That was so clever. Good job. On the transparencies, I once tried that, but I had the same problem as you. Additionally I had the letters try to flake off when they were touched and it just wouldn't cooperate with me. What I finally ended up doing was reversing the lettering so that when I turned it over, it read correctly. Then I mounted it backwards to the panel I was using. It looked really cool for a few months and the darn transparency started to turn yellow. I understand they have that problem fixed now and it could work. Haven't tried it though.
Next question, how did you punch those perfect holes in it. I could understand a hole punch, but you have different size holes there.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm stealing your ideas.