One of the guests is in a costume so tall he barely makes it through the door of the television studio, which is Room 3 of Krazy Karaoke on Young Street. The black vinyl karaoke booths and tippy tables have been pushed against the walls to make room for the TV cameras.

The construction paper musical notes hanging from the ceiling don't show on TV. Joy Shimabukuro is getting ready for her close-up by heating up a glue gun and running photos through what looks like a hand-held laminator. Her usually curly hair is straightened today. "Somebody offered to do my hair and make-up for free," she explains. "And this lady isn't even a crafter!"

At a time when anybody can have their own television show, when "reality" is staged and the twin terrors of ambition and delusion make even the producers of the worst shows think they're Emmy-bound, this TV show is just what it is: Simple, straightforward and purposeful.

At the end of 30 minutes, a project has been completed. No cliffhangers, no strange special effects, no canned laugh track, no delusions of grandeur. Just a smart, gentle host with a glue gun.

"The Joy of Crafting" will mark its 100th episode this fall. It started out on 'Olelo public access and Joy was a regular guest (though she does many crafts, her favorites are cardmaking, scrapbooking and rubber stamping). When the first host moved to the Mainland, Joy, craft coordinator manager for Ben Franklin Crafts Hawai'i, was asked to take over the show.

"We've had some national craft people come and demonstrate on the show," she says. "Really major people. It's good because not everyone can fly up to trade shows."

More often, though, Joy's guests are experienced crafters inexperienced in television: A lady who makes eyelash-yarn lei; a man who does One Stroke painting on wooden boxes; a crafter who shows how to take the face off a wall clock and replace it with family photos and beach-themed designs.

But here is where Joy's true craftiness really shines. She makes her guests laugh, relax, focus on the yarn or the glue or the foam board. She plays the novice, asking how and why questions, sometimes asking again in a different way to make the guests explain each step and clarify instructions.

"People who know me ask why I ask questions about things I already know how to do," she says, laughing. "I'm trying to be the person who doesn't know how. The crafters sometimes forget that the people watching are beginners."

Joy Shimabukuro has no formal training in arts and/or crafts and says she just got into crafting as "my way of entertaining myself." Her degree from UH is in communications with a minor in journalism, and that serves her well in the show. When the cameras are stopped, Joy manages the crew and her guests like she's a floor director for Oprah. She tells the nervous ones what to expect. She explains to the camera operators what she's going to do.

Everything is organized and prepared. When she first started on the show, she worked with a prepared script, but soon found that made everyone nervous. Now, they just "talk story," though clearly she has the structure of the show all mapped out in her head.

On this morning at Krazy Karaoke, the rooms and snack bar are quiet beneath album covers and posters of Bananarama, Homegrown II and Tupac Shakur. The video crew hired from Hawai'i Pacific Entertainment sets up four cameras, three on tripods and one clamped to a pole above the demonstration table for close-ups on the crafting. Once they start shooting, they rarely stop for a re-take. If somebody makes a mistake, Joy just picks up from right before the flub and they fix it in editing. She can do that.

"She's good," says one of the crew. But there aren't many outtakes. When the guy in the huge costume —a mascot for the Hawai'i Winter Baseball league (Joy does crafts for the kids during lulls in the games) — knocks down a potted plant in the background, the plant is righted, everybody laughs and the show keeps going. In this reality show, mistakes can be easily fixed, no one is made to look bad or foolish and the underlying theme is: "Yes, you can. See!"

"The Joy of Crafting" runs Sundays at 6:30 p.m. on OC16 and again "seven or eight" times during the week. "People who work all day, they tell me they come home and watch it at midnight," Joy says with a laugh, like she just can't picture it. The show is streamed on the Web so folks on the Mainland can see it, and segments showing how to do certain projects can be viewed at www.thejoyofcrafting.com. Instruction sheets for the crafts on the show are available at all Ben Franklin Crafts locations.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.