Fun classes on Oʻahu, from the studios that actually run them
Every craft, art and maker studio on the island that teaches beginners: 34 of them, with what a class costs, when registration opens, and the thing you would only find out on arrival. Clay, weaving, jewellery, printmaking, glass, leather, kapa and lei, taught in studios from Chinatown to Waialua — plus the island’s one real makerspace, and the places other class guides still send you to that have closed. Materials are included more often than you would think, and a surprising amount of it is free.
Read from each studio’s own site in August 2026 and cross-checked against a current listing to prove the doors are open. Where a studio does not publish a price, this page says so instead of guessing.
Three things a class list should tell you and usually doesn’t
When registration opens
The Potters’ Guild fall term started 18 August, but sign-ups opened 6 July and closed twelve days later. HoMA’s fall registration opens at 10am on 18 August. Miss the window and the term is simply gone.
What the price actually includes
Jewellery courses add materials fees on top of tuition. Ceramics studios charge for clay by the bag. Two studios on this page publish no price at all — we say so rather than inventing one.
Whether the place still exists
Both Painting with a Twist studios, Wine & Design and KōBō Glass are gone — and all four are still listed in current class roundups. Three more we could not confirm either way, and we say which.
Art classes in Honolulu: drawing and painting
The art classes Honolulu is actually known for run from a $15 Monday-night life drawing session you can walk into, through nine-week museum courses in drawing fundamentals and composition, to a classical atelier in Chinatown teaching oil painting and figure work at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels. Private lessons are available at three of the five below.
The biggest studio school in the state, in its own building behind the museum: ceramics, printmaking, metals and jewellery, drawing, painting and fibre, for ages three and up.
Multi-week courseOne-off workshopOpen studioKeiki
Price: Nine- and ten-week courses run $275–330 — the core beginner classes (intro ceramics, wheel throwing, drawing basics) are $305, which is about $34 a session and the best value on the island. Single-session workshops from $37; a five-session enamelling class $159. Membership at $150 a year takes $10 off every studio class.
The catch: Fall term registration opens at 10am on 18 August 2026 for a term running 8 October to 20 December, and members at the $365 tier get early access before the public date. Workshops of three sessions or fewer are non-refundable and non-transferable, full stop. Open studio is only for students currently enrolled in an adult class at the school. Parking behind the school is metered, card only.
The most walk-in-friendly art space in town: Saturday afternoon Art for Art’s Sake with materials included, Monday night life drawing and Tuesday portrait sessions, plus the occasional multi-week course.
Drop-inMulti-week course
Price: Art for Art’s Sake $20 a session, materials included · life drawing and portrait sessions $15 booked online or $20 at the door · six-Sunday intermediate watercolour $360
The catch: Bring your own materials to the life drawing and portrait sessions — only Art for Art’s Sake includes them. Unless a class says otherwise it is adults 18 and over. Metered parking on site, card only, no grace period; there is a lift to the second floor.
Classical atelier training in six- to nine-week blocks — classical oil painting, figure painting, figure drawing, plein air landscape — rotating through beginner, intermediate and advanced.
Multi-week courseOpen studioFree
Price: The eight-week Introduction to Figure Drawing is listed at $400 in their store. Most other workshops show no price at all on the schedule page. The Friday morning open studio, 9am–12pm, is free.
The catch: You usually cannot find out what a course costs without digging into the store or calling — the schedule page lists dates without prices. There is no Instagram to check for last-minute changes, only Facebook.
A membership society that brings visiting watercolour masters to the island for multi-day intensives, alongside online sessions.
One-off workshopMembership
Price: Four-day workshop with Frank Eber, 29 September–2 October 2026: $575 members, $675 non-members
The catch: Sixteen seats, and that September workshop is already sold out with a waitlist. Fees are non-refundable, only transferable. The workshop happens at Downtown Art Center but is run and priced by the Society, not by DAC.
Where:
Workshops at Downtown Art Center, 1041 Nuʻuanu Ave, Honolulu, HI 96817
Build a leather bag from flat hide to finished object in one four-hour sitting — the Hannah crossbody is the usual project.
