Rockville, MD (WFN) -- Cicadas may bug folks every 17 years, but one jewelry maker is turning the insects into profit.

Ordinarily, Dennis Ray owns Nature's Creations, a jewelry company that covers leaves in copper.

But ever since the cicadas began to hatch in Washington he has been turning the cicadas shells into jewelry.

The shells have the form of the insect and look so real that people try and brush away Ray's buggy artwork.

Currently, he can't pick up the shells fast enough, and says if they're left on the ground, they get eaten up by ants for protein.

That's why Ray has enlisted his niece and nephew to help him pick up the shells, and by the end of the three week period, he expects to have about 500 to 1000 pieces of bug skin jewlery.

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