Not too long ago, Heinz ketchup started selling custom-labelled bottles of ketchup. Those bottles were more expensive than standard ones, but not prohibitively so, and they looked pretty good - better than what I could have faked.
I would like to see that technology applied to another target: crayons. Allow consumers to order small color sets, chosen from a larger portfolio of preexisting colors (this part exists), and make up their own names for the color labels on the crayons. Everything else is exactly as with the standard crayons.
For example, let's say your daughter's name is Vivian, and she has dark brown eyes. The set of crayons she gets for her birthday might contain a dark brown shade labelled "Vivian's Eyes", a dark green labelled "Ick, Spinach", and a reddish brown shade labelled "Peanut" (after the cat.)
Or, if you're planning a gift for xenzag, there would be a full set of warm greys labelled labelled "dishwater 1" through "dishwater 9".
Companies can print custom crayon wrappers in large scale as give-aways, but I haven't seen this as a retail application.-- jutta, May 16 2008 Are you talking custom colors or custom labels? I see the latter being much easier than the former.-- phoenix, May 16 2008 The text makes clear that it's just the labels, but I've changed the title to not mislead about that. Thanks!-- jutta, May 16 2008 I like it. Can I get a pasty-white one labelled "skin"? [+]-- baconbrain, May 16 2008 Thanks, and sorry if I was being dense. This seems like it would be super easy and probably a good money maker.-- phoenix, May 16 2008 Just when I was thinking of a new type of sink with a built in light feature that can illuminate your dishwater with a number of pre-selected bright colours....-- xenzag, May 16 2008 I'll take personalized crayons over colored lighting any day.-- reensure, May 16 2008 I'm with [xenzag] on that idea. I do enough dishes, this would add some entertainment to it. Perhaps programmable sequences.
"I wrote a new piece today - let's make some dirty dishes and try it".-- normzone, Jun 05 2009 I missed this the first go round. I really like it. And I'm not just kissing the boss' butt on this one.-- blissmiss, Jun 05 2009 Although harder, a custom colour would be great. Might the colour come with your own personal formular ?-- wjt, Jun 06 2009 Crayola Crayons=love and lots of memories.-- blissmiss, Jun 06 2009 Oooh the smell of crayons, blissy. Why does nobody sell little boxes you can stick your nose in, which are full of crayon shavings or primary-school assembly-hall floor-varnish or hamster-cage sawdust or solder flux smoke?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 06 2009 big chunks of generic white paste...-- blissmiss, Jun 07 2009 random, halfbakery