One-off workshop
Price: $250
The catch: A one-person operation, so email replies are slow and class sizes are tiny. The brand naming is confusing: the Nuʻuanu Avenue storefront was Open Sea Leather Co. and now trades as Hook & Hide, made by the same artisans, and both names are still in circulation online.
Our studio. We run this site, so treat this entry as an advert and the rest of the page as the comparison — that is why the prices above and below are all here in the same format.
Small-group craft workshops across two Chinatown rooms: custom rug tufting, Turkish mosaic lamps, soy candles, resin jewelry and terrariums. Everything is finished and taken home the same day.
The catch: Sessions are small and weekend slots go first. Pauahi Street seats twelve and River Street thirty, so ask which room your date is in. Rug tufting is the most physical thing on this page — you are standing and operating a tufting gun for a couple of hours.
Where:
15 N Pauahi St (up to 12) and 941 River St #240 (up to 30), Honolulu, HI 96817
Clay is the most-asked-about class on the island and the one where the price tags mislead most. A $305 nine-week course is cheaper per session than a $150 Saturday, and the studio that looks cheapest only opens sign-ups twice a year. Per-session figures below are the total divided by the number of meetings.
Oʻahu ceramics studios, side by sidePrices as each studio publishes them · checked 2026-08-12
Studio
Format
Price
Per session
Best for
Honolulu Museum of Art SchoolMakiki · 1111 Victoria St
Nine-week courses, one 3hr session a week
$305core beginner courses · the 9–10 week range is $275–330 · members save $10
≈ $34
Best value
Hawaiʻi Potters’ GuildMōʻiliʻili · 2480 Bingham St
Twelve-week terms, weekly slot plus open studio
$275$250 members · clay $25–68 a bag
≈ $23
Cheapest per session
FishcakeKakaʻako · 307C Kamani St
One-offs and short courses, 20+ dates a month
$45–300matcha bowl $95 · cylinders $300 for four
≈ $45–75
Most variety
Mudd StudioChinatown · 1192 Smith St
One day, three days, or six weeks
$115–450six-week wheel or handbuilding $450
≈ $75–115
Try it once
North Shore Arts CenterWaialua · 106 Kealohanui St
Three- and six-week beginner wheel blocks
$220members take 40% off
≈ $73
Country side
Clay Café HawaiʻiMcCully · 1960 Kapiʻolani Blvd
Paint an existing piece, no wheel
$25 table depositpiece and studio fee not published
Twelve-week wheel-throwing and handbuilding courses, one three-hour session a week, beginner through advanced, plus member open studio.
Multi-week courseMembershipOpen studio
Price: $275 a term, $250 for members, plus $25–68 a bag for clay
The catch: Registration opens in a narrow window and is announced quietly — the fall window opened 6 July and closed 18 July for a term starting 18 August. Returning students who attended 8 of 12 sessions get priority, so a first-timer can be waitlisted behind them.
The catch: Membership and 24/7 studio access exist but the price is not published online — you have to ask. The studio does not publish a street address either; the one above comes from its Yelp and Maps listings, so confirm it when you book. As with every ceramics studio, the pieces you make need firing, so plan a second trip to collect them.
Ceramics, glass and metalsmithing under one roof. Beginner wheel throwing in three- or six-week blocks, plus one-day plate and charcuterie-board workshops.
Multi-week courseOne-off workshopMembershipKeiki
Price: Three-week beginner wheel $220 · six-week $440 · handbuilding $220 · one-day plate workshop $250 · charcuterie board $160. Members take 40% off, one discount per membership; memberships run $50–$280 a month.
The catch: Several class blocks are listed with dates “TBA”, so you cannot plan far ahead. Open-studio access is only a membership benefit — there is no drop-in studio fee. The centre does not publish its street address on its own site; the one above comes from Honolulu Magazine and Yelp.
Where:
106 Kealohanui St, Waialua, HI 96791 (old Waialua Sugar Mill)
A design store with the busiest workshop programme in town — more than twenty dated sessions a month. Ceramics anchors it (matcha bowls, cylinders, shisa), but the same calendar carries sumi-e, printmaking, perfume blending, wagashi and flower work.
