People are often surprised, at markets, when we tell them that the acrylic earrings we carry on the site are designed, cut with our laser machine, and assembled in-house! Here's a quick glimpse into what it takes to create our laser-cut acrylic earrings:
Step 1 - Come Up With A Design Idea and Sketch It Out in Adobe Illustrator
Some of our largest influences include nature, clothing patterns and texture, retro style, art, simple design, bold colors, etc. Our earrings are designed using Adobe Illustrator software. Each design is vectorized, so that they become compatible with our laser cutting software. We program each cut, engrave, and score line.
Step 2 - Choose Acrylic Sheet Colors
Acrylic comes in thousands of colors, textures, opacity levels, etc. Choosing the right acrylic type to compliment a design can make a massive difference in how the final design appears.
Step 3 - Add Design to Glowforge Software
This machine does it all: engraving, scoring, cutting! We love love love our Glowforge laser cutter. Once we upload our design, we resize it if needed. We then program each part of the design so that the laser cutter can cut and engrave properly without burning or melting the acrylic.
Step 4 - Assemble Earring Components
This last step usually takes the longest. Each acrylic sheet comes with a paper coating on each side that helps prevent it from becoming marred during the laser cutting process. This sticky paper backing needs to be removed from both the front and back surfaces prior to assembly. We assemble each pair by adding jump rings, hooks, hoops, posts, etc. where needed, which can take hours depending on the design. To finish everything off, we buff the entire earring with a soft microfiber cloth, to remove lint and finger prints, and then add each pair to their own earring card. At this point, our earrings are ready to be shipped to customers or purchased at markets!
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about our making process!