The Thinking Putty Blog

It's almost Halloween!

We love Halloween at Crazy Aaron's Puttyworld. In fact, in his "real" life, Crazy Aaron always dazzles his neighbors with some crazy Halloween display in front of his house. Yes, things tend to explode or float or...well...who knows. The pumpkin explosion last year left several new pumpkins growing in his front yard. Let's just say that the trick-or-treaters always make sure to stop over at his house--and it's not for the candy.

Halloween also kicks off the holiday season, which is big at Puttyworld. We start with a few limited edition Halloween colors. This year we have Glow in the Dark Great Pumpkin and Monster Mash. Soon we'll be getting our Christmas colors ready. But before we get ahead of ourselves, want to see one of our earliest Halloween colors?

Yep, it was black and it was pretty cool back then! Notice the super awesome photography skills.

So let's get to the really important part of Halloween--the dressing up. What will Crazy Aaron be for Halloween? Well, we're not sure yet, but in case you're bored and aren't sure what to do for Halloween, why not download and cut out this Crazy Aaron head, snap a picture of you as Crazy Aaron doing something funny, and upload it to our Facebook page! Do it by October 31, 2010 and the funniest picture wins a prize!

Happy Halloween!!

It's Crazy here at Crazy Aaron's Puttyworld!

So the Liquid Glass craze has truly been crazy. We sold out our original amount in about a day and a half. We felt bad for those who hadn't gotten any so we made a second set. That's now gone too. The last orders are shipping today and tomorrow.

But now the Cloud Poopers are going to get a chance to order. The art was sent to the Queen of Cloud Poop yesterday and she's just making some final tweeks.

In the meantime, we continue to send out more Thinking Putty to retail stores around the country (and a few in Canada!) and are hard at work on our new puttyworld.com website! A big and really fun contest will be involved in the launch of the new site, so we're working out the details of that as well.

Just to keep up with the craziness, we've also been unpacking our new office and working to beautify the space. It's slow going...we'd like to call it a work in progress. One exciting development on that front is that we were contacted by an artist, Alexander Ross, who shared with us that he's used Thinking Putty in some of his oil paintings and photography. This is one of our faves:

That will be up on our wall in a pretty frame in about a week. Pictures of our brand new office to come.

And if that wasn't enough, we're hard at work on this awesome new project that Firebox UK is releasing this summer. We cannot wait to get one ourselves! Check out Putty Monsters:

Really? How cool is THAT!

The fascination with Clear Thinking Putty

I have to say that all of us here at Crazy Aaron's Puttyworld are totally and completely perplexed by the obsession over clear putty. We think that the beauty of Thinking Putty is the variety of colors. It started with a fan comment on our Facebook page, became a bit of a joke in the office, and then turned into a full-on fan obsession on Facebook.

Then it sent Crazy Aaron into the lab, and we didn't see him for days. He was working on the clear--adding, taking out, mixing, stretching... You get the idea.

Since this all came from the fans, we decided to let you all name it. Right now I have almost 200 emails sitting in my contest folder (contest@puttyworld.com) with name suggestions. We haven't read any of them yet. We want to wait until Monday, when the contest ends, so we see them all with fresh eyes. But knowing our fans, there will be some creative suggestions. Crazy Aaron will pick the winner sometime next week, and then it will *finally* be for sale.

After the first test production run of the clear putty was finished, we had the bucket just sitting there in the office. So that's when we decided to stick our hands in it. It feels so cool.  And you can see every fingerprint. But when you leave it alone, it goes right back to clear. I personally think that's the best part.

Of course now fans are suggesting lots of other things that can be done with the clear putty. I'm sure we'll try some of them, but what's more fun is waiting until you all can buy some and try it for yourselves! We know we'll be flooded with awesome photos of clear in all its glory. Here is a photo from one of our "fan testers" of the clear putty:

 

[Photo courtesy of: Dave Tomlin Jr.]

You can see that the clear lost some clarity because it had been handled. Don't worry--it comes back when you leave it to rest in the tin.

Anyway, keep sending in those name suggestions. And check back on Facebook next week for the official name. The winner gets a pound of clear putty, that is, if we haven't ruined all the buckets by playing with them!

Clear Thinking Putty announcement

Hello Thinking Putty fans!

Today is the day you've been waiting for! Crazy Aaron has been hard at work in the lab on Clear Thinking Putty, and he has officially decided that we will sell it online only for a limited time. But to make it a bit more exciting, we are going to have a NAMING CONTEST for Clear Thinking Putty.

So that's what it looks like. Now get your creative juices flowing...

Have a name suggestion? The contest officially starts now and ends the morning of April 26th, 2010 (that means you have one week to think).

You can email name suggestions to: contest@puttyworld.com

You are welcome to submit as many names as you want if submitted by April 26th. Crazy Aaron will pick his favorite name during the week of the 26th, and the winner will receive a pound of clear Thinking Putty.

At that point, Clear Thinking Putty will be sold on our online store only for a limited time. So...get to work!

The giveaway is on!

We promised a giveaway if we reached 1,000 fans on Facebook. Well, we made it, and the giveaway is happening!

From our Facebook page:

Crazy Aaron has randomly selected a number between 1 and 1,025 (and, yes, we have it time stamped on video so you know he's not changing it). You have between now and tomorrow morning, April 14th, at 10am (EST) to guess the number. Each fan gets one guess (if you... guess more than once you're disqualified).

First place winner is the first person to correctly guess the number. First place winner receives a tin of Real GOLD 24 karat Thinking Putty (retail $150). The second and third people who either correctly guess the number or come closest to the number receive three (second place) or two (third place) free tins of the Thinking Putty color of their choice. Ready...set...GO!!! (Oh, and thank you to all our great fans!)

So of course our fans are the most creative in the world. Some actually made their guesses out of Thinking Putty and sent them to us!

Can you tell what this fan wants??

Our fans are the B-E-S-T!!!

Contest Winners Announced

After much deliberation and argument, the winners of the 2007 Thinking Putty Contest have been announced. 

The 2007 Contest Winners ARE:
FIRST PLACE "Simply Amazing" - Video by Dana Giffen, et. al	SECOND PLACE "Knitting Project" by Bethany Gingerich	THIRD PLACE "Grapevine" by Dee Bartholomew

You view all of the entrants photos and videos here.

Who would have thought that a simple desk toy would inspire so much creativity!

The 2008 Contest is currently accepting entries.  So get your Thinking Putty caps on and make something amazing!

Time Lapse Movie - Entry to 2008 Competition

Dan MacKenzie submitted this excellent time lapse movie to the 2008 Thinking Putty competition. You might have to right click on the link and 'Save As...' to your hard drive to view it properly.

When we started the contest way back when it was for photographs of sculptures.  Of course, now we live in a multimedia world so we've changed the rules.  Anything goes: videos, faux commercials, love songs, just about anything Thinking Putty related.  Don't let Dan steal the prize...submit your entry!

Happy New Year! Enter our 2007 Contest

Happy New Year Putty Fans!

We've decided to restart our fabulous sculpture contest for 2007 and we need your entries.  We're looking for sculptures, movies, or any kind of putty craziness you can come up with.

First Prize is $250 cash or $500 in Thinking Putty.

See here or email your submission to contest@puttyworld.com