One-off workshopMulti-week course
Price: Single sessions $45–130 — hippers $45, nerikiri $50, sumi-e $55, matcha bowl $95, shisa $130. Short courses run to $300 for four evenings of centring and cylinders.
The catch: Sessions are small and the good ones close early; the calendar turns over monthly, so a class you saw last month may simply not exist this month. Ceramics pieces need firing, so you collect them later.
Weekly ceramic workshops and lessons, intro wheel throwing as a single class or a series, private lessons and handbuilt projects. All levels.
One-off workshopMulti-week coursePrivate booking
Price: Not published — prices sit behind the booking system
The catch: Two things to check when you book. Sources disagree on the street number — the studio says 1922 Colburn, Honolulu Magazine says 1920 — and Nendo also runs off-site workshops and overseas wood-firing trips, so confirm your session is actually at the Kalihi studio.
A two-hour guided handbuilding session — mugs, bowls and tableware — with no prior experience assumed.
One-off workshop
Price: Not published on the site — book to see the rate
The catch: Handbuilding only. If you pictured yourself at a wheel, this is not that studio. Pickup timing for fired work is not stated either, so ask before you book around a flight.
Paint-your-own pottery: pick a bisque piece off the shelf, paint it at the table, leave it to be glazed and fired. No wheel, no instruction needed.
Drop-inKeiki
Price: $25 a table to reserve. The studio fee and the price of each piece are not listed online.
The catch: Reservations are taken by phone only — no online booking, no email, no DMs — and walk-ins are not guaranteed a seat. Last seating is two hours before close, and the shop is shut on Wednesdays.
Where:
McCully Shopping Center, 1960 Kapiʻolani Blvd #208, Honolulu, HI 96826
Honolulu has exactly one full makerspace, and it is a nonprofit. Around it sit a tool library, a screen-printing seminar in a Waipahu supply shop, and a Kalihi shaper who will let you make your own surfboard.
The island’s serious makerspace: 13,000 sq ft of laser cutting and engraving, laser welding, desktop CNC, FDM and resin 3D printing, UV direct-to-object and large-format printing, vinyl cutting, heat press and hot-foil, plus a photography and media suite. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
MembershipOpen studioFree
Price: Unlimited 24/7 $350/month · nights and weekends $200 · five-visit punch pass $160 · student (18+) $150. Sliding scale takes the unlimited tier to $245, $175 or $105 depending on need, self-selected at application.
The catch: There are no day passes, and you cannot walk in and use a machine. Everyone goes through an application, an onsite tour and a community agreement, then a safety orientation; the riskier machines need a per-machine clearance session and the highest tier requires a buddy. Membership is a monthly commitment. The cost of machine training is not published anywhere on the site, and the locker price contradicts itself — $5 a month on the FAQ, $10 on the makerspace page.
Where:
1052 Waimanu St, Honolulu, HI 96814
When:
Building open 24 hours; your access window depends on your tier
Not a class studio — a lending library for tools, run by Re-use Hawaiʻi. Borrow the drill, sander or tile saw instead of buying it. They also advertise monthly skill-building workshops.
Membership
Price: $20 a month, $50 for three months, or $150 a year. 10% off for seniors, students and military.
The catch: The workshop schedule and workshop fees are not published anywhere we could find — the old class pages now redirect to a general page. Join for the tools; treat the workshops as a bonus you have to ask about.
Where:
4561 Salt Lake Blvd, Suite 102, Honolulu, HI 96818
A two-part beginner silkscreen seminar: coat and expose your stencil in part one, then actually print onto t-shirts you bring in part two.
One-off workshop
Price: $150 plus tax. Add $50 if you need help cleaning up your artwork.
The catch: Three seats per session, so it books out. You need print-ready artwork emailed at least two days ahead or you pay the touch-up fee. This is a supply company’s back room, not a design studio.
Shape your own surfboard, or laminate one in poly or carbon fibre, one-to-one with a working shaper. Three to eight hours depending on the class.
Private booking
Price: Hand shaping $500 · poly lamination $500 · carbon fibre lamination $500 · shaping and lamination together $999
The catch: You buy online and then wait to be scheduled — there is no calendar. Their own hours notice says to call ahead because they might be surfing. Eighteen and over, because of the tools.
