Ice pearls

I can't say that the textured glass pearls sometimes known as "ice pearls" have every been my favourite beads. It's often been the opposite. I've actually used them twice: once for an objet d'art where I used round red ice pearls as wild strawberries strung on a straw of timothy-grass (see this post) and for a summer sea themed bead embroidered brooch (here) where the beads had just the right colours and shine (and it was for a contest so I needed to use beads from the shop, which limited my bead choices).

Anyway, while I've almost always disliked the beads, like with so many things I've still got a few of them in the evergrowing stash, having beaded for years now. In this case, the ice pearls came from two bead mixes I got ages ago. Just recently I sat down and sorted the beads -- having searched for the crackled glass beads in the mixes to illustrate a blog post -- and put them all in neat little piles, one for each bead type/shape. And I must say the colour combo in the ice pearl pile ignited a spark.

The are still not  favourite beads, but at least now I feel interested in doing something with them. They inspire me, which ice pearls have only done once before (the brooch doesn't count). Wonder what it'll be: I only know I want to create something.

That's a good reason to hold on to beads you might not like that much. One day you might discover something in them that you never saw before or you find something else that could use those half forgotten beads, tucked away behind the more attractive ones, to complete the design. You just never know.