Georgia woman finds inspiration with cicadas, makes jewelry out of their wings

A Georgia woman is using the emergence of cicadas in the state to make something beautiful.

“I was videotaping, and I was zoomed in super close to these cicadas,” artist Briana Alley told WJBF-TV. “The wings looked like fairy wings to me, and when I started looking at some of the deceased ones, I wanted to take a shot at doing some of their stained-glass wings and making them enchanted looking.”

That struck Alley with some inspiration and now she’s using cicada wings to make stunning jewelry.

“I wash them first, I sanitize them, we remove them, flatten them so they can keep their shape better, and after I’m done painting them, or putting color tinted resin in them, I put them in the UV lamp, and they harden up so we can put the hooks on them then,” Alley said.

The artist finds wings that have fallen off the alien-looking bugs and paint them to create her masterpieces.

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Alley has been selling her earrings across the Augusta area and has started showing off her work on social media.

“I was just showing them off because I thought they were really neat. I did not expect anyone to actually want them, but I started getting tons of messages from my friends that wanted to get them,” Alley told the TV station. “It’s amazing honestly.”

To see more of Alley’s creations, CLICK HERE.

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