Dragonfly Wing Earrings

Until I could get around to ordering more colors of acrylic, I was trying to figure out what to make with the clear sheet that came in my initial batch of materials. Decided to try some dragonfly wing earrings.

These took awhile – about 45 minutes for what amounted to two pairs of earrings over six wings (two sets of two that are joined, and two sets that are separate.) The engraving of the fine veins took most of the time, but I’m really pleased with the outcome.

The ones that are “pre-joined” are the easiest to turn into earrings, since there’s just one hole in each, so I worked those up first. I also left them clear, as pictured, although I may go back and color them.

I haven’t strung up the other set yet, as I need to hit Michael’s for some more findings. They’ll need to be jump-ringed in a Y formation, which is going to be tricky. For these, I turned them engraved-side up and daub-brushed some acrylic paint across the surface, then used the brush bristles to work it into the engraved portions before wiping the surface clean with a cloth. I might go back and brush some sealer across it just to be safe, but once they’re dried they should be pretty color-fast.

Getting the masking off was the hardest part of these! The etching had rendered into about eight billion tiny, tiny pieces. I coated the entire thing in baby oil, let it sit for a few minutes, then just scratched it off with a fingernail with no damage to the acrylic.

Disgusting, but it worked!

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Those are incredible! That’s acrylic?!? Wow.

For the masking you might try Gorilla Tape - rub a piece on, and then pull slowly from one edge - it’ll get off 90% of it in one swipe

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Wow! gorgeous! and so iridescent with the paint.

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I’ll try that next time! My poor fingernails thank you.

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Those are sharp, love the paint job.

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Awesome! The paint job really makes it! :smile:

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Lovely! The paint definitely pops!

I used to work with fruit flies and have definitely toyed with the idea of something similar.

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I think the neon green translucent acrylic might make a neat luna moth wing, as well.

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Oooh fancy. Turned out amazing!

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Holy smokes, that’s amazing! Hard to believe it’s acrylic.

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At first glance these looked like a million little cuts! Would save time, but integrity would probably be compromised along the way, especially in acrylic. Love what you did with the acrylic paint, and the effect you were able to get from it!

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Quite striking with the acrylic paint

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Thank you! I have quite a bit of the clear acrylic to go through, still, so I might try other variations as well – fairy wings, things like that.

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I will be looking for them.

These are so awesome! Really nice work and your coloring is beautiful. :heart:

I’ve done a lot of experimenting with spray painting acrylic before and after engraving. You can really achieve some cool effects with it. Oh, and for removing the tiny making consider using a credit card or plastic razor blade. I can almost always scrape them off and then do a little cleanup with acrylic cleaner.


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Ahhhhh, I love the ravens, they look amazing!

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Thanks, your wings made me immediately think of them. You did a great job with blending the acrylic paint though, much better than I could. Hence I resorted to spray paint lol.

Nice!!

Water works well to soften the adhesive, too–I rinse & use soft tooth brush to get the dust (or soot when leather) off and I then towel off the piece and when masked, many little bits come off with the towel. Others I found wooden clothes pins work great to scrape wood or acrylic–not too hard to scratch clear acrylic, isn’t affected by the little bumps/transitions, so great with lots of little bits.

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Really stunning pieces. I have had that same result as the clear hand cleaner with alcohol, Unlike the baby oil it evaporates away afterwards.

Gorgeous!