Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 25, 1995                   TAG: 9510250028
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POKE FUN AT THIS; A CRAFTY CATALOG; A VIEW FROM A HILL

Henry Glass kind of hopes you didn't.

Not that the Roanoke inventor wants you to go around jabbing at people - he sounds like a very polite man - but he would like you to try your hand, er, finger, at his new toy.

"Well, it's a cross between a pet rock and the Rubik's Cube," says Glass, creator of something he calls Pok-N-Fun. It's basically a bundle of plastic fibers - a lot like toothbrush bristles, he says - held together in a round bundle that's 3 inches in diameter. You can poke the fibers up from the bottom or push 'em down from the top to make three-dimensional images.

Pok-N-Fun - and that's a long "o," as in "poke" - was born back in the mid-80s, when Glass was a sales representative in the plastics industry. He was visiting a brush company in North Carolina and started playing around with a handful of plastic fibers.

One poke led to another, and soon Glass figured that if he couldn't stop playing with the bristles, other people probably could be hooked, too.

He patented the toy in 1988, but ran into some production problems and had to shelve plans for mass-merchandising for a while. But he continued to show the Pok-N-Fun at local craft shows, and he managed to sell 500 or so, all hand-made.

"The kids virtually just lined up at my table three and four deep," he says. At one show, a kid - "and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this" - stood there for two and a half hours, pushing and poking while his mom shopped.

Glass incorporated his venture as the Fiber Fun Co. Ltd. in December, and now he's fully backed by investors. He hasn't found a manufacturing site yet, but he's looking at a place just inside Craig County. He says Pok-N-Fun should be in some gift and toy shops around Roanoke in time for Christmas. It'll retail for $9.95 and come in four colors.

"It came on real slow, and now it's just moved into fifth gear, so to speak," he says.

Also just in time for the holiday gift rush, Blue Ridge Crafters Emporium has gone national with a 13-page color catalog.

Owners Gary Baldwin and Barry Booher, who opened the Roanoke City Market gift shop last summer, decided to try the mail-order business after they took a look at the shop's guest book.

"We realized that a lot - maybe two-thirds - of our people were from out of state," Baldwin says. Almost a third of the 90 people who exhibit wares in the shop are represented in the catalog, which features 50 items that range from $5 tissue dispensers to a $175 porcelain doll.

They've turned part of the shop's work area into what Baldwin calls the "Pony Express," where they'll pack and ship mail-order gifts. The shop now has a toll-free telephone line - (800) 226-7926 - to handle orders, and Baldwin says they've brought in two part-time people to help with packing and shipping through the holidays.

All the work for the catalog - design, photography, printing, copy writing - was done by the crafters who display work at the shop. They've started with an initial printing of 3,000 catalogs and have mailed out 2,400. For now, their mailing list is coming from the guest register, but they eventually may buy more extensive lists. They'd also like to place catalogs in bed-and-breakfast inns along the Blue Ridge Parkway, Baldwin says.

If they get a good response to this catalog, they'd like to try publishing twice a year.

"This is a good time to test the waters," Baldwin says.

Commercial photographer Greg Vaughn, who has had a studio in downtown Roanoke for 15 years, is now offering a full-color print of the Roanoke Valley.

It's a project that Vaughn has been working on for the last year. He says he wanted to wait to take the photograph until the Hotel Roanoke renovations were finished, and then he had to find the perfect spot to set up his equipment.

He still won't say just where he took the photo - it's a "secret location," he insists - but the scene shows the Valley from the direction of Mill Mountain.

The print likely will be popular with corporate customers, Vaughn says, although it'll be available to everyone. The 24-by-30-inch print sells for $29.95 as a poster, $39.95 dry mounted and $119.95 framed. You can call 776-6533 to order.