What to do with flopped beads?

[Yeske]

Hello everyone,

I think that nearly everybody has made beads that didn't turn out quite as well as hoped, or turned out to be a downright desaster! So I was wondering... What do YOU do with these 'flopped' beads? Do you keep them as a reminder of what NOT to do? Or grind the glass to create mulitcolour frit?

I hope you have creative ideas as what to do with those beads, for I keep making more flopped ones than successes (I still need to triple-P a lot)

[helbels]

I used to keep them all in a large vase, but then after a few years the novelty wore off and I just binned them.

Some people put them on  beaches, throw them in the sea, or put them in the woods etc for people to find.

Any good ones can be sent to Beads of Courage for sick children to have.

Making frit from them won't work unless you can somehow get all the bead release out.

[Yeske]

I've never heard of beads of courage. Sounds like a Nice cause for the beads though

[helbels]

Here's a link for you: http://www.bechildcanceraware.org/beads-of-courage/

[Steampunkglass]

If they really aren't that nice to send to Beads of Courage then you can always split them and slump them to make cabochons, or I do remember seeing some lovely photo's of one beadmaker who put them into concrete to make a rather fine and dazzling mosaic in her garden

[Glyn Burton]

Throw them away life is too short.

[CarolB]

I've put mine in some flower pots around the garden.

[Nicknack]

It depends how bad they are.  I have a few hideous ones that aren't anything like I intended them to be, but other (non-beadmaking) people see them and say how nice they are.  Every person seems to like different things, and, after all, they didn't know what wonderful bead you had in mind before it went wrong, they just see the end product, and have no idea it is a disappointment.  I put a lot of mine in a tin marked orphan beads, and customers are happy to buy some that I find revolting ("I've never seen one that shape before, it's different, I like it!").

Nick

[flowerjasper]

Sometimes I know when something is not worth keeping so I put it on the water pot and watch it crack and die!
when I take the beads off the mandrels horrors go in the bin, odds go in the kitchen windowsill pot, and the goodies get cleaned and listed  
sandy

[GaysieMay]

I have added  them to add to mosaics.  I have also slumped thermal shocked beads and used them for cufflinks! Don't get too many of them since I had the bead cube!    I also add them to the top of my garden plant pots among the gravel!

[Pat from Canvey]

Clean the bead, pick the best side and turn into cabochons at 785 deg c. Just change the 520 c in the bead anneal program to 785 and away you go. Just don't forget to turn it back when annealing the next batch. Glass costs money don't you know so I don't throw money away.     

[tish]

pop them in a pot and do a guess how many at the next school fate

[babyshoes]

A few really ugly ones can go in your pot of bead release to help mix it up and raise the level when it's getting low. I have a jar labelled 'fuglies' in the kitchen, not sure what I'll do with them when it's full...

[Blue Box Studio]

I put mine round my large potted plants along with any sea glass with small chips, they look lovely when it rains and are good mulch.

[Alison G]

Snap Sue! You should see my dahlias this year with their fugly mulch, they haven't needed watering as much either. I was a bit worried as I'd not cleaned the beads but the dahlias seem to like silicates!