I’ve been adding 1/8". Thick acrylic should be around .24" thick, so I’d give .365" a try.
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Whoa…I was way off. OK…thank you.
Neither - you only get up to .5 
But, defocused engravings can be set to be either above or below the surface. You’ve got two cones effectively. You’re just trying to get the surface into one of the spread out cones above or below the lens in-focus point.
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Of course. My brain was not doing well. Thanks. 
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How cool! It reminds me of something my mom used to do in the 1970s. She would paint sections of images on layers of glass and stack the layers for a similar 3D effect. This brings back fond memories. Thanks! Interesting idea, neat design.
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And for some odd reason, your post reminded me of those old style glass Chinese windchimes…little panes of glass with flowers / designs painted on them. They made such a lovely sound.
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I have done higher LPI and now use it all the time. All the extra time is worth it with or without going to a defocus as the distance between the ripples are still LPI related.
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Update; the good, the bad…and the ugly.
First, thank you @dan84 and @jamesdhatch for your help with settings for defocusing the engrave. Looks beautiful (masking still intact)…and I plan on doing this much more now in the future. Another thing checked off of my to-do/to learn list. I appreciate your input very much.
And, to you @ChristyM …I tried what we both thought of…and it is pretty ugly. I mixed Unicorn Spit and UV resin in a little cup and it was almost like mixing oil and water…didn’t seem to really want to go together. Went ahead and painted it on, set it under the UV light for much longer than usually necessary. It’s all clumpy and breaks off in small shards. Might be OK for the look of pretend Christmas candy, but not for beauty. And, it’s not very stable at all. The gold ring is just US, and no resin. Couldn’t see any point in adding it since I already know it works.
Thanks so much for your input and your idea. Alas…
The last photo is the back…which shows the same results…beautifully even gold ring and horrible inner rings. Not the fault of the engrave, but of the additions.
I got two separate tests done though on one thing.
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Uv resin is very picky about additions. I could never get it to cure completely, even using color supposedly made for uv resin. I have a lot more success with 2-part epoxy; you might give that a try.
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Thank you…a lesson I apparently had to learn in person. 
Christy thought that might be the case, too. At this point, I think I’ll just stick with putting color on, then putting resin over the top of it after it’s dry. I have a good supply of resin right now and don’t want to have to go out and buy something else.
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Instead of using another liquid i used powder, It has issues but not that bad. I also used it in wood, so that might have had something to do with it,
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Yes, I should have said liquid additions. There’s no problem with adding solids. Mica powder is a common colorant for uv resin.
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I have some of that! I’ve never used it. I bought it by accident a long time ago and didn’t know what to do with it. Yay!
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