Hi! I'm Hazel, the Maker Girl!

When I went on holiday to Germany, we went to a huge hobby and craft shop in Berlin. it was great fun to look around it and see all of the different things. I bought a polystyrene toucan, some sequins, and some fixing pins as my souvenir to bring home. I couldn't wait to start working on it, and I didn't in the end! I started working on it on the long train ride home to the UK! I really loved making it so today I am going to show you how to make sequin art of your own.

Step 1: Gather Materials

You will need:

A polystyrene shape. You can get all sorts, from simple balls to all sorts of amazing things. I chose a toucan
Sequins, in whatever colours you like - a mix is best! If you can, it is good to keep all of your different colours separate. I tried to, but as you can see I ended up jumbling most of them up!
Fixing pins or dressmaking pins. You can use either, but fixing pins are shorter, so they are easier to use.

Step 2: Plan Your Patterns

It is best to plan what colours you want where so that you can make sure that you have enough of each colour. My brother and I went on the internet to research what colours real toucans are, but they had a lot of black in them, so we decided to plan our own design. We planned all of the colours and even planned a secret letter 'T' into the design! Can you spot it? If not, I'll show you at the end of this instructable ;-)

Step 3: Start Pinning!

Once you have planned where all of your colours are going to go, you can start pinning! To pin them, you need to thread a pin through the hole in the centre of the sequin. Then you need to pin it into the polystyrene as straight and as neat as you can. If it is not totally straight it doesn't matter too much, but if you do too many too crooked it can make it difficult to pin them all in. You need to pin them as close together as possible to try and hide the polystyrene from showing through.

Step 4: Keep Pinning!

Keep pinning your sequins in until you have covered all of the polystyrene up. You will need to go right down to the the bottom of the polystyrene but not actually put sequins on the base, because that would mean it wouldn't stand up straight. As you add more and more pins, your sequin art will get very heavy. That's because of all the pins! When you can't see any white polystyrene at all, your sequin art is finished!

Step 5: Finished Sequin Art

Here is my finished toucan! I named him Tuk-Tuk and I am very proud of him. He is very sparkly and looks lovely in my bedroom. I think this would make a very nice gift, or table decorations at a wedding!

Did you spot the secret 'T' that we put in? It's at the front, in blue :-)

I hope you like my instructable!