65.

"If you make it yourself, it's the length you want, the color you want. If you don't like this type of clasp, you can add another," Raskin said, adding some "rock hounds" simply collect the stones. "It sort of taps into your creative self, but it's not as long term a project. People don't have the time anymore to make a quilt."

Raskin said she had no idea the shop would have such a following when she left her job as a Wall Street bookkeeper 16 years ago - "I fired myself when I realized they couldn't afford me," she says - and invested $25,000 to launch the boutique at a location on Route 34 in Colts Neck.

She said she moved from her old storefront to her larger, 2,400-square-foot Marlboro digs in 2003 in response to a growing clientele - and a growing number of beads.

"You could go crazy trying to figure out how many beads we have," said Raskin, motioning to the shop's countless trays of round, oblong and irregularly shaped beads in a rainbow of shades and textures. "We do inventory and it takes us almost all year to finish."

Raskin said she started the business working alone, inspired after taking a pearl-stringing class. Today, she has two full-time and six part-time staffers.

"People like that, you can walk around for a long time and not see everything - the new possibilities, the classes, a library of information," Raskin said. "And it's fun."

Today, Raskin said beaders are becoming a force to be reckoned with. She attends about four trade shows a year, including the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase in Tucson, Ariz., attended by more than 55,000 annually, to keep up with trends and designers.

"It (the show) takes over the entire town," Raskin said. "I get my room a year in advance and the hotel's full. People are parked on the side of the road. They put up tents. It's really become an industry."

And it's not just birds of a feather flocking together when it comes to beading - The Birds and the Beads staff said they see everyone from Wall Streeters to professional crafters beading and bonding at the Route 79 shop.

"It's the urge to create," staffer Barb Cook said. "You don't even have to be creative, because we teach you how to make the pieces. You just have to have that urge."