Painted filigree components

I just thought I'd post to show you some pics of my latest 'thing' - I take metal filigree shapes and paint them using acrylic paint (I may do a tutorial on this at some point). Some filigree items are in lovely shades of dark bronze and don't need any colour, but to jazz things up a bit, a lick of paint seems to do the trick. It's quite addictive as well.

So far, I've only made earrings with just the painted filigree component, and no beads.

For some reason, these are devillishly hard to photograph

However, I have plans to add some beads to these beauties to make earrings, and possibly a necklace or two as well.

The leaf shapes look like they have a nice patina on them - cool!

 Arty close-up shot

Only one coat of paint on these so far - I may sand them a bit so the texture still shows through.

Mmmm...chocolatey. Again, this is after only one coat of paint.

These birds have had two coats of paint, but no varnish sealer yet. 

The acrylic paint comes of really easily, but the varnish is a pain to remove. So if anyone has any handy hints for how to get the acrylic varnish off the paintbrush/my hands, please leave a comment below. Thanks!