Bubble wrap is a common packaging item now but it actually was born from a weird (and failed) wallpaper experiment.

You gotta figure that anyone who'd put a 20-foot plastic bubble onto the front end of his 35-foot house, like a giant goiter, is a tad strange. Well sure, it makes a dandy greenhouse, what with ...

One—greenhouse insulation ... In all, they were granted six patents for Bubble Wrap, most of which dealt with the process for embossing and laminating plastic and the necessary equipment.

It didn’t sell well. After trying — and failing — to retool the plastic material as greenhouse insulation, bubble wrap eventually found its true purpose as packaging for fragile deliveries ...

Backyard greenhouses come in all different designs. One you may be familiar with is the “high tunnel,” which is just huge steel hoops placed in a row and covered in heavy duty plastic.