How many sequins?

[English Mermaid Pearl]

Hi guys,
Firstly thanks to everyone who has detailed how they made their tales, your information has been beyond value! :highfive:
I am about to order the shell sequins for a neoprene tail I'm making.
I was wondering if anyone with a completely sequin covered tail knows roughly how many they used or ordered?
I have been through all the threads I can find mentioning sequins and people say they have used anything from 4000 to 12000 sequins (but I'm not 100% sure if they completely covered their tails) :confused:
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I live in England and the shipping costs are very high so I want to get all the sequins I could possible need into one order.
Thanks :D

[PearlieMae]

I would guess it all depends on the sizes of the sequins you're looking to use!

Check out suppliers like http://www.alibaba.com/products/F0/sequins/CID32814.html (http://www.alibaba.com/products/F0/sequins/CID32814.html)and see what their shipping costs to the UK are... Good luck!

[Sephina]

The amount of sequins is different for every mermaid. The best thing to do is to figure out how many square inches your tail would be (personally I'd think of it like a big rectangle so you have extra. So the length of the tail X your widest measurement) then figure out how many sequins per inch you want to use, and then multiply those together. It will be tricky without having any of the materials on hand, but it should be do-able.

[PearlieMae]

And there's no such thing as "too many sequins"!

;)

[English Mermaid Pearl]

" And there's no such thing as "too many sequins"! "
Hahaha esp. when I have a 6 year old daughter who will gladly take any surplus off my hands to add to her tail! :rotfl:

I do have some sample scales (pitty that shop couldn't supply a bulk order, they had free p&P) so I will give the ratio to square inches method a go Sephina, thanks!

[starlite]

For my part i'm tall so i needed 15 000 sequins for my entire tail and it's also depend if you sew them closer or not !

[English Mermaid Pearl]

Hi Starlite your tail making thread has been so helpful, merci beaucoup! I ordered about 20 000 in the end as I read that you used 15 000 + ... I know it's probably a crazy amount to order (my husband certa but at least I should not run out :p

[courtneymermaid]

So many sequins! Wow! I guess for full tails that many is totally necessary! Good to know! My painted/sequin tail took roughly 1,500 small shell sequins and several hundred sequins of varying size/style. I wish I had the patience to do a full sequin tail.

[English Mermaid Pearl]

I hope I do have the patience lol! At the moment I'm struggling to get the neoprene sewn as my machine keeps snapping the thread after I let someone borrow it :doh: should have known better

[PearlieMae]

You might want to consider hand sewing.