How to Make Acrylic Earrings with Laser Cutter?

Recently, I got inspired to make a fun DIY laser cutting project: making acrylic earrings using a CO2 laser cutter. I really love pretty, stylish, and fun accessories because they can make you look quite special. With summer just around the corner, I used some colorful acrylic sheets to make a set of vibrant, unique earrings. Acrylic is a fantastic material for making earrings because it's durable and lightweight. So if you're interested in making the same earrings or want to find out how I made these acrylic earrings using a CO2 laser cutter, keep reading!

Materials for DIY Acrylic Earrings

Acrylic Sheets: You should prepare acrylic sheets in the colors you need for the style of earrings you want to make. For example, I need pink and green acrylic sheets for the tulip earrings, white and yellow acrylic sheets for the fried egg earrings.

Earring Kit: It includes everything you need from jump rings to earring hooks. Earring Hooks - I use these to hang the earrings from our ears; Jump Rings - They can connect the earring hooks to the body of the earrings and different parts of the earring.

Glue or Adhesive: If you want to make earrings that involve layering different colors of acrylic sheets, you'll need to use glue to secure them together. For instance, a fried egg design would require gluing a yellow acrylic piece in the middle of a white acrylic one, resembling the yolk and the egg white.

Pliers and Tools: Jump rings are thin and small, it's not easy to open and close them by hand. Therefore, you can use pliers to handle them easier and faster.

CO2 Laser Cutting Machine: A CO2 laser cutter can cut acrylic materials very precisely, even if the designs are complex. It doesn't leave any white marks after cutting, which makes it perfect for making acrylic earrings.

How to Make Acrylic Earrings

Now that you have all the materials and tools ready, let's start making the acrylic earrings steps by steps.

Step1: Get the Laser Cut Earrings Design File

Before you begin, it is a must to have the design file for earrings. You can find some files online or design your own special and fashionable earring patterns. You can also purchase these earrings’ laser cut file on Creatorally. 

Step2: Cut the Acrylic Sheets

Import your laser cutting design file into Lightburn. You can adjust the size according to your preference. Then, to get the perfect cutting results in one pass, I strongly suggest you can perform a test cut on your acrylic material with your laser cutter. Here are the settings I used: 100% power at 1300mm/min speed for 2mm thick acrylic sheets. You can use these as a reference.

Step3: Attach the Earring Hooks

Take out the acrylic pieces you've just cut, and arrange the different colored pieces according to your design. This will make it easier for you to assemble them later. Next, I'll provide a more detailed guide(with pictures) using the example of making tulip earrings. You can also click to watch this video instruction.

First, connect the tulip flower and leaves with a jump ring. Since the tulip earrings have two parts, you'll need to do this in two steps. Take a jump ring and hold it with pliers. Then use another pair of pliers to open the ring at the split, leaving just a small gap big enough to pass through the holes in the acrylic pieces. Slide both the leaf and flower through the jump ring. Finally, use the pliers to close the gap in the jump ring tightly.

Next, take another jump ring and use the same steps as before to connect the assembled flower and leaf to the earring hook. Then a simple but beautiful tulip acrylic earring is complete.

Here are other popular earring designs that you can make with acrylic materials, such as monstera, smiley faces, jellyfish, flip-flops, rainbows, and lightning bolts.

After learning how to use a laser cutter to make acrylic earrings, you can make them for yourself, give them as gifts to friends, or even sell them in online stores. The process is very simple and fast, allowing you to create a pair of earrings you like in just a few minutes. If you're interested in the creative possibilities of using a laser cutter, don't forget to subscribe to Creatorally. Whether you're an experienced maker or just starting out, Creatorally offers endless inspiration and resources to fuel your creativity.