Beetle wings - earrings

Beetle wings are just beautiful! Like small smaragd the shimmer and shine and glitter in the sun in unbeliveable facettes and colours of green and blue and turquois! 

The didn't weight anything but the chitin they are made of is suprisingly sturdy and stable! Don't have to worry about breaking them or something like that :)

And no, even if I am a biologist, I didn't kill the beetles for their wings, don't worry! These are the "trash" or rather leftovers from beetles used as food in asia. 

The are not coloured but rather the surface of the wings is a certain structure which breaks the light and therefor creates all the shine! The never bleach out due having no colour ^^ 

In the past it was quite common to use beetle wings for jewelery or even as ornaments / beads for dresses. A friend showed me a picture of a dress from 1888 made out of more than 1000 beetle wings. It was worn by Ellen Terry who played Lady Macbeth at the Lyceum theatre in London. It is still stunning and all the kinds of green are still glittering like jewels. Also even if some of the wings are broken this is more to the fact how it was stored and not to the material of the wings themselve! 

Of course I made earrings out of them!

You can't really see from the pictures how beautiful the are! 

I sold several of the earrings at the last craft fair...

...even if nearly no customers came (due to the problem of good PR...)!

So I am taking more with the at the next craft fair! Also I have some with silver ear hooks for myself, wearing them for the last days! (Yes, my new favorties.. again ^^)

For you being in or near Leipzig:

Das Leipziger Wollefest erwartet Sie am

Sonnabend, den 2.6.2012
von 10 Uhr bis 19 Uhr

sowie am

Sonntag, den 3.6.2012 
von 10 Uhr bis 17 Uhr.

in Markkleeberg-West, agra Park,
Eingang Raschwitzer Straße / Ecke Parkstraße

den agra Park erreicht man mit den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln, der Straßenbahnlinie 9 Richtung Markkleeberg-West, Haltestelle Forsthaus Raschwitz oder die nächste Haltestelle Parkstraße, ein paar Laufmeter und den Ausschilderungen folgen.