Mary Ellroy assembles some of the tools of her trade on a table outside: box of flexible drinking straws, can of toxic adhesive from her favorite hangout (Modern Plastics), bottle of bubbles, 3M packing tape, pair of scissors, plastic test tubes, ball of string. For more than a year now, Mary has been considering bubbles, particularly giant bubbles, ever since the day she happened upon them at the Stepping Stones Museum for Children in South Norwalk.
On a visit there with her step-granddaughter, Emily, Mary watched a museum worker dip a giant wand into a giant container and then generate giant bubbles. It’s not that the bubbles made Mary giddy with delight. It’s that Mary saw Opportunity. Ever since, she has been imagining how children could create giant bubbles using a simple gadget they could carry in their pocket. Mary has pondered this, envisioned it, ruminated over it. And today she is setting out to invent it.
The president of Gamebird LLC, Mary has invented more than 150 toys and games, from board games to sprinklers to puzzles. There’s the Giant Intergalactic Electronic Game Book, the String Game, Miss Spider’s Tea Party Game, Soccer Challenge, Pop Up Puzzles and scores more. Her most successful creation yet, Great States!, manufactured by International Playthings, won the Oppenheim Gold Seal award, and more than 100,000 pieces have been sold.