Like many bloggers in their late-twenties, I am proud to be a child of the 90s. I grew up on Nickelodeon, pump-up sneakers, beige Apple computers, Ecto-cooler Hi-C “juice”, and lots of bright, neon colors. And if, like me, you remember the 90s kid culture, you’ll probably remember this commercial from the Saturday morning cartoons:

That’s right. Yikes. I LOVED these pencils. It was a thrill for me every fall to go with my mom to K-Mart and buy school supplies, because she indulged me and let me get these colorful little sticks of fun. Just like the kid in the commercial, they were the opposite of boring. Everything about the design was crafted — from the contrasting (and often, conflicting) color scheme to the odd shapes, from the dyed wood to the bright rubber (and later, polymer) eraser.

And now, they have all but disappeared.

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