Crayola LLC, formerly the Binney & Smith Company, is an American manufacturing and retail company specializing in art supplies. It is known for its brand Crayola and best known for its crayons. The company is headquartered in Forks Township, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of the state. Since 1984, Crayola has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards.
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a poor barrier to air and water vapor and has a relatively low melting point. Polystyrene is one of the most widely used plastics, with the scale of its production being several million tonnes per year. Polystyrene is naturally transparent, but can be colored with colorants. Uses include protective packaging, containers, lids, bottles, trays, tumblers, disposable cutlery, in the making of models, and as an alternative material for phonograph records.
A thermoplastic, or ThermoSoftNingplastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling.
Cookware and bakeware is food preparation equipment, such as cooking pots, pans, baking sheets etc. used in kitchens. Cookware is used on a stove or range cooktop, while bakeware is used in an oven. Some utensils are considered both cookware and bakeware.
A tray is a shallow platform designed for the carrying of items. It can be fashioned from numerous materials, including silver, brass, sheet iron, paperboard, wood, melamine, and molded pulp. Trays range in cost from inexpensive molded pulp trays which are disposable and inexpensive melamine trays used in cafeterias, to mid-priced wooden trays used in a home, to expensive silver trays used in luxury hotels. Some examples have raised galleries, handles, and short feet for support.
A spatula is a broad, flat, flexible blade used to mix, spread and lift material including foods, drugs, plaster and paints.
An eraser is an article of stationery that is used for removing marks from paper or skin. Erasers have a rubbery consistency and come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Some pencils have an eraser on one end. Erasers can come in various shapes and colors. Less expensive erasers are made from synthetic rubber and synthetic soy-based gum, but more expensive or specialized erasers are made from vinyl, plastic, or gum-like materials.
Polymer clay is a type of hardenable modeling clay based on the polymer polyvinyl chloride (PVC). It typically contains no clay minerals, but like mineral clay a liquid is added to dry particles until it achieves gel-like working properties. Similarly, the part is put into an oven to harden, hence its colloquial designation as clay. Polymer clay is generally used for making arts and craft items, and is also used in commercial applications to make decorative parts. Art made from polymer clay can now be found in major museums.
The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven introduced in 1963 and manufactured by Kenner and later by Hasbro. The original toy used a pair of ordinary incandescent light bulbs as a heat source; current versions use a true heating element. Kenner sold 500,000 Easy-Bake Ovens in the first year of production. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens had been sold.
Thermoforming is a manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to a pliable forming temperature, formed to a specific shape in a mold, and trimmed to create a usable product. The sheet, or "film" when referring to thinner gauges and certain material types, is heated in an oven to a high-enough temperature that permits it to be stretched into or onto a mold and cooled to a finished shape. Its simplified version is vacuum forming.
Vacuum forming is a simplified version of thermoforming, where a sheet of plastic in various forms of High Impact Polystyrene Sheet (HIPS) for low impact products, or ABS for bathroom shower trays, and HDPE for exterior vehicle parts, plus various other types of vacuum formable materials) is heated to a forming temperature, stretched onto a single-surface mould, and forced against the mould by a vacuum. This process can be used to form plastic into permanent objects such as turnpike signs and protective covers. Normally draft angles are present in the design of the mould to ease removal of the formed plastic part from the mould.
Thingmaker, also called Creepy Crawlers, is an activity toy made by Mattel, beginning in 1964. The toy consists of a series of die-cast metal moulds resembling various bug-like creatures, into which is poured a liquid chemical substance called "Plasti-Goop", which comes in assorted colours. The mould is then heated to about 390 °F (199 °C) in an open-face electric hot plate oven. The Plasti-Goop is cured by the heat, and when cooled forms semi-solid, rubbery replicas which can be removed from the mould.
Sculpey is the brand name for a type of polymer clay that can be modeled and put into a conventional oven to harden, as opposed to typical modeling clays, which require a much hotter oven, such as a kiln. Until it is baked, Sculpey has a consistency somewhat like Plasticine. Its main competitor is the German brand Fimo. It is sold in many colors, but can also be painted once it’s baked. Sculpey has become popular with modeling artists, jewellery makers, and other craft work.
Heat-shrink tubing is a shrinkable plastic tube used to insulate wires, providing abrasion resistance and environmental protection for stranded and solid wire conductors, connections, joints and terminals in electrical wiring. It can also be used to repair the insulation on wires or to bundle them together, to protect wires or small parts from minor abrasion, and to create cable entry seals, offering environmental sealing protection. Heat-shrink tubing is ordinarily made of a polyolefin, which shrinks radially when heated, to between one-half and one-sixth of its diameter.
Colorforms is a creative toy named for the simple shapes and forms cut from colored vinyl sheeting that cling to a smooth backing surface without adhesives. These pieces are used to create picture graphics and designs, which can then be changed countless times by repositioning the removable color forms. The name also refers to the specific registered trademark brand these products are produced under, as well as the company that manufactures the toys, Colorforms Brand, LLC.
Prince Andrew Romanoff was a Russian American artist and author. He was a grand-nephew of Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II. He was a great-great-grandson in the male line of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and since the death of Prince Dimitri Romanov in 2016 was claimant to the headship of the House of Romanov until his own death in 2021.
The Vac-u-form, was a toy invented by Eddy Goldfarb and released by Mattel in the 1960s around 1961 with the trademark filed on October 8, 1962.
Michelle Khine is an American bioengineer who is a distinguished scientist and innovator at the University of California, Irvine, co-founder of Fluxion Biosciences Inc., the scientific founder of the Shrink nano-technology platform, as well as the Assistant and Founding Professor of the School of Engineering at UC Merced. Khine, an associate biomedical engineering professor in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, is responsible for experimenting with childhood toys Shrinky Dinks to build microfluidic channels. Her research has enabled technological advances in industries including biological research and medical diagnostics.
