How to make pista shell bird for wall decoration

We usually always have a bowl of pistachio nuts on our coffee table. As we were eating them one evening and tossing the shells into another bowl – I started thinking there must be something I can do with these – so I started collecting them in a large zip lock bag. I did a search for What to do with pistachio shells and the list of items that came up surprised me.

One was to ground the shells and make soap – that just looked like it would hurt – so passed on that one. I saw a cool picture of wall decoration made from the shells and I definitely wanted to make that. I figured my first try would probably be a learning experience and end up as decoration so I decided to paint the shells.