The strongest and least-publicised category on the island. A 73-year-old weaving hui publishes a fresh class list every month, and a family in Liliha has been teaching Hawaiian quilting on Saturday mornings for $10 a week.
The deepest fibre programme on the island and the one that changes most: finger weaving, rag rugs, eco dyeing, crocheted lei, card weaving on an inkle loom, palaka towels on a rigid heddle, ikat. Founded 1953, around 170 members.
One-off workshopMulti-week course
Price: Most one-session classes $70 for members and $80 for everyone else, plus a $5–25 materials fee paid to the instructor in cash on the day. Multi-session courses run $190–450.
The catch: The Hui moved to St Luke’s on 1 June 2026 and its own About page still shows the old Downtown Art Center address — go by the class listing, not the About page. A few classes really are at Downtown Art Center, and some are on Hawaiʻi Island. Registration closes about a week ahead and a class needs three people to run.
Where:
St Luke’s Episcopal Church Community Hall, 45 N Judd St, Honolulu, HI 96817
Traditional Hawaiian appliqué quilting, taught every Saturday morning by a family that has been teaching it for generations. Beginners start on a 22-inch cushion.
Drop-inMulti-week course
Price: $35 the first time, which includes your cushion kit, then $10 a week
The catch: The cheapest serious class on this page, but there is no online booking and no published calendar — you call Rae to find out whether it is running. It meets in a church hall, informally.
Where:
Higashi Hongwanji Mission, 1685 Alaneo St, Honolulu, HI 96817
Sewing at beginner and intermediate level — machine basics, choosing fabric, reading a pattern — taught in a shop that has been on 10th Avenue since 1926.
One-off workshop
Price: Not published online — call for current rates
The catch: No prices on the site and no online booking: you call or walk in. The “Maker Monday” drop-in sessions that older roundups mention have disappeared from their site, so do not turn up expecting one.
A quilting shop trading since 1982, running four- to seven-hour classes on specific projects. Their own list runs from beginner — no quilting knowledge needed, just basic machine skills — through intermediate.
One-off workshop
Price: Their class list shows $35.34 to $73.04 depending on length. Read the catch before you rely on that.
The catch: The shop is open and busy — reviews run through February 2026 — but its class page looks frozen in time: it still says one instructor is “expecting to return November 2017”, which makes those prices and that roster about nine years old. Ring before you plan around any of it. Registration is in person, by post or by phone, and there are no refunds, cancellations or transfers.
One proper jewellery school downtown with ten-week courses, a west-side forge where you hammer your own silver, and a Waikīkī walk-in for people who want a ring tonight.
A real jewellery school: ten weeks of metal basics for absolute beginners, wax carving, stone setting, enamelling, and CAD for jewellery design.
Multi-week courseOne-off workshopOpen studio
Price: Metal Basics, ten weeks, $450 plus a $75 materials fee · intro wax carving, eight weeks, $400 · CAD, eight weeks, $475 · tube and prong setting, five weeks, $250 plus $35 materials · enamelling workshop $120 plus $18 a cup and $20 materials. Open studio $25 a session, $135 for six or $200 for ten.
The catch: Materials fees stack on top of tuition everywhere, and open studio is only for current students and members who have been cleared on the torch and kiln. Most 2026 dates were still marked “registration soon” when we checked, so you may be waiting for a date rather than picking one.
Forge a sterling silver ring, bangle, pendant or bolo tie in an open-air home studio, doing most of the hammering yourself. Two to four hours, three to eight people.
One-off workshopPrivate booking
Price: $145 a person, all in · extra pieces $130 · cuff bracelets $145 · 14k gold-filled rings $275
The catch: By appointment only, and the address only arrives after you book — it is someone’s home studio on the west side, so factor the drive.
Walk-in silversmithing — make a sterling ring — plus charm bars and permanent welded jewellery. Open late, which almost nothing else on this page is.
Drop-inPrivate booking
Price: Not published — rates appear at booking
The catch: It sits inside a Waikīkī shopping centre and is priced as an experience rather than a class. Check the per-person cost before you commit, and expect visitors rather than locals around the bench.
