Most of the stores in this mall show you stuff made out of polymers. In
this store, you're going to see how you can make your own stuff from
polymers. This place is crawling with polymers, so it's hard to know
where to begin.
We'll start with the big bag of polyester stuffing that you
can use to stuff pillows, quilts, stuffed animals, or whatever you're
making. Wanna know something? A lot of this stuffing is made from
recycled soft drink bottles. That's right. We can make quilt stuffing from
bottles. Pretty cool, huh?
For the outside of your quilt, you can use fabrics
like the bolts you see on the left, or the burlap you
see on the right, that is, if you want a really scratchy
quilt. These fabrics are made of a blend of polyester
and cotton. Cotton is a polymer, too. It's made up
mostly of cellulose.
If you'd like to decorate the outside of your project with some embroidery, you'll need some thread. Thread is made from things like nylon, polyester, and polyacrylonitrile. Of course, you'll need an embroidery hoop, too. This one is made of a plastic called polyethylene.
Like to knit? Then it helps to have a few skeins of yarn. This yarn is made of polyacrylonitrile. But knitting isn't all one can do with yarn. You can make cross-stitched pictures with it using these polyethylene templates.
If you're sewing clothes instead of
quilts, you might need some
elastic. It is made of polyester and
a kind of rubber called polyisoprene to make it stretchy.
No project would be complete without some big chunks of styrofoam. These are always good for making models of the solar system for school projects. Styrofoam is a form of polystyrene.
Painting shows on TV are great because they're so relaxing. Those
shows are possible thanks to paints made from something called
methyl methacrylate. When it dries, it reacts to form a polymer called
poly(methyl methacrylate).
When I was a kid I used to put model cars
together and they never came out looking quite
like the picture on the box. Now that I'm grown
my real car has the same problem. This model is
made of polystyrene.
When someone you know is sick or has a birthday
(or is sick of birthdays), you might send some
balloons like these. They're made out of a
composite material made of a sheet of foil
and a sheet of polyester made into a sandwich.
You could also send some silk flowers. But these silk flowers aren't really silk. They're really nylon flowers. The fern below is made of nylon, too. It's hanging by a polypropylene rope.
Something that you can do with artificial flowers is to arrange them in
this stand made of styrofoam. Remember, that's a form of
polystyrene. If you're not into artificial flowers, I suppose you
could use this as some sort of post-modern minimalist Christmas tree.
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