When Ryan McDaniel started woodworking as a boy, he did it as a hobby. Now, he and his wife, Kim, hope to turn it into a full-time job.

Their business, Across the Board Games, will be one of 30 new vendors to participate in the 20th Best of Missouri Market at the Missouri Botanical Garden. They were chosen by a group of judges from applications sent by the vendors.

More than 120 Missouri food producers and artisans will take part in the event, which runs from Friday to Sunday.

"This is very exciting for us," Kim, 27, said. "We had applied to get into the Best of Missouri before. It is a juried event. This time, they chose us."

Across the Board Games offers seven handmade wooden board games — Horse Race, Baseball Game, Aggravation, Chinese Checkers, Penny Hockey, Penny Soccer, and Bulldog Blocks. The prices range from $75 for Horse Race to $38 for the Penny games. They are made from different woods, including maple and birch.

"Our motto is 'We make games that last a lifetime,'" she said. "When we started we went to our first crafts fair and brought one board game. We quickly sold it. Now, we do well. People are very interested in them."

The Mehlville couple sell their games at crafts fairs and take orders at their website, www.acrosstheboardgame.com.

The McDaniels were inspired after playing a horse-race board game with family and friends. That's when they got the idea of creating their own board games, based on classics like Aggravation and Chinese Checkers.

They also reinvented the first game that inspired them. The Across the Board Horse Racing Game uses playing cards and dice. Participants also are encouraged to use money, fake or otherwise. The big difference is that the participants now deal with odds.

"Ryan didn't like the original game because it had no odds," she said. "This one does."

Until recently, his full-time job was as a construction project manager and estimator. However, he was laid off. The one advantage is that it gives him time to work on the games and prepare for the Best of Missouri Market.

"We're making about 10 of each," Ryan said. "We don't know how much we'll need, but we want to be ready."

Their garage is filled with the woodworking games. He has a CNC router, which uses a computer program to precisely cut the wood the same way for each board. He also has a table saw and a miter saw.

"I've been adding on since we started (in 2007)," Ryan said. "We're hoping to use them all of the time."

They will join other area vendors at Best of Missouri.

This is the second time for Scott Klein, 46, and his partner Jane Sueme, the owners of Isabee's in Mehlville.

"It's always an honor to be chosen (for Best of Missouri)," he said.

They sell bee hives for two kinds of bees — social and solitary. The social bees live in hives and make honey; the solitary bees' only function is to pollinate. For the solitary bees, Isabee's offers homes that look like bird houses.

At Best of Missouri, they also will talk about the importance of bees to the environment.

"One out of every three bites of food involves bee pollinations," he said. "So many of our crops depend on the bees. It's not about honey. A lot of people don't know that 80 percent of honey sold in the United States comes from overseas."

Don Kelley, owner of KelArts in Crestwood, will make his second trip to Best of Missouri Market. He is a silversmith who transforms vintage forks into pendants, bracelets, rings and pins.

"It's always exciting to go to Best of Missouri," Kelley, 64, said. "This is very prestigious. When you're chosen, it's because the judges decide your work is some of the most interesting."

Kelley takes the fork tines, bends them and wraps them around polished stones. He creates a variety of shapes with the forks, sometimes making them unrecognizable.

"I enjoy taking an ordinary fork and doing something different with it," Kelley said. "It's a lot of fun."

He is a self-taught silversmith. His mother also enjoyed working with silver and metal. He learned the craft while watching her work.

"She never let me touch the tools," Kelley said. "I started it as I get older and began to work with forks. It's been five years now. I get compliments from it."