Honolulu Printmakers runs the island’s community press — and, contrary to a common assumption, it is not inside the museum. It has its own seventh-floor shop downtown.
A community-access print shop with intaglio, relief, lithography, screenprint, letterpress and risograph. Workshops run all year with visiting artists.
One-off workshopMembershipOpen studio
Price: Workshop fees are set per class and shown on the individual listing rather than a price list. Membership: $50 a year basic, $100 a year for the studio tier, monthly tiers from $75. Member studio time is $25 for four hours, $50 for a day, $100 for a 30-day pass.
The catch: The $50 basic membership does NOT include studio access — the $100 studio tier is the one that does, and it is easy to buy the wrong tier. Open studio is members-only and the shop is closed Sundays. Workshop drops are often announced on Instagram before they reach the site.
Where:
888 Mililani St, Suite 701, Honolulu, HI 96813
When:
Mon 5–9pm · Tue–Thu 9am–5pm · Wed & Fri 9am–9pm · Sat 9am–5pm · closed Sun
Thin on the ground since KōBō Glass closed. One hot shop up in Lāʻie, and a fused-glass collective that meets in a Nuʻuanu temple hall on ten-week terms.
Fused glass in ten-session terms, capped at ten students. Tuesday mornings are the designated beginner class; Wednesdays and Thursdays are all levels.
Multi-week course
Price: Not published
The catch: Registration closes well before a term starts — the summer term ran 29 June to 12 September and had already shut for sign-ups. Turn up hoping to join and you will be turned away; watch for the next term instead.
Where:
Temple Emanu-El, 2550 Pali Hwy, Honolulu, HI 96817
Kapa, lauhala, lei and carving. Two of these are free every week and need no booking at all; one is a full day in a Waimānalo garden beating your own cloth.
Kapa making from start to finish — beat your own cloth in a garden, morning or afternoon — plus advanced kapa, tool making and dye making.
One-off workshopPrivate booking
Price: Introduction to kapa making $175 · advanced kapa, two sessions, $200 · tool making adds a $50 materials fee
The catch: The class is not at the Chinatown office address — it is outdoors in a Waimānalo garden, so it is weather-dependent and you need the meeting point confirmed when you book. Their own pages quote the advanced class at both $200 and $225, so check which you are paying.
Where:
Office at 90 N King St #212, Honolulu; workshops in a Waimānalo garden
Free cultural lessons on a weekly rota: lauhala weaving on Wednesdays — you leave wearing the bracelet you wove — and orchid lei making on Fridays, both in Building C. Keiki hula runs separately in the Royal Grove on Thursdays for ages 5–10.
FreeDrop-in
Price: Free
The catch: First come, first served, capped at the first 24 guests, and reservations are explicitly not accepted — turn up early. The weaving and lei classes are 10 and over; the hula session is a children’s class, not an adult one. It is a Waikīkī shopping centre, so expect a visitor-heavy room.
Where:
Building C, Level 2, 2201 Kalākaua Ave, Honolulu, HI 96815
Free lei classes on The Veranda: haku kupeʻe — a flower bracelet — on Thursday mornings, and flower lei on Friday and Sunday mornings.
FreeDrop-in
Price: Free
The catch: The Thursday haku kupeʻe class has limited places and you must reserve by 8am that morning; the Friday and Sunday lei sessions need no booking. It is a resort, so budget for parking or plan to be dropped off.
Where:
5000 Kāhala Ave, Honolulu, HI 96816
When:
Haku kupeʻe Thu 9–10am · flower lei Fri & Sun 10–11am
The paint-and-sip category has largely collapsed on Oʻahu — both franchise studios and the downtown independent are gone. What is left is more interesting: plants, resin and a craft-store demo counter.
In-store demos that are free to watch, plus paid keiki craft classes in the school holidays — crochet lei, resin coasters, keychains.
FreeKeikiOne-off workshop
Price: Demos are free. Class fees are not published online.
The catch: It is not clear which of the four Oʻahu stores actually runs classes — the chain events page did not load for us. Ring the specific store before you drive there.
