More free printable paper crafts & toys

If you are like me, your heart takes a little jump when you see the word "FREE". I'll write a little more about "free" at the end of the post. But first, here is a small round-up of some cool free printable toys and crafts for your printer to choke on:

mcguirezone.com has a few interesting printable toys, including an Italian villa, cars, a fish tank. These are more like good paper backgrounds while playing with other toys (hotwheels for example)

A link at the bottom of mcguirezone took me to the HP.com activity center which has some excellent toys and crafts. I especially like the Chinese zodiac animals. There is also free printable wrapping paper that could be used to wrap small presents. Gas if over $3 a gallon, save yourself a trip to the store.

The enigmatic sounding ss42.com has some excellent items as well, including Dracula and Frankenstein busts, a dodecahedron calendar, and a "paperang" (think boomerang meets that flying weapon thing in Krull)

dltk-kids.com is an excellent source for seasonal paper craft ideas. Looks like I missed Easter by a week or so, better start getting ready for... Memorial Day? Administrative Professionals day?


My blurb about "FREE" has to do with an book that I just finished called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions that was not only a fascinating book (it is a lot like Freakonomics) but has an interesting section about the extreme gravitational pull of the word "free" in economic decision making. Dan and some fellow researchers sold two different pieces of chocolate for $.14 and $.01 respectively. Using this data as a baseline, they then decreased the price by $.01 each, making the 1 cent chocolate (a Hershey's kiss) free. Compared to the 14/1 cent group, the ratio of people gravitating toward the free candy was significant. This might seem understandable, but it actually is against traditional economic principles which says that since both items were reduced in price by the same amount the intrinsic worth of the items remains the same. If this sort of thing interests you, check out Dan Ariely's book, it was a though-provoking read. Incidentally, the author has a blog also.

edit (4/1/08): I got home last night and flipped open Money magazine while I was feeding the critter and guess who had a one page mini article?