GetHIcon()
Nice, one Paul... I always forget about that one.
Why do you prefer embedding vs adding as a resource?
Well, they're essentiall the same thing... when you add it as a resource, it gets added to the .resx file, which itself is embedded. Pretty much the same difference.
But the main reason I mentioned embedding is that for some reason, I was thinking that when you added icons to the project resources (or any other resx file), they were added as images. However, I now see that there are separate categories for Images and Icons... so, I stand corrected 
So, for Ben H, it probably would be easier to add the icon as an ICO file to the Icons of your resources and just retrieve it through the default resource manager since it will create the strong-typed property for it.