On to plan B ~ make my own!
I used this long chandelier from West Elm as my inspiration {I just wanted it a little shorter}...
Finding capiz shells here was impossible, and with Dubai's sporadic postal system, I wasn't about to order them online. So, I opted for faux capiz shells made from wax paper. {Finding wax paper ended up being a struggle as well ~ luckily I was able to get some of the wax paper sheets they use in bakeries when they handle your baked goods from the display!}
Next, I needed a form to hang the "shells" from. While you could use a wire hanging basket, or round cake cooling rack, I found an ornament hanger from Crate & Barrel around Christmastime which would work perfectly.
Start by ironing the wax paper sheets together in layers of 3 sheets {stack them between parchment paper so that you don't get wax on your ironing board}. Keep on ironing more sheets!
Once you've ironed them together, use a 1 1/2" circle punch to punch out your "shells". Depending on how large your form is and how long you want your shell strands, it could take a lot. Just keep punching! {this is great to do while watching tv}
Next, figure out how long you want your chandelier to be {I guessed about 36" long for the longest strands for mine so I divided 36" by 1.5 (the width of the shells) and ended up with 24 shells needed for the longest strands}. Count your shells into piles to speed up assembly. Roughly measure how many strands you will need to go around {the shell edges should touch or slightly overlap}. This is how many piles you will need of each length.
Time to sew the shells together! I compared the look of white thread against the shells and beige thread and found that white thread looked much too bright so I chose beige. Cream would work well but I didn't have any on hand.
Start sewing through each shell and feeding them through one after the next.
I sewed 24 shells together, pulled the thread to leave a space, then started with the next 24. This made dividing them easy, gave me a string for each to use for tying onto the form, and was much quicker than stopping and cutting the thread between each strand. Once you get the hang of it, it all goes pretty quickly.
To attach the strands to the form, tie them on with their threads {or you can double the length of your strands (24x2) and sew 48 together and then simply drape each strand in half over each ring on the form}. I chose to tie them onto the 2 innermost rings, then I doubled and draped the ones on the outermost ring to create a fuller look.
If your form has rings all at the same level, you'll need to calculate the length of your strands for each ring {mine was 24 shells for the inside ring, 18 shells for the middle ring, and 13 shells for the outer ring which I doubled to 26 and draped in half over the outer ring on the form}.
Done! Now it was up to my guy to figure out how to hang it from the lightbulb we already had there. He was able to use the wires that came on my form and attach them to the fixture somehow. You can use small cup hooks in the ceiling and attach it from there {our ceiling is concrete so I was trying to avoid drilling into concrete}.
And all lit up...
So there you have it! Not difficult, just a bit time-consuming but oh so worth it! Are you going to give it a try?
lisa