Where:
Enchanted Lake 1020 Keolu Dr, Kailua · Mapunapuna 2810 Paʻa St · Pearl City 850 Kamehameha Hwy · Market City 2919 Kapiʻolani Blvd
Classical atelier training in six- to nine-week blocks — classical oil painting, figure painting, figure drawing, plein air landscape — rotating through beginner, intermediate and advanced.
Free cultural lessons on a weekly rota: lauhala weaving on Wednesdays — you leave wearing the bracelet you wove — and orchid lei making on Fridays, both in Building C. Keiki hula runs separately in the Royal Grove on Thursdays for ages 5–10.
In-store demos that are free to watch, plus paid keiki craft classes in the school holidays — crochet lei, resin coasters, keychains.
Mon–Sat 9am–8pm · Sun 9am–5pm
🏛️ City parks, gardens and libraries
More than 80 per cent of City and County park and botanical-garden activities are free, including arts and crafts, and everything is booked through pros.hnl.info. Branch libraries run free single-session craft programmes — sashiko, teen craft, community quilting — listed on the state library calendar. Both are genuinely free and genuinely under-used.
Classes with a date on them
Pulled live from our index, so this refreshes on its own — the actual sessions running in the next few weeks at the studios above.
If you came for “something to do on a Tuesday” rather than a specific medium, these are the non-craft classes on Oʻahu that a local can actually book at a local price.
🍳Hana Kitchens
55 Merchant St #20, Downtown
Cooking classes run by rotating chefs — crêpes and blini, sushi, and a six-week keiki cooking series for one child plus one adult.
Crêpe and blini class $145 · keiki series $900 for the pair
The popular ones sell out — the August sushi class was gone when we looked. It is a rented commercial kitchen, so the schedule depends on which chef is teaching.
The single most useful thing nobody publishes in one place: when terms start, and when sign-ups actually open. Two of the island’s best-value programmes are only bookable for a few days a year.
HoMA Art SchoolOPENS 18 AUG
Fall registration opens at 10am on Tuesday 18 August 2026 for a term running 8 October to 20 December. Members at the $365 tier get in 24 hours early. Winter 2027 opens 17 November, spring 16 February, summer 18 May.
Hawaiʻi Potters’ GuildWINDOW CLOSED
The fall session runs 18 August to 8 November 2026, but registration opened 6 July and closed 18 July — twelve days. Interim runs 9 November to 3 January, and winter 4 January to 28 March 2027; watch for that window rather than the term dates.
Honolulu PrintmakersINSTAGRAM DROPS
Workshops appear and fill between Instagram posts rather than on a published term calendar. The studio calendar page is the second place to look.
Hawaiʻi Handweavers’ HuiMONTHLY LIST
A fresh class list goes up roughly monthly and registration closes about a week before each class, with a three-person minimum for it to run.
City parks and gardensSTAGGERED
Honolulu Botanical Gardens classes opened for registration on 15 December at 9am; district park programmes opened 12–16 January at 5pm, staggered by district. Over 80% of city activities are free. Everything goes through pros.hnl.info.
We watch these windows so you don’t have to
The two best-value art classes in Honolulu open for registration for a handful of days a year, and Honolulu Printmakers announces workshops on Instagram before they reach a website. We check all 34 studios and send one email a week when new dates and craft classes go up — free, and you can unsubscribe from any of them.
Know before you book
🔥Anything fired means a second trip
Clay and glass have to go in a kiln after you leave. Expect one to four weeks — Studio Norae says about a month, and glass needs roughly a day just to cool. If you are visiting, pick lei making, lauhala, leather, printmaking, painting or tufting and carry it home the same day.
🧾The sticker price is often not the whole price
El Dorado adds a $75 materials fee to a $450 course. The Potters’ Guild charges $25–68 a bag for clay. The Handweavers’ Hui collects a $5–25 supply fee in cash on the day. Ask what is included before you compare two numbers.
🎟️Membership maths is worth thirty seconds
North Shore Arts Center members take 40% off classes, which pays back fast if you take two. HoMA’s $150 membership saves $10 a class and buys a day of early registration. Honolulu Printmakers’ $50 tier does not include studio access — the $100 one does.
