#Beads

2 items

Video thumbnail — Dippin' Dots TV Commercial (Dippin' Dots Rock!)
Food 1988–present

Dippin' Dots

Beaded "ice cream of the future" invented in 1988 by microbiologist Curt Jones, who flash-froze ice cream mix in liquid nitrogen into tiny spheres. Served in a cup and eaten with a spoon, Dippin' Dots became a quintessential 1990s amusement park and mall treat — a novelty that felt futuristic and tasted like the 90s.

A colorful pile of Fimo polymer-clay miniatures, beads, and millefiori canes
Toys 1939–present

Fimo

The oven-bake polymer clay that was the star of '90s arts-and-crafts: bright blocks you kneaded, sculpted, and baked hard into beads, charms, and tiny food. Master the millefiori "cane" and you could slice off a dozen identical little pictures — the craft-table flex of the decade.