Aug 13, 2007

Home for hobbyists: Strasburg couple’s store has so much to offer its customers, even expanding can’t hold it allBy Tony ReidHerald-Review.com

Strasburg – The Internet downloads countless wonders but few more inspiring than the story of how the wooden “fetish kangaroos” were herded into Strasburg.

These little carved pieces are about the size of a quarter and aimed at crafters making jewelry, should those same crafters be overcome by an overwhelming urge to adorn a bracelet or something with a wooden marsupial.

Priced at a very reasonable 75 cents for two, the ‘roos are among thousands of crafting and quilting items jammed into a backyard Strasburg store called Olivier’s Country Creations & Gifts. The business is run by husband and wife Barb and Ed Olivier, who first hopped into each other’s arms via the portal of cyberspace.

“I saw her ad in some personals online, and we just hit it off, we had so much in common,” says Ed Olivier, 47, who married his cybermate seven years ago. “We’re an Internet couple.”

Ed Olivier, a cabinet maker in his day job, also loves crafts and soon discovered his material girl loved crafting, too, and dreamed of opening her own business to sell what she made.

But he suggested a better angle might be tapping their knowledge of where to locate hard-to-find craft supplies and retailing them. They opened the store in 2002, and that opened the floodgates for the wooden fetish kangaroos and a whole bunch of their friends.

Read complete article.