Beanie Babies - Millions $old

Travel back to the 1990s and you are sure to remember the beanie baby craze that lasted more than a decade. Millions of beanie babies were sold, and even today collectors are searching for retired beanie babies. It is quite astonishing that these tiny stuffed animals turned Ty Inc. into a multi-billion dollar company. Who was the mastermind behind the Ty beanie babies and how did he find...more

The Pottery That Grows

Ch-ch-ch-chia! You've seen the commercials. You spread some seeds on the outside of a figure (President Obama head anyone) or sprinkle them in a small pot, water it, and then it magically grows! Chia seeds are actually edible (maybe not the ones that come with your "pet") and are high in Omega-3 fatty acids. You can find the seeds or chia flour at your local health food stores. A chia pet is about $17.99 at your local drug store. A pound of high quality organic chia seeds is around $15 retail. You get just a few ounces with your "pet" and they pay wholesale. By the way, those chia seeds will grow on just about any...

Designer Diaper Bags

Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that’s big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie’s company, Diapers & Wipes, has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across...

The iPod - An invention that changed...

The advent of the mp3 digital music format immediately began changing the landscape of the record industry's methods of distribution. Relatively small file sizes ensured a feasible and flexible means by which consumers could carry entire musical libraries unencumbered by physical disks and storage methods. Artists embraced the new formats as a quick and cost-effective means of finding large audiences and mass more...

Kentucky Fried Chicken

As a young man, Harland David Sanders had a troubling start. He dropped out of school, ran away from home, and falsified his personal information in order to enlist in the United States army at the age of 16. He held myriad jobs after completing his service, including farm hand, streetcar conductor, blacksmith's helper, rail yard fireman, insurance salesman, more

Slip 'n Slide

If you were a kid in the last three decades, then you know this one. It's the Slip 'n Slide. For those of you that have no clue what this is, it's a long, thin piece of plastic to which you attach your garden hose. Somewhere in the plastic are little holes that allows water to escape and the plastic to get wet. You're expected to take a running start and leap onto this wet plastic and slide your way to heaven. Well, not you, but your kid is. Now, I think of myself as a smart person, so I don't know why I didn't think of putting down a tarp, greasing or soaping it up to make it slippery, then setting my garden hose on it for hours of...

The Blanket With Sleeves

How about the Snuggie. It's a cheap, polyester blanket with sleeves worn backwards, that also has the effect of making you look like an extra in a B-movie cult film. The best part is that while the Snuggie might be popular, they copied the idea from a small business owner. We might laugh at the commercials (have you seen the Macarena one?) but the company is laughing all the way to the bank with something like 4-5 million sold. That's at a price of $19.95 plus shipping and handling. Personally, I think they ripped off Yoda. Let's not leave your pets out, because there's a Snuggie for dogs too.

Slinky

What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs? Chances are you shouted mommy mommy I want one, when you saw the slinky commercial and listened to the catchy little jingle that ended with "everone loves a slinky"!

Richard James of Philadelphia was doing his World War II duty on the home front in 1943 as a Navy tool worker in Philadelphia. He observed a torsion spring coil fall from a workshop table and take several "steps" before coming to a stop. Normally, this would have been simply another moment in time, but James apparently was a child at heart, because he immediately saw the idea for a toy. He...

Wacky Wall Crawler

Before its introduction in the United States, Ken Hakuta received in the mail several sticky octopus-like toys from his mother, who lived in Japan. They were intended for his children, but Hakuta found himself fascinated with the toy, which were called Tako in Japan. He realized their marketing potential, and after purchasing rights to the product in 1983, he began to market them locally in Washington.