👕What to wear, honestly
Clothes you would not mind ruining, short nails and tied-back hair for anything with clay. Studios provide aprons, tools and wheels. Lei making and weaving need nothing special, and materials are included at every free session on this page.
Closed, but still on other lists
Every one of these still turns up in a search for classes on Oʻahu. They are not taking bookings.
Painting with a Twist — ʻAiea
Paint and sip, 98-199 Kamehameha Hwy
The chain’s own studio page says it plainly: “Sorry! This location is closed for business.”
Painting with a Twist — Honolulu
Paint and sip, 320 Ward Ave
The chain now lists no Hawaiʻi studios at all in its own location finder, and there is no Maps listing at the Ward Avenue address.
Wine & Design Honolulu
Paint and sip, 25 N King St
The brand’s site has no Hawaiʻi studio page and its Honolulu booking calendar returns no dates. A stale Maps listing with a phone number survives, so ring before you plan around it.
KōBō Glass
Glass studio, 744 Kapahulu Ave
The domain no longer resolves and that address now shows a gelato bar. Reviews stop in 2019, yet it still turns up in class roundups.
HICapacity
Volunteer hackerspace
Dormant. The wiki’s last edit was May 2015 and the Meetup group is gone. OurSpace now fills this role.
Left off because we could not confirm it
These may well be running. We could not prove it from a source we would stand behind, so they are here rather than in the list above — and we will move them up when we can.
· Studio Norae, Kāneʻohe — a $150 one-day wheel workshop with pickup about a month later, per Honolulu Magazine and their own booking page, but noraeceramics.com stopped resolving while we were checking it. We will relist it the moment the site is back.
· Ohana Hot Glass, Lāʻie — the one hot shop on Oʻahu and clearly trading, with 2026 reviews, but ohanahotglass.com no longer resolves and no price was ever published, so we have no link to send you to.
· Art Explorium, Kaimukī — Yelp marks it closed and most coverage stops around 2020, but the website and phone number are live. Call before you write it off.
· Ong King Arts Center, Fort Street Mall — same picture: marked closed in places, but the phone and site still answer, and the site content has not moved since about 2018.
· Queen Emma Summer Palace workshops — the Daughters of Hawaiʻi ʻukulele class we were pointed at is actually at Huliheʻe Palace on Hawaiʻi Island, so we pulled the entry. Occasional craft workshops at the Nuʻuanu palace do appear on their calendar.
· Aloha Aina Pottery Studio, Wahiawā Heights — publishes prices but we found no evidence of activity in 2026, and no street address.
· Madre Chocolate — the Chinatown shop is closed and a Dillingham Boulevard listing shows 2026 reviews, but we could not confirm the bar-making class is running.
· Kapa Lele, Waimea Valley — a live booking site, but no confirmed address, price or schedule.
· Ulu Aʻe Learning Center ʻIke Kuʻuna workshops — lauhala, ʻohe kāpala, Niʻihau shell and lei classes with a live sign-up form, but no published price or location.
· Oʻahu Jewelry Workshops — active booking calendar, no published address or price.
· Roy Sakuma Ukulele Studios — four Oʻahu locations, but everything we could verify is keiki programming.
· Adventures in Art, Waipahu — the old location is closed and a newer listing suggests a move, but no schedule could be confirmed.
How this list was built
Every studio here was read from its own website in August 2026 and cross-checked against a current listing to prove it is still trading. Prices are quoted as published; where a studio does not publish one, the entry says so. Where two sources disagree — Nendo’s street number, North Shore Arts Center’s address, Hook & Hide’s two listings — the disagreement is written into the entry rather than resolved silently.
The photographs come from each studio’s own site or CDN and show that studio, its equipment or one of its own classes — every one was opened and looked at before it went in. Studios with an illustrated tile instead of a photo are ones where the only images available were a logo or a stock library shot, and we would rather show a drawing than pretend a Getty photograph of somebody else’s sewing machine is theirs.
One disclosure: KraftStories, listed under leather and wood, is our own studio, and this site is run by the same people. That is exactly why every other studio on this page carries the same price line and the same honest caveat — an index that hid its competitors would not be worth reading. If we have a price wrong, or your studio is missing, tell us and we will fix it.
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