Ashley Agrey and Drew Meierhofer of Edson, Alberta are the dream team.

In 2018, the two embarked on their own business venture called Wood N’ Things by Drew and Ashley.

The business combines Agrey’s passion of wood burning and drawing and Meierhofer’s passion of creating.

The two attended their first market with a variety of their works last summer.

“Originally we were just doing it for family and friends as gifts because it was something that we enjoyed doing,” said Agrey.

But their passions have been growing strong and so has their business. They’ve been attending markets and have been busy making various works for people.

Their work includes pens, rustic signs – some with animals drawn on – and wooden spoons.

Whether it’s a gift idea or a beautiful rustic decoration to add to your living room, this duo has you covered.

Their journey into the business world began when Meierhofer worked at a skate shop. They had a little contest going on to design a skate deck, and Meierhofer immediately thought of his girlfriend to design it.

“He had an old wood burner as a kid and he knew that I loved to draw and I love animals – I always have, and I’ve painted too, but I’ve never done anything like wood burning so it was a totally different experience for me,” said Agrey.

Despite being nervous to do it, she persevered and created something amazing, which ended up making the two win the contest.

Agrey had wood burnt a Koi fish on the bottom of the deck, which was the start of her wood burning adventure.

“It was something totally different and just how it looked afterwards was really cool,” she said.

Agrey mostly does wood burning on barn board or any kind of wood.

“Mostly I like barn board just because it’s already aged, it’s rustic and it has a lot of character and different textures. It just has more personality than just a slab of wood,” she said.

When it comes to drawing on the wood, she likes to find references to draw from to look at and they are mostly pictures of animals.

“I like to start with the eyes first. I don’t know why, but it’s just once I put life into the eyes it almost just makes me that much more excited to bring it all together and then it’s looking back at you too and it looks more realistic or life-like.”

Agrey draws and wood burns a variety of different animals as she’s always been passionate about them since a young age.

For Meierhofer, who creates pens out of the bottom of broken skateboards (skate decks) and spoons out of wood, he started when he was just a little boy.

“I got one of those Swiss Army knives and I’d always wanted to carve my own chess pieces and carving a chess piece with a Swiss Army knife is not ideal,” he said.

He then got into the oil field and worked with a guy who had a wood lathe, which he ended up buying off him. With the lathe, he was able to use it to turn pens and bowls.

After he left the oil field he found himself having more time on his hands, so he invested more time into carving spoons and in 2015 started working at a skate shop

He later ended up getting a new wood lathe, which got him into creating pens.

“I just love woodworking, I love all the aspects to it,” he said.

He’d watch video after video, schooling himself in the world of woodworking.

He later set up a shop at home and he and Agrey got to work on their business venture.

Going into 2019, the two hope to do more markets, while Meierhofer hopes to get into doing more wooden creations like shelves and rustic toilet paper holders.

“I want to build all sorts of stuff, but I also want to get really good at spoons,” he said, adding that the market for pens is pretty tough.

The two currently reside in Edson together.