Oh Capiz, How I Love Thee

Awhile back I showed you my capiz mobile I made for our (still uncompleted!) patio makeover. I guess I got a little over eager in the whole making capiz shell process, and I actually had a whole ton of them left over. Which, of course, led to the inevitable issue of what to possibly do with a bunch of capiz shells? This is what I came up with:

Pretty simple, but I think it's an improvement to that little corner of our living room.
And as is usual for my little art projects, it was really easy and affordable..  If you're interested in making your own, you will need:

• a large frame (I got mine at Goodwill with an ugly picture in it....took ugly picture out and voila)
• spray paint for frame
• capiz shells (I needed about 100)...tutorial here
• thin clear plastic string
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• 1/16 inch hole punch

Because I already had my capiz shells made, my first step was painting the frame shape white.  I gave it a couple quick coats...easy peasy!  While the paint was drying, then, I got to work strining my capiz shells on to the elastic strings.
First I measured the length of the frame and cut my elastic into strands that long plus a couple of inches for good measure!  Next, I used my tiny hole puncher to punch a hole at the top of each shell and at the bottom.  Finally I pulled the string through each shell until 10 were on each strand.  I was getting a little worried as I did it because the shells kept all falling down the string and I though I was going to have to hot glue each one in place.  But once I pulled the string tight in the next step, that little problem worked itself right on out, so have no fear!
Speaking of the next step...once my frame was dry and all the strands were strung, I simply had to hot glue each strand to the back of the frame.  Make sure you do this on the raised up innner frame part and not on the flat back part otherwise your shells will flatten against the wall when you hang it and they won't have any movment.  I made this mistake the first time, and until I changed it, mine just looked like some weird circles on the wall.  Giving them a little room to wiggle definitely livens this piece up a bit.
Here's another view of it hanging in our room just to give you another perspective:

by the way don't mind the placement...I moved it up and slightly right after looking at this picture

Not too bad for a bunch of wax paper circles trying to